my friend ron, a writer whom i respect immensely, always writes back to my newsletters. his replies are full of comments, questions, and synergies. i love to read his responses and write back my own comments, questions, and synergies. we don’t get to see each other very often, so i extra appreciate this very slow conversation we’re having via my newsletter.
in last month’s newsletter, i talked about starting violin lessons and “looking forward,” as i wrote, “to being terrible.”
“thats a whole essay” ron said.
well, here you go, ron.
if you live in the philadelphia area, Muhlenberg College is putting up a production of my musical with quiara alegría hudes, “Miss You Like Hell”. i’ll be visiting february 26th for a public presentation on my composing process and a post-show talkback. all events are open to the public. more info here.
i grew up playing piano, somewhat indifferently, i might say. my family, who did not have pianos in their growing up, felt like it was the mark of arriving at the middle class. i took piano lessons because that’s just what you did. the same way you went to catechism class or learned to swim. music was not a passion of mine. piano lessons weren’t my idea of fun.
i started when i was 4 and took lessons with the same teacher until i was probably 16 or 17. she lived on beauregard street, amongst a whole set of streets named for confederate generals. i played the usual repertoire of “easy classics” and competed yearly in local competitions and recitals. was i good? i don’t think so. but i wasn’t terrible either. as i said, i was more or less indifferent.
how terrible could anyone be at the piano anyway? you can’t really make a bad sound on the instrument. it doesn’t squawk or squeak or clank. if you press your finger, a sound happens. a sound that is clear and precise and what was intended by the composer and piano maker. if you read the notation correctly, you can make something that sounds like music. “if you play a wrong note, just move a finger and see what happens,” has always been my method of playing piano. it seems to work.
in 5th grade, orchestra was available for the first time, and i thought i’d try. i was intrigued by the prospect of so many people in one room, and i didn’t want to take Home Ec or Shop. i picked clarinet because my uncle sebe played, and he had a wooden one i could use.
starting clarinet was much harder than starting piano. that instrument surely squeaks and squawks, but being in 5th grade band, the whole room is full of that, so what difference does it make? god bless middle school music teachers!
eventually i made good enough noises on the clarinet, even achieving a nice tone despite having braces. i kept a little paper towel on my music stand because the braces made me have a perpetual spit bubble at the corner of my mouth. mortifying!
our band director was bad-ass. truly. in 6th grade, he moved me to bass clarinet and changed my life. where i grew up, in the south, “Black” and “White” culture was both clearly delineated and closely intertwined. our band director was deeply Black and our song choices reflected it. we went hard on stevie wonder, the jackson 5, and funkified versions of popular tunes. also being so close to washington DC, there was a deep strain of go-go in the drum corps. in middle school band! as the bass clarinetist, i got to play all the hot basslines. it was a measure of mr. jordan’s trust in me, but it also shaped my worldview as a musician. the rhythmic and harmonic counterpoint of those classic parts have stayed with me in my composing and guitar playing too.
was i terrible at clarinet? no, i was not. i was sometimes even good. when i was still in section, i occasionally had the first chair. i didn’t like that pressure so much and was bored by the exercises you had to master to keep your chair, so i was relieved to be given a singular position. however, when it came time to go to high school, i made the terrible decision to give up orchestra. i think i would have loved marching band, but i was too concerned about my social status.
it’s worth noting at this point that the furthest thing from my mind was being a professional musician. i didn’t know a single one!
the summer after 5th grade, i discovered guitar and life got more interesting immediately. i was suddenly very very passionate about music, and it spilled into all parts of my life. i began bringing beatles songs into piano lessons and started writing my own. you know how this part of the story goes. i was not terrible at the guitar. in fact i was very very good at it, and it opened a ton of doors for the next 25 years.
it’s also hard to be terrible at basic guitar. true, a lot of people never get past open chords, but that’s fine. if you can tune a guitar, you sound pretty good, pretty fast. you don’t need to play bar chords to have fun, and guitars being so portable are instant good-time machines.
in subsequent years, i added drums, because my girlfriend was a drummer. i added bass, because why not? i always played my guitar like a bass anyway. i added mandolin, because it had frets and was the bottom 4 strings of the guitar flipped around (i like making things hard for myself). contrary to the art on my first album, i do not actually play the banjo. i can certainly make sounds on it, but i have never learned how to properly play.
am i terrible at any of these instruments? i am not. i am passable on them all, and more importantly i have fun playing them. it suits my “don’t fence me in” personality to play multiple instruments. it soothes my restless mind to move from each to each, depending on what the situation requires. to be honest, i also know it looks impressive, and i like that part too. (it isn’t, i’ve just put a lot of time in.)
