Not playing

Lara and Rhea went to their first live concert at the age of thirteen, but they don’t play any instruments themselves anymore.

We organized for both of them to learn the recorder from the age of five, as I did, then Rhea learnt violin while Lara studied the piano. Practice was negligible: when Lara’s last piano teacher asked her how often she practiced and she answered ‘three times a week’, he replied ‘why so little?’ We never got into a routine.

Rhea’s violin teacher focused on posture and technique and Rhea established some solid foundations with beautiful round sound, but she was never inspired. She wanted to play flute in the school band and switched instruments.

The band had an excursion to central Australia last year. Rhea and I went to the information session. It sounded amazing: the kids and a few teachers were taking a bus together and stopping for a couple of nights at Cooper Pedie, as well as camping at Uluru. Unfortunately, none of her friends were going so we didn’t sign up. Her concert at the flower festival a month ago, after she had been in the band for a couple of years, was jazzy and fun, but Rhea wasn’t feeling it. I suggested some individual tuition might help put a framework around a practice routine, but after a bit of reflection, Rhea decided not to continue. That concert was the last time she played.

Meanwhile, Lara replaced piano with cello and had an excellent teacher at her school. Gillian went the extra mile: she videod snippets of Lara, and sometimes herself, playing, to illustrate particular techniques and help Lara establish a pretty good practice routine. Lara did practise at least three times a week – a good foundation to the 10,000 hours needed to achieve mastery of any skill. But after six months, her teacher found a fulltime job elsewhere and took it. Lara didn’t bond with the new teacher and gave up after having learnt for six months.

I played duets and individual recorder to a good standard until the age of about eleven, then switched to flute. At around that time I started learning piano, and my parents’ investment in two music teachers for me over many years commenced. I had many different teachers over the years, for both instruments. I remember them all well. My second piano teacher still lives a few blocks from mum and dad and mum bumped in to her recently. She was the one who said to me that if you play the piano, you have a friend for life. She practiced for two hours a day around her fulltime piano teaching.

After her, my next teacher was an accompanist at the school of music. I loved my lessons with her and went back to have them in the weeks that I came home after moving away for university. We often started with Czerny finger exercises as well as scales, we worked through many Chopin preludes, as well as the Bach preludes and fugues. I worked through exams and continued on playing with other teachers  – including a Russian woman when I was learning Russian, and an ex teacher at the Sydney conservatorium who taught me some jazz at uni. When I moved to Adelaide for two years I found yet another teacher, who I kept having lessons with in my fortnightly flights back to see Steve in the two years we had a long-distance relationship.

The practice and lesson routine always grounded me, I had some good ideas about unrelated subjects while playing, and felt satisfaction on mastering a piece after months working on it, and sometimes years.

When I moved back to my hometown, I found a new teacher and tried an advanced performance diploma exam, but didn’t get through after a couple of attempts. It was disconcerting. I gave up for a while after the girls were born.

For flute, I loved playing in the university orchestra in first year – it was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. When I did my honours year in Melbourne, I joined that university orchestra. There’s nothing quite like playing in a group – and working to perfect a piece that soars when it all comes together. I didn’t get in to the first uni orchestra on audition on my return, and haven’t played the flute much since. I hope that I will before too long.

I do play the piano again though, around three nights a week. Now without a teacher, I am learning a new piece, and otherwise I have relearnt some of the pieces I used to play. Like any musician, I have to go over and over the hard parts, and I still make quite a few mistakes, but I love it. It’s intensely satisfying to work on something and master it – and pure fun running up and down the keys. Returning to some of these pieces so many years later, I feel more attuned to them. My current repertoire is 12 Preludes and Fugues by Bach to warm up; a Schubert sonata; another Bach prelude and fugue; a Rachmaninov prelude; a Beethoven sonata; a Chopin prelude; and a study by Chopin. Part of the reason I came back to piano was to show the girls what practice looks like and have music around them in our house.

If having children is about letting go, I am starting that process by letting go of the idea that Rhea or Lara will play music. If I am honest, the knowledge that they won’t fills me with sadness, because my old teacher is right – playing music, including with others, has been my lifelong and always reliable friend.

But the girls listen to music all day every day. It is good music, even though it is not classical. Musical friends come in different forms.