Finding the Right Key

Magnify

a musician. I’ve been playing music for years but was always painfully aware of my inadequacies. I felt like the orangutan I’d seen in a video, going through the motions of washing clothes after seeing the humans do it. I’d memorize the chords, harmonies, and occasional runs taught to me through endless repetition. But I could see that the musicians around me were experiencing the same moments differently.

It’s been a frustrating experience, much as I imagine it must be for someone who is not so bright to see sharp people making quick calculations, or someone who struggles with language to hear others extemporize freely. I envied those who seemed so natural while playing and so focused while listening. I thought of their abilities as a natural gift that would always elude me.

And I made excuses. Real musicians heard music all around them as they grew up. Their parents paid for private lessons or, even better, played along with them. Yet when I try to recall music from my childhood, I hear only Herb Albert’s Tijuana Brass and the musical Oliver. In seventh grade, I encountered my first instrument, a $10 plywood guitar my parents bought from a home improvement store for my introductory guitar class. I think they found it on sale at the end of the plumbing aisle.

At 17, I met Gene—my future husband, though I didn’t know it then. He was playing at a bookstore. I fell hard, wanting both the music and the black curly hair. He gave me guitar lessons, which I paid for by hand-stitching patches on his threadbare jeans while we drove around in his blue Ford pickup.

Then we split for a while, taking different paths even as we stayed in touch. He played in duos and trios around town, while I picked up the bass and became a fan of Elvis Costello and the Talking Heads. When we got back together after three years, I was still no musical match for him, though I loved hearing him play. Very soon we found ourselves dancing to the sound of live jazz at our wedding.

We got caught up with graduate school, frequent moves, making new friends and finding new jobs. I noticed how people around us seemed less attuned to music than they’d been in college, and so, for us, it was becoming less important as well.