as i mentioned last month, we got some new neighbors who are string players and teachers. since i am taking a parenting sabbatical to raise carl and massachusetts winters are tedious, it seemed like the neighborly thing to do to take violin lessons. i have many friends who play, i have composed for strings, and i’ve picked up the instrument a time or two. i know how hard it is to play.
so as i wrote, i was looking forward to being terrible at the instrument. to sucking hard and feeling like a failure. i thought it would be good for me to feel like a failure, seeing as how i am so rarely a failure at other things. can you see where this is going? because when i started writing this, i couldn’t.
but the thing is, after 3 lessons, i am not terrible at it. don’t get me wrong, the sounds i make on the violin are awful. bowing is a strange nightmare of flailing elbows and furrowed brows. the left-hand fingering, so different from the fretted instruments i play, causes near continuous brain farts. (listen at your own peril to the attached sound sample). these are not dulcet tones, but they are also not terrible, and neither am i. the sounds i make are appropriate for a difficult instrument being played by someone who in good faith is trying to get better and have fun doing it. how can you be terrible at anything with that attitude? you can’t!
learning violin is reminding me that there is a difference between being terrible and being a beginner. what i probably should have written was, “i look forward to being a beginner”, because in that state, everything is a gift. i was positively giddy with joy the first time i stood with my violin and read a piece of sheet music as i played sounds. who cares that it was a pattern of whole notes alternating between two strings? it was as deeply satisfying as finding the correct lyric for a puzzling moment in a song. or creating a mighty storm of feedback and snarling guitar on a rock stage.
something i am always having to work on is my self-esteem, and the way i talk to myself. my experience releasing KISS OFF KISS was particularly hard in this respect. i just turned my disappointment and frustration on myself, basically assuming the reason the record didn’t make more of a splash, reach new audiences, or even reach my current audience, was because i am terrible.
thus this tossed off remark that ron highlighted, “i am looking forward to being terrible”, on further examination reminds me of the point hannah gadsby makes in their incredible netflix special “nanette”. the jokes we make, the self-deprecative words we use to describe ourselves, however sarcastically, have internal consequences on our self-esteem. i swing from thinking i’m a genius to thinking i am a piece of shit. the distance between those mindsets is both negligible and profoundly dizzying in its chasm. it’s like riding a rollercoaster that doesn’t go anywhere but still makes you feel like you’re going to puke just by getting in the car.
what i am finding with the violin is a sweet middle way, where my experience and innate talent as a musician is applied to something entirely new. the other new experience in my life right now, raising carl, has been a similarly sweet time, full of hard things and hard-won progress and joy. except i never said, “i look forward to being terrible at carl”. i’d never say that about a fresh and loving puppy. so why would i say that about myself?
when i started writing this piece, this is not where i thought i would end up. and i’ll be curious if this is the conclusion that ron assumed i’d get to, or even the essay he thought i would write from that one phrase. i await his reply.
x erin
ps - if you notice, this is not the usual first of the month newsletter time. i’m thinking of maybe doing twice a month because i enjoy writing these so much. what do you think?
pps - obligatory #carlcontent. he likes to snuggle in the chair behind me while i pull on my boots and ice cleats.
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
here are emoji in real-life scale order.
a great explainer on “the rooney rule”, a well-intentioned but failing effort by the NFL to hire more head coaches of color.
margaret wise brown, the author of “goodnight moon”, was a true iconoclast.
thru-hiking the appalachian trail as a transgender woman.
i just finished “the book of night women” by marlon james. i couldn’t put it down.
2022 IN-PERSON SHOWS
February 26 - Allentown PA
public talk and post-show talkback for “Miss You Like Hell”
INFO & REGISTRATION
April 30 - Portland OR
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 1 - Seattle WA
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
830PM 530PM
May 2 - San Francisco CA
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 4 - Highland Park CA
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 5 - San Diego CA
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 6 - Phoenix AZ
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 7 - Santa Fe NM
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 9 - Boulder CO
appearing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
Jun 3 - Fayetteville AR
Erin will be performing in-person to celebrate the opening night of T2’s production of “Miss You Like Hell”
stay tuned for tickets & info
***
Feb 24 - 27 - Allentown PA
Miss You Like Hell at Muhlenberg College
TICKETS
Jun 1 - Jul 17 - Fayetteville AR
Miss You Like Hell at Theatre Squared
TICKETS
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
looking forward to being terrible