posted on December 13, 2004 @ 1:18 am
cat power, owen's sleeping noises
this afternoon i partook of my christmas present, the main one at least (i also got a bobble head of bueno nacho rufus [kim possible] and a cool penguin cup). owen and i went to see the nutcracker, with the honorable will wynn, mayor, as mother ginger, a role that included having boobs twice the size of his head.
anyway. when the orchestra started playing, i teared up. i don't think i've ever made mention of this, but every time i hear a good orchestra or band i tear up. i get the painful lump in my throat. i stare at the ceiling praying my eyes will soon dry. i block out the memories of my clarinet.
this sounds silly, but you have to realize my clarinet was the only passion i ever had in my life. i'm so devoid of ambition, drive, will power, but any free moment i had for the six years i played was spent trying to get better. i couldn't stand the fact anyone played better than i. i both admired and despised the two best senior players. my goal was to be able to play this, but i could never find the sheet music. (and while you're there, check out the jewish klezmer music. it's f*cking awesome.)
going through forgotten storage areas of the band halls, finding a bass sax or alto clarinet, i felt chills as i assembled the monsters and wondered how it would feel to play them. when one of the best seniors let me borrow her Eb clarinet (nearly half the size of the standard Bb), i skipped out on tv and video games to play it constantly. it was much more difficult than i anticipated. it was louder and much higher in pitch, but i still heard a clarinet. you will never be able to present to me a sound more beautiful than a clarinet.
when i got so angry i wanted to cut myself, playing my clarinet was the only thing�the only�that stopped me. if i chose to protect myself. even if i weren't to that level of distress, my clarinet soothed my savage beast.
when, in orchestra, we played a piece for a clarinet, i was so proud being the only one playing. at the concert, it was me and my back up orchestra. when band played a clarinet polka when i was a freshman, the top four of us stood in front at the edge of the stage. the two best seniors played the first solo part, the sophomore ahead of me and myself played second solo. it was fast and ornate. we received a standing ovation.
i'll force you to listen to the cd of our band my freshman year and be the first to point out, "hear the frills, the fast notes? that's me!" it was the only confidence i had in myself at such an awkward, self-loathesome time in my life.
at the end of my sophomore year, leah decided to quit. i felt so insecure without her around, not feeling such a connection with the other members, that i, too, quit. i remember telling my mother. we were driving in tyler for some reason. first order of business was to sell my beautiful buffet e-11 since i wasn't going to be needing it. saying goodbye to that was hard.
at the beginning of my junior year i tried obtaining a cd of our music from the previous year. the director told me they were for band members only and refused to let me have one. they were depending on me to be the best, especially after the girl a year ahead of me graduated. i was going to be the solo clarinetist, and i threw it away.
i made a promise to papaw when i was 10, when i started playing, that i would play in carnegie hall one day. that day, the very first day i got my clarinet, while all the others were at home practicing blowing into their mouthpieces, i learned how to assemble the entire thing. then i looked up every note and fingering to "london bridge," practiced until i memorized it, then called mom at work so she could hear.
in the seventh grade, my band director asked if i wanted to try out for high school all-region. i vehemently opposed it, and she didn't press me. the next year, she asked again, and asked that i please do it. there were two other eighth grade girls trying out, so i figured i would, too. i managed to get 15th chair in the top band. out of all those 100+ high school clarinetists, there were only 14 better than 13-year-old me. i was the only eighth grader in that band.
now sarah's in band, but she has an r-13, the one i always wanted. that's better than an e-11, but apparently they've gotten cheaper. i've played a few times on my plastic clarinet, the one i've had for 11 years, but playing on her r-13 a few months ago...
i did my three-octave c arpegpios and full chromatic scale and wailed a super c to show them how i annoyed the entire band before practice began. (others marveled at how i even managed to get it out.) it's still in me, i can feel it. i type 90 words a minute with nearly 100% accuracy, the calculators can't print fast enough to keep up with what i enter. my fingers have a longing to move.
and every time i hear a clarinet, they struggle to free themselves from the mundane world of keyboards and adding machines.
i can't stand myself for quitting.