One of the best things about starting an instrument in your adulthood is that sometimes your mates join in too.
I started learning the horn last year, and after a few months, over a Sunday lunch and after some ‘refreshment’ and a very impromptu and very beginner horn performance, my mate Sophie said she was thinking of playing the horn again. Sophie was about to retire from a distinguished career in science, a career which matched the time she had not been playing her horn. Forty years.
A few weeks later, Sophie texted to say she had bought a horn (she’d sold her last one years before) and she was ready for action. I passed on the study book I was using (you may never believe a beginner horn book is written by a man called Horner, but it’s true. His first name is Anton (look him up on nominative determinism.com), and Sophie was off. So quickly and smartly that within a few weeks she had joined the local wind band and was playing Elgar and Holst and Alfred Reed and making music with thirty or so other musicians.
Sophie came over the other day to play horn duets, and she brought her music with her for the wind band. We looked through it, and together we gasped and pointed at fast bits here and there, terrifyingly high notes, long low notes and tricky rhythms that changed from bar to bar. But Sophie pointed out a wonderful thing, maybe the best thing about playing or singing or generally making music. Sophie said that when she is playing with the wind band, somehow all those tricky bits that are so hard to play on her own, when she plays them with other musicians all the tricky bits sort of melt into silence and only the best bits are left. And Sophie noticed that when different sections of the band played on their own, she could tell that they were also finding some of the music difficult, but that when they played all together it sounded like it was as easy as…well, as easy as eating an ice cream. Somehow playing together emphasised the beauty and solidity of the music, not the weakness. Which brings to mind a quote from a listener this week, a quote about kindness.
Kindness is sharing your strength, not reminding people of their weakness. Sounds like music to the ears.
Ed Ayres presents Weekend Breakfast on ABC Classic (Saturday and Sunday 6am – 9am).