Dictionary: Musician

 

I was preparing to go on a radio programme, and the host was an actress by training. We were discussing accessibility in the performing arts and had reached the topic of music and people with hearing impairments. She kept bringing up the example of Coldplay and certain special vests, and couldn’t understand why classical music cannot be made accessible. It didn’t occur to me to speak to her about connection through Kundalini and vibrations; however, before that can even be considered, one condition is necessary: the music must at least be performed correctly. And not just anyone can do that.

 

Let me explain.

 

Music is the field that requires the longest period of specialisation. To become a doctor, until the age of 18 you attend a general education school and an academic secondary school, alongside everyone else. You don’t study additional subjects. You may do extra tutoring for a year or two, but that has turned into something of a shadow industry.

 

In music, however, if you haven’t started an instrument, typically the violin or piano, by the age of six, there is little point in trying. You will have no chance of becoming a musician.

 

And at six, this does not mean having fun with an instrument in your hands. Not at all. There are two or three hours of instrumental lessons with a teacher every week, and two or three hours of theory and solfège in a group, plus daily individual practice. With the violin, for several weeks you learn simply to hold the instrument between your chin and chest, with your torso twisted, standing up. You remain like that for as long as you can. It hurts. Then, gradually, you begin to use your left hand, and afterwards your right hand with the bow. You produce dreadful scraping sounds until you manage to produce actual notes, while the fingers of your left hand are soft, they slip, and everything sounds out of tune. A good teacher corrects you patiently and draws your attention to the differences between pitches. Ordinary people do not perceive these differences because they are extremely small, just a few cents, but if you do not correct them, if it is not precisely that frequency and no other, adjusted purely by ear without devices, the result is disastrous. A poor or careless teacher allows you to produce approximate sounds and ruins you. Others shout at you and/or strike you: bow across the legs, bow on the palm, pulling ears, slaps to the back of the head, threats, pulling cheeks. And do you know what? The child endures. And carries on. And works. They have only one concern: that they have not worked hard enough, and that is why it is not good.

 

Did I mention the panel examinations? Yes, exams like at university, twice a year. Some are public. It didn’t happen to me, but in Bucharest, scores are sometimes settled between teachers during exams. They take revenge on one another by marking down the pupils.

 

From Year 4, orchestra or choir is added. From Year 5, a second instrument. For that, there is only one exam per year. From Year 7, we also studied music history. So there is an entire set of subjects with grades and daily work which, by Year 5, must reach around two hours a day, in addition to maths, Romanian, biology, and so on.

 

Typically, one also attends a music college (specialist secondary school), where further subjects are added. Then university, where, depending on the department, additional preparation is required because the A-level equivalent curriculum does not match the entrance requirements.

 

A six-year-old begins with just a few minutes a day, but every day. A professional practises for several hours a day. Violinists, cellists, and concert pianists performing at a high level work between four and ten hours daily. Not to learn the notes, but to solve the technical challenges of the piece and to find meaning. Singers cannot sustain such hours, but they must also work on text, physical conditioning, and can practise mentally. There are many occupational conditions that can end a career at any moment.

 

And do you know what? Even after completing university and a master’s degree, you are still not a musician. Because you must understand what you are playing. If you do not know how to write a fugue, you cannot perform one. If you do not understand figured bass, musical forms, and analysis, you will not know when you have the theme or when another instrument does, and you will simply play loudly like an ox because your part says you are the soloist. If you do not read the history of a work and stylistic studies, you will not understand why something should not be played quickly just to impress, or why notes must be connected in a particular way within a phrase, and many other things besides. If you believe yourself clever, you will learn nothing from the conductor standing in front of you.

 

Training in music never ends. Pablo Casals was still practising at the age of 90 because he felt he was still making progress.

 

So, what is a musician?

 

Someone who has gone through that tapasya described above, beginning at the age of six, with pain, with spinal deformation or other health problems caused by working with an instrument; who has passed through all levels of specialised education; who understands what they are playing; who possesses intellectual knowledge of music and the general culture needed to place it within its historical context; and who produces a musical result. And after resolving a work in terms of intonation, rhythm, tempo, structure, style, and expression, they add something that distinguishes their interpretation from another’s. But that “something” comes only after all the other problems have been resolved, and those problems are resolved through knowledge and sustained, specialised work absorbed over decades.

Cleopatra David