Cutie and the Beast

• “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. It is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory. Music is the poetry of the air.” —Berthold Auerbach

I am in full agreement with the poets: music is all of these things and more. Practicing music, on the other hand, is never discussed in such flowery, loving terminology. This is because practice can be drudgery. Ask my daughter, she’ll tell you: practice is boring. However, what the writers do say about practice is that it is necessary.

Again, we are in agreement.

Practice makes perfect. Practice also has the potential to drive Daddy insane. If my daughter played her cello as well as she procrastinates, she’d have a recording contract. Sometimes it seems as if pulling teeth would be easier than getting her to go through her nightly drills. (Pulling my own teeth with nothing more than a mirror, a plumbers wrench and a fifth of bourbon would be easier—although as I listen to the angry plucking of tortured strings I begin to wonder if bourbon wouldn’t be acceptable in this scenario, as well.)

Did Yo-Yo Ma’s mother (Yo-Yo’s ma) have these issues? I imagine at some point she must have. Maybe she was a Tiger Mother and left no room for negotiation. I am definitely not one of the Tiger family; I would be considered much more of a “Koala Dad.” I just want to lay back and munch on my eucalyptus leaves, okay?  Tension neither desired nor required for the Koala Dad. You practice, and I’ll munch. Cool?

Alas, on most nights peaceful munching is not an option.

The cello (or the "Beast," as I have come to call it) can produce a wonderfully rich sound, a) when it is in tune, and b) when my child is in the mood to rehearse. The song of a cello out of tune is the moan of a wounded whale. Tuning the Beast is like trying to change a tire while the car is slowly rolling downhill… backwards… in the rain. You have to turn the peg, pluck the chord, get it all where you want it—and then watch as it slides right back out of tune.

Eventually, I figured out the recipe for successful cello tuning—it’s three parts peg twisting, one part peg pushing, two parts fine tweaking… and finally, one part calling the high school kid from down the street to come and do it right. (Did I feel sheepish calling on a fifteen year old girl to fix my problem? Yeah, a little bit—but I was massively frustrated, so it was either that or accidentally set the thing on fire. And it’s a rental, y’know?)

This brings us to b. When my child is not in the mood to practice, the Beast takes on a dark tone. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is normally a beautiful lullaby—but if my cutie isn’t in the mood to play, what follows is the most robotic, depressing version of the tune ever heard. Instead of “twinkle, twinkle, little star” in a soft, smooth melody, the staccato lyrics of the angry offspring version may as well be,  “My - Dad’s – Mean – And – He – Is – Wrong!  ‘Cause – He – Makes – Me – Play – This – song!” 

Still, we soldiered on until the day of the fourth grade strings program. A cadre of parents, grandparents and digital recording devices stood poised to hear the fruits of their labors. Just before the first note was struck, I offered a silent prayer—honestly, not that it would be perfect, but that it would be okay. I prayed that the Beast would be happy today, and that my pig tailed cutie holding the bow would be, as well.

As the recital began, I held my breath—but immediately realized that I had nothing to worry about: these kids were playing beautifully. Song after song, they performed together smoothly, melodically, as if they had never known the exasperated cry of a parent droning on about practicing—or perhaps, because they had. Maybe that’s just part of the musical process that the stars never talk about—the fact that your parents sometimes have to aggravate you into doing well.

They were performing their final routine, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, my kiddo did something that melted my heart—

She closed her eyes. She closed her eyes, smiled blissfully and tamed the Beast, playing it better than ever. There, in that moment, she wasn’t simply playing the notes—she was playing the music. And she was having fun. This was a jubilant cello I heard and, in her playing, her music washed away from my soul the dust of my everyday life.

Practice made perfect. And the Koala Dad was at peace.

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