The Worth of the World

On that stage nothing else matters. You can never perform the piece again. It will never be the same as it will be in that moment. That one time and place. Even if the exact same musicians played the exact same piece on the exact same stage, the musicians will be different better or worse but they will be different, The same small mistakes that will be made tonight may not be made the next, it may go better or worse but it doesn’t make it any less special.

I wonder what I would be like to becoming ill of liking this, it seems so long ago but there was one time I distinctly remember wanting to quit.

It was fifth grade and almost half of the fifth graders were in band, (little did we know that number would drop from 50 to eight in four years and continue to dwindle down to three. By the time graduation rolled around.) all of us huddled in one room clumsy fumbling with our instruments that were worth more money than we had ever owned, when our teacher told us that we would be playing a new piece. I can’t remember the name of the piece but I do remember it had a split part for clarinets. Our teacher told us that we would meet in our small groups to assess which part we would get. We would have pull-outs, or small group practices with a few people who played the same instrument for 15 minutes of recess. Me not having very many friends absolutely loved that 15 minutes once a week. We had full band on Tuesdays, and I got to miss all of recess so that was a huge plus. Then I realized that I had pull outs the day before. (Monday was Clarinets, Wednesday was Saxophones, Thursday was trumpet and Trombone, and Friday was flutes and percussion((we had to have a literally lottery because so many people wanted to play percussion I really wanted to get to hit stuff)(I made my wall a percussion instrument when I got home)). Back to the story, I had pull outs the day before, which meant I would have to wait a whole week to even know what part I would play. I mean obviously I thought I was going to get the high part,(which at that point I thought was better because high notes are harder to play so the higher part is always harder, yeah not always true) because at 5th grade crippling anxiety and self-doubt hadn’t touched music like everything else.( yeah fifth grade me was just as dark as the clothes I wear((I didn’t have a certain best friend to keep me positive)). So eventually the week passed. And it was lunchtime, i distinctly remember that the smiley shaped fries did nothing to quell my anxiety. The next thing I remember is the crashing world shaking news that I got the second part, the lower part. How could I have gotten that part when I could play the notes for the other part. I was devastated. If I wasn’t good enough for the first part the I wasn’t good at all so I was going to quit. I was mad. I sulked for like a whole week and I was going to tell the teacher I quit , but there was this gut feeling not unlike the butterflies in my stomach before hearing the bad news that I shouldn’t quit. So I didn’t. And that ladies and gentlemen is when I knew I was psychic, or I had read enough Harry Potter to know I should trust my gut.

Looking back at that now I realize how absolutely stupid 5th grade me was. I really just want to go back and smack myself in the back off the head for that idiocy. My life would be so different if I had quit playing. I don’t know where or who I’d be without music, as now it defines me. Sure I still have still gotten a lot of rejection and sometimes it brings the “obviously I’m not good enough so I’m gonna quit” 5th grader out in me, but everything I accomplish because of music slaps that 5th grader for me. Maybe I didn’t get the part I wanted then, but I got to be in at the district 3 music honors festival with my friends(who I made because of music) and that is so much cooler.

Photo by [phil h] on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND