On Music - Part 1

I used to have an elementary school friend who started group violin lessons with me in third grade. I wasn’t that good, but he was worse. When we played quartets in high school, we would end at different times, which was a sign we couldn't count our beats properly. Eventually he downgraded to viola... and then became a music writer. Woody Allen's quote about gym teachers could be extended to music critics. "Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym." --> "Those who can't play violin, play viola. Those who can't play viola, write about music."

I personally concluded my violin career after my last orchestral performance in college. My violin has been collecting dust under my bed ever since. In a short-lived fit of ambition 5 years ago, I took the violin out of the case and had the bow re-haired to play again. But compared to other instruments with frets and keys, the violin is easily weaponizable. It was difficult to position my fingers along the strings correctly after a long hiatus, notes went awry and I somehow conjured sounds of a dying chihuahua being maimed by a butter knife. My violin playing went from terrible to horrible from neglect.

So following a similar trajectory in music as my elementary school friend, at 45 i've decided to write about music. unlike most music writers, i have access to an uncle who lives in the same city as me who is a talented concert pianist and pedagogue. but, what can i contribute to musical discourse that hasn't been written before? while my elementary school friend now makes a living writing flowery prose about music, i just want to write something about music with the words fucker and douchebag. i think about making sentences like "that fucker berg's atonal violin concerto sounds like a douchebag got drunk and played a broken accordion, and transcribed it to violin." there's something inaccessible about classical music. i think it has something to do with over-intellectualism reinforced with superfluous dress codes and etiquette that accompanies classical music concerts. if i can somehow subvert the language of classical music with punk words like douchebag and fucker, maybe i can convey how chaotic and beautiful life is, and that music often arises from the fragile and often marginalized composers, and that musicians breathe life into their creator’s pages and souls from the depths of their hearts, and that everything is gone before you know it, except music's essence which remains. how wondrous this thing is we call life.