I unzip the case, take the cello out, lengthen the pole so that the cello can rest on my chest. I look at the sheets on my music stand. Scales. I can do that. I pluck the open bottom string - low C. I get that. I also understand that the next string up is G - a fifth. A fifth up from that is D, then A. All fifths. I get that. What I DON’T get, however, is what string and position F sharp is on. I know how to read music, but I don’t understand the template for the notes. It’s a mystery. I think if I ‘get’ that, I’ll understand the theory of cello and the strings. But my mind hasn’t figured it out yet, hard as I try. I’m not that good at reading bass clef, I admit it. But still - I DO know my notes. It’s like translating a foreign language. First the note, then the string, then the position on the string. It’s still a struggle. I have to THINK really hard, and I STILL can’t get the right note, unless I can check it first on the piano and remember the tune.
It’s frustrating, learning this new instrument. I’m used to knowing how to do things, and do them pretty well from the get-go. I knew going into this I might not be good at it, but I didn’t care. I want to DO it, even if I’m not good at it. That’s not the point. The point is that sometimes it’s good to pursue your dreams, to just throw out your chest and jump right in, not knowing what the heck you’re doing. I didn’t even know how to TUNE my cello, and the first time I tried, the peg slipped out, and I heard a “Aaaaaaaaooooh” as the note slipped into the basement. Oopsies! Even when Mary at Christian Eggert’s showed me how to turn the peg WHILE you’re pushing it in, I still feel it slipping when I try to tune it at home. I feel weak and puny, like I’m not STRONG enough to push the peg in. There are so many parts to this learning that could paralyze me, but I trek on, confident that I’ll figure it out someday, hopefully sooner than later. I haven’t even started bowing yet, but I DO know how to hold the bow. My next lesson is this Saturday.
I think how I feel about learning the cello is how I approach my whole life. I want to CONQUER it, I want to totally submerse myself in it, surround myself with it, swallow it up whole so I can understand it and integrate it into my consciousness. I don’t like NOT understanding how something is put together, because I think everything has a rhyme and reason to it, if you strip it down to basics. Writing is putting pen to paper and unfolding the layers of your voice. Cooking is blending your love and passion into physical ingredients to create something new. Reading is loosening your brain enough to let the words run through it as if in a dance, or orchestra piece - you can FEEL good reading in your head. My Work is opening my whole Being up to that place where we’re all connected and trusting my body as instrument to bring that information to this plane. If I know how something works, I can do it. So this not-knowing is mysterious to me right now. It’s frustrating, because I just can’t get it… yet. But just as I sat typing out the letters of the keyboard on my bedspread at night, over and over until I could type 135 words a minute with no mistakes, so I go over the notes on the cello as I lie in bed. It hasn’t caught yet, but I trust that it will. And when it does? Well, then I’m on my way.