Taylor began tackling a concerto back in October. The process of moving from notes on a page to music was grueling, not only for him but for all the inhabitants of our home. For the piece to resemble music, he had to break the thing into sections to be played repeatedly.Whenever he made a mistake he would repeat that section… over and over, leaving notes to bounce off 1800 square feet of walls and tangle somewhere in the center of my brain.
I was relieved when the notes were at last learned, thought I would enjoy 3 to 4 melodic hours a day. Nope. The next stage was to add dynamics, which entailed playing Ravel’s ridiculously fast composition in fast motion… then slow motion through absolutely everything in between while stopping at sections where his fingers slipped to, you guessed it, fix each mistake three times. I pride myself a fairly patient person with broad musical appreciation, but any given section of this piece taken out of its entirety is fingernails on chalkboard. So this is how it went for three months straight.
When Taylor at last performed Ravel Concerto in G Major, III. Presto,
Presto…
I was shocked, “What?!!!” I had no idea! Then his music teacher’s comment hit me on the head: “Taylor’s come into his own.”
My internal voice whispered in response, “Who was it up to before tonight?” It slowly dawned on me that the work of the teacher/mentor is implied in that overused phrase. As parents, Willie and I have never pushed or prodded Taylor to become a musician, but we have tirelessly encouraged him that his work matters. Taylor has worked hard to form this habit, but his teacher is right, he has at last embraced the work as his own.
Not only does Taylor play music, he writes music. Here is a recent composition:
This past week Taylor was sick and his one complaint was that he would not be able to work at his music… it’s true.
We are ridiculously busy in this world, at times too exhausted to chase our own dreams. As a teacher, my students readily share their dreams of being a prima ballerina or an astronaut or a paleontologist, or, in the case of my son, a performing composer. But what happens when we answer, “Yes you can,” pat them on the back and watch them while away hours on the X-Box? Dreams shrivel when students form enduring trivial habits.
Becoming Juilliard material was never our goal. Fighting for a habit of purpose is costly in more ways than one, but we find a way. There is no doubt Taylor's skill serves him well and hopefully will encourage others to engage in the work of chasing a dream.
When the phone rang and a writer from the Los Angeles Times wanted to speak to Taylor… wanted to interview my son, I speechlessly handed over the phone. He has certainly come into his own, one note at a time. What I see developing in my oldest son's character is something that a standardized test will never measure.