A Heartwarming Autobiographical Confessional Story of Personal Growth and the Overcoming of Fierce Obstacles and Adversity against Overwhelming Odds on the Path to Artistic Glory and Fame beyond Imagining
The effective confessional autobiography is something few people can pull off convincingly. It’s a tricky tightrope to walk–do jokes diminish it? Does a tone of humility make it sound false? Is there too much self-importance in it to be effective? But whatever the consequence, which may involve people typing “fail” onto a computer somewhere, I think I’m gonna have to attempt a little bit of it. Because in a few days (at least a week ago, by the time this sees the light of computer screens across the internet), my first viola teacher will be 100 years old, and the reaching of an age one can, without grammar-fascist reprisal, type in numeral form (instead of spelling it out in words) is a pretty significant event.
The natural impulse in describing one’s childhood, I think, is probably to begin with a description of the hometown. But I’m discarding that straight away as being too Garrison Keillory. Suffice to say that I now live in Los Angeles, in an apartment with an infant shrieking from the next apartment over, and I used to live in Montana, where most of the shrieking was coming out of my chosen instrument. When I was ten years old, I was lucky enough to live in a place where the school system had a decent orchestra program. My ten-year-old brain immediately sensed that orchestral musicianship was the most obvious route to worldwide fame and riches beyond imagining, free cocktails at exclusive parties thrown by the cultural elite, and food that didn’t come from a microwave oven, so naturally I signed up. I had to choose an instrument, and after hearing Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, I decided to choose the ginger stepchild of the orchestra–the one that even the bassists and tuba players had jokes about. It wasn’t just that I was uncool enough to be in the orchestra; I picked arguably the uncoolest of all the instruments in it. Not even uncool enough to be cool: the viola sprints through uncool, races past cool, and arrives solidly back at uncool again.
But whatever! At ten, my thumb-thick tortoiseshell glasses and favorite pink polo shirt were more than enough to ensure my place in the Pantheon of Uncool. No point in worrying about the subtle gradations. We’re talking about ART here, not reality-show stardom. So with my status affirmed as a social and musical pariah, I needed a teacher.
I’ll confess at this point that I’m somewhat out of breath, and my palms are sweating like crazy. As dozens of ex-girlfriends will all attest (well, OK, not “dozens.” But “twos,” at least), I am not the best at opening up. But, as they say, the road goes ever on and on…
Anyway, Dr. Doty was the obvious choice for a teacher. He was basically the Yoda of string playing in Missoula–that is to say, for nine hundred years string players he had trained, and his own counsel would he keep on who was to be trained. Well, not nine hundred years; I just wanted to shoehorn a Star Wars quotation in there. But the essence was the same: as far as teaching kids how to play violin and viola, he was THE GUY. So I studied with him. He taught by the Suzuki method, which is a style of string pedagogy whereby students are taught by ear, starting at a very young age. Neither of these applied to me, as I was already ten and could read music (I had played piano for five years already at that point). But the main strength of the Suzuki method is its progressive books of beginner repertoire, and I took to those pretty eagerly–I was able to progress through the books quickly, owing to my (comparatively) advanced age and reading ability, and there was a real sense of accomplishment in finishing all the pieces in one of the Suzuki books.
This was all twenty-four years ago or so, so I can’t remember many specifics from my early tutelage. It seems unfair that memories grow hazy in such a short time (in a cosmic sense, anyway), but I can remember things in fits and spurts. I would walk to my lessons after school, usually, and Dr. Doty taught in his basement. I always found that oddly comforting; there was a kind of escapism in putting the nastiness of the school day behind me (as I said, thick glasses and pink polo shirt…You can put the pieces together, I’m sure) and walking down a flight of stairs into what seemed almost an alternate universe–one in which my musical aptitude was an asset and not a detriment. There was a musty but pleasant smell down there, too, which always signified safety to me somehow.
I was always a bit nervous during my lessons. Actually, at that age I was always nervous whenever I did anything. This tendency, by the way, didn’t abate at all until my late twenties. Put me in front of an audience, even an audience of one, and my stomach turned into a sackful of squabbling alley cats. But Dr. Doty had something of a calming presence, and he put me at ease as much as just about anybody has ever been able to. Occasionally he would teach me techniques that weren’t included in the Suzuki books, and at those times I had the distinct feeling I was being let in on some secret clandestine knowledge possessed by only a few people in the world. Which was sort of true, I guess, if one takes the wider view. And I remember one of his anecdotes very distinctly, probably because it’s always applied to me and my decades-long struggle with intonation: he told me about a famous violinist who was playing a sonata with a pianist. Midway through the piece, the frustrated pianist exclaimed, “I play the white keys and I play the black keys. But you play all the notes in between!” I was an expert on the in-between notes too.
So I studied with Dr. Doty all the way through high school. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I really decided to pursue music as a career, but he was able to help me with that too: the viola professor at the University of Arizona, it turned out, was an old student of his! Dr. Jeffrey Showell, who had grown up in Missoula just like me, arranged a full scholarship for me, and the legacy of Missoulian viola players could continue unabated.
In retrospect, I really wish some of my time at Arizona was more hazy in my memory than it is. On one hand, Dr. Showell, was an excellent teacher, a brilliant man, and one of the most elegant and musical players I have ever known. But on the other hand, in my late teens and early twenties, I was an angry and sullen kid. It was a tumultuous decade for me, and I wasted a great deal of time being angry at things without having the slightest idea why. I have a feeling I became a bit difficult for Dr. Showell to deal with. To his credit, he bore it like a saint, and I learned a great deal during those times when I was able to apply myself.
I lost touch with both Dr. Doty and Dr. Showell in the years after my graduation at Arizona. It was partly because I’m a notoriously terrible correspondent, but the bigger reason was that I was ashamed I hadn’t been able to accomplish more than I had with all the teaching they poured into me. As the years went on, I discovered that I just didn’t want to do most of the things people do after music school. I had the idea that they both expected me to land a position in a major symphony with little trouble, but I was dogged by my old friends, anger and stage-fright, every step of the way. It hadn’t occurred to me that a teacher, no matter how gifted, could provide the tools to succeed–the “how,” I guess I’ll call it–but can’t provide the “why.” That was for me to work out on my own, and I took an excruciatingly long time figuring it out. And when I found my “why,” through playing (mostly) rock and roll and committing myself to playing music entirely on my own terms, I still harbored the idea that it wasn’t worthy of what my teachers had envisioned for me. I still do, I think. But I can take a little comfort in the fact that no matter what my musical aspirations are, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. I have no way of knowing, and have no idea if either of them would even remember me at this point, but maybe it’d be enough that I’m doing things my own way using what they taught me.
I’m happy to say that even though I’m still playing the notes in between, they’re a lot closer to the white and black keys than they used to be. So thanks, Dr. Showell, and sorry I was such a shooting pain in the rectum years ago. And thanks, Dr. Doty, and happy birthday, and I hope you get to four digits worth of age.
