Music In The Midst Of It All

Photo by Vivian Chambers

I never imagined that I’d have to spend a month and a half indoors with the same three people. At first, it just seemed like an extended spring break, and who was I to complain about an extra few days of sleeping in? But then the endless litany of Zoom calls, Instagram challenges, and grim news reports began. My parents made my brother and I to go stand on the balcony for ten minutes every morning, and as much as I complained about the hot sun, I couldn’t deny that the feeling of the heat soaking into my skin now had a newfound appeal to it. This entire experience has made me view so many things that I once saw as simple everyday details or tedious chores in a completely new light. Take, for example, clearing the table after dinner. A month ago, if someone had told me that I would be volunteering to wipe down the table or racing with my brother to put away the plates, I would have suggested that they see a doctor. But the thing that this lockdown has made me appreciate more than anything is my flute, something that I have wanted to snap in half on more than one occasion. But to really appreciate my new feelings towards the instrument, I have to give you some backstory.

I picked up the flute before fifth grade because my mom wanted me to get a head start before I entered middle school band. I was more than willing to leave behind the piano, so the second I got my hands on the flute, I left the ivories behind and sprinted towards the shiny metal. My mom’s flutist friend gave me my first lessons, and I remember spending a ridiculous amount of time that summer huffing and puffing into the head joint, trying desperately to coax a decent tone out of just the first segment of the instrument. 

I have to say, I took better care of that instrument in those first few months than I have taken care of anything else. I wouldn’t let my brother within a foot of my new instrument, and I would hover over it with my polishing cloth after practicing, dabbing and wiping at non-existent smudges. I have long since stopped doing that. I followed the advice that I had been given near-religiously—no pressure on the thin tubes on top, no placing it keys-first onto the table, no unscrewing the crown. I’ve done all three now—the first two by accident, and the third one out of sheer curiosity. I thought there would be some kind of intricate mechanisms inside. There wasn’t. 

I don’t know when my reverence towards my instrument ended. Was it after the eleventh time I accidentally whacked it into my music stand? When the keys started tarnishing? I should take better care of it, but I no longer treat it the same way I did at nine years old. The careful way I would pick it up, the deliberateness in aligning my embouchure, the dedicated polishing after practice—all that is gone, replaced with cruder, but more familiar actions. 

When I pick my flute up now, it’s more of a lazy swipe towards wherever it’s resting. I’ve whacked it into more shelves, tables, and music stands than I can count. My fifth grade self would probably have an aneurysm if she saw how many nicks and scratches now decorate the metal. But wear and tear is good, isn’t it? I tell myself that when I feel the occasional twinge of remorse when I run a finger over the blemishes. It’s a well-loved instrument.

I don’t know if love is the word to describe my relationship with the flute, or really, with any instrument. I’ve been involved with some form of music for as long as I can remember. With a pianist for a mother and a music-lover for a father, I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read sheet music. Now my ability to read bass clef music has all but disappeared, but give me enough time, a piano, and a pencil, I can still make my way around the music staff. My mom taught me piano at first, but when I hit elementary school, I went through two or three different piano teachers because both my mom and I were so sick of fighting with each other over piano and practice. I remember her chasing me through the house trying to get me to practice, and the inevitable lecture and tears that came before recital time. It didn’t really surprise either of us when I stopped playing piano in middle school. I’ve had people tell me what a waste it was to not keep playing piano when I had a free teacher, but I just wasn’t interested in it. I didn’t regret stopping until high school. But what’s done is done.

Flute was a wild journey, and still is. Middle school band was glorious, and I can’t express how much I miss the beautiful chaos that our band was. In eighth grade, I somehow had the guts to agree to represent my school at a music competition. I practiced like crazy for the two months before it—between school band, flute lessons, and practicing my piece, I remembered assembling and cleaning my flute five separate times during one day: a quick run-through in the morning, band practice, a run-through after school in front of school teachers, my flute lesson, and one more practice before bed. I went into the whole thing knowing that I was nowhere good enough to hope to make finals at the competition but that it would be a good experience for me. And it was a good experience—I learned about tone, about the fine-tuning of a piece, and of course, how convenient it was when your accompanist was your mother. And throughout middle school, I had a fantastic flute teacher who I came to see as more than just a teacher—she was someone that I could talk to about friend drama and the ups and downs of middle school. 

But middle school came to an end, I clicked on Foundation Art instead of Concert Band, and my flute teacher moved away. I picked up my flute maybe once or twice a month in freshman year, and my familiarity with the instrument deteriorated. When I got braces, I cried when I picked up my flute and tried to play. Looking back, I don’t think that I was just crying over how I couldn’t play a half-decent note or how I couldn’t even eat without my teeth aching. I think that I was crying because I was angry that I hadn’t kept up with the instrument because maybe if I’d practiced more that year, I would have just a modicum more of success at playing flute with braces. It took me a few months to be able to play semi-properly again, and it was during those months that I realized how much progress I’d lost. 

So in sophomore year, I joined a local orchestra, and I was complete and utter trash. I had never played with such few woodