I never thought that I would have to learn to understand women someday, since they aren't exactly the object of my desire.
Well, now I do. Thanks to my cello teacher Irina.
Recently I started to work on a concerto, and after three weeks of learning the notes, it is time to take it to the next level, which, as you could surmise, is the hard part.
I've long noticed that when I change the direction of the bow, I tend to make a harsh, abrupt sound. This unpleasant tone has improved over the past year, but not by much. To give you a clearer picture of the sound I create, I will try to reiterate for you Irina's words:
A cello string's inherent vibration is its heartbeat. It beats the most vibrantly when your bow is in sync with that vibration. The A string (the string with the highest note on a cello) is the most difficult; it is like a woman, a beautiful young woman who doesn't easily reveal her heartbeat: it can be palpated only with the finest touch of the bow. However, each time that I move the bow, the sound that I am making is as if I were choking her, causing her heart to stop.
I am a murderer!
I suppose the key here isn't that the A string is a beautiful young woman - it could be an old or a hideously unattractive woman - but the principle remains the same: I need to learn to caress it with my bow so that its rhythm and her heartbeat are in harmony. We spent about ten minutes working on the technique, and I dare say that I made slight progress. She was still suffocating a bit, but I wasn't strangling her any more.
This is the beginning of creating music, of making beautiful art. Irina next reminded me that the highest level of art isn't to show the audience how I can express feelings of sadness with the cello - it is to make the audience cry with the music I create. For example, if I were to over-dramatize my work with emotions of sadness, it could elicit the opposite effect from the audience. When she said this, I was immediately reminded of the performance I saw on television yesterday during which Lang Lang, a famous Chinese pianist, played Liszt's Liebestraum, Dream of Love. While watching his over-the-top, almost egotistical performance, I could only see the absurd facial expressions he was making and could not hear the music he was creating, however beautiful it may or may not have been. I was laughing out loud to the point I had to cover the part of the screen where his face was.
Obviously, everything Irina said about the art of music applies to the art of film, or any other medium for that matter. Showing the audience the tears of a sad, grief-stricken character is far less potent than making the audience shed their own tears while getting to know this character.
I am really looking forward to learning how to improve my cello playing and the expression of emotions. I am equally excited to transfer these ideas to script writing. It feels like everything is coming together and the purpose is in sight.
Of course, if I have difficulty imagining the A string as a woman, I could always pretend that she's a queen and a diva. That - I come across everyday.
