It’s a Musician Thing
| 5 May, 2012 | Posted by BobbiJaye under Austin, Music, Observations, University of Texas |
It never fails. We’re standing in a lopsided arc, Joey in front, directing us. Hands moving up, out, up, out. Sopranos to one side of me, tenors and basses to the other.
And somewhere, something goes wrong.
Maybe it’s a note that isn’t quite right. Maybe the rhythm is off. Maybe we’re flying through a song at the speed of light.
It might be someone else. It might be me. Making a mistake that I’ve made a hundred times. Faltering on the same damn note, knowing I’m off, and scrambling desperately to get back on pitch.
It might be a note played on the piano— sight-reading skills put to the test sometimes fail, leaving ears to catch the mistakes our fingers make.
But the one thing I can count on is the look.
Whenever something is off, we find each other. Joey’s raised eyebrow meets my frown, and I can’t help but shake my head. A sidelong glance to the tenors next to me finds Andrew looking back.
Sometimes it’s a look of amusement.
“Really? Are we EVER going to get this right?”
And sometimes, it’s a look of terror. Like during our last performance at UBC, when the tempo of Stand By Me became so fast that it was nearly ironic. For a group of people who wanted to stand by each other, it was like we couldn’t finish singing fast enough.
I caught Andrew then, staring back at me, knowing he was thinking the same thing I was.
“Trainwreck. Trainwreck. Abandon ship. Holy frak, we’re now singing faster than the speed of light.”
And even though we couldn’t fix it, that moment of shared knowledge made me smile.
Like Joey squinty glare, when I fail, for the umpteenth time, to find my note in countdown.
Oh, Bobs. You’re off. You know it. I know it. Shall I get the aspirin so that you have something to take once you’re done smacking yourself in the head?
There are other looks too.
Wide eyes and a smile, slightly shaping the next note.
We hit it! We hit it! Our harmonies are right!
A wink and a half smile.
You can do this.
And that intense moment of connection, when the harmony swells so large that it fills every inch of the room and wraps itself in, around, and through us, binding us together. The moment of success, when the hair stands up on the back of your neck because the 7th minor diminished sends electricity through your fingertips.
That look… I don’t even know how to describe.
It’s a musician thing.
I love my boys, my chorus, and the 7th minor diminished.
Amen.
*Bobs
This is Asheville
| 27 April, 2012 | Travel |
When I officially moved to Austin a little over five years ago, I never looked back. Austin is my city, and I love it here. It is a pulsing center of energy, eccentricity, and liberalism right in the heart of a state that might otherwise not have me. It has music. It has a rhythm. And it is my home.…
Meeting Dean
| 26 April, 2012 | Observations, Travel |
As soon as I saw Dean, I knew who he was, even though I only a handful of photos. Tall, with my father’s eyes and my own thick, black hair, I’d have known my brother anywhere. I was scared. He had to like me, right? Wasn’t there some kind of unwritten rule between siblings? He’d agreed to meet, after all.…
Empty Swings
| 23 April, 2012 | Childhood, Observations, Travel |
I was raised on these swings. I learned to fly on the tiny wooden plank in the front yard, just high enough off the ground for chubby baby legs to practice pumping the air. Behind that tree, my grandmother taught me to hit a softball with a bat. Around the side of the house, I sat with my grandfather under…
The Privilege of Going Home
| 22 April, 2012 | Travel |
Last month, I traveled home to North Carolina for my grandmother’s funeral. After all these years, my roots are still there. It isn’t really my home now. That’s here, where I’ve chosen to make my life. But it is a place that took a piece of me. So when my grandmother died, I decided to go back there, for the…
My name is Bobbi.
