Dying Elephant or Concert Violinist?
	By Lindsey MacNab '01 My mom and my brother run around the house shutting windows. In 10 seconds flat I am hiding in my room with the door shut. My father is at it again, and even at the age of eight I am wise enough to know that I need to run when Dad starts attempting to play his violin. He plays along with our ancient record player, and stacks of Gordon Lightfoot records litter the dining room table. (I don’t like this music in any case, not to mention having to listen to Dad’s violin accompaniment.) On festive days Dad tackles Pachelbel’s Canon. It is his dream to be able to play beautifully, but he has never had a lesson, so he squeaks along with the records in a dissonant and sliding sort of harmony that only he understands. Contorting his face in concentration, deliberating with each gesture of the bow and his fingers, he is in a world where wrong notes do not exist. Upstairs, I lie on my bed with a pillow over my ears. The next year, at age nine, I take up the French horn and learn firsthand what it is like to make these beautiful-in-the-ear-of-the-beholder sounds. Today I watch old home videos and marvel at the support both my parents gave me each time I picked up my horn. To them everything — including my "dying elephant" attempts at "London Bridge" — sounded terrific. "London Bridge" gradually evolved into études and concertos, and my parents heard every note of my practice, encouraging me as my metronome clicked and I repeated notes and measures over and over and over and over. . . . My parents’ support held steady throughout my musical career, as they drove me to and from music lessons each week for years until I could drive, attended my auditions (and listened to me intently outside the rooms, ears pressed to the doorways), and went to every single one of my concerts. It’s funny how I have changed my tune (pun intended) so drastically. Having once put my pillow over my head when my father played his violin, I now immerse myself in a rehearsal environment on a daily basis. Wednesday afternoons as I sit in the Ford Hall lobby and eat my lunch, I hear the Trumpet Methods class next door — 10 non–trumpet majors croaking out their first notes on this instrument for their music education degree requirements. The music may not be beautiful, but the process is. I am beginning to understand what my parents were seeing and hearing as I started 10 years ago to learn to play my horn. I wish I could take some of the musical support that I’ve received from my parents over the years and return it to my dad now. His violin has been collecting dust recently, and I wonder if he’s given up. I wonder if he’s started to hear his playing as the clashing dissonances that I once heard. It’s all part of a process, Dad. If the music brings you joy, it doesn’t matter whether you are a concert violinist or a closet Gordon Lightfoot squeaker. You know where that violin sits in the corner. Do you hear it calling you back? Wipe the dust off and try again; it’s music to my ears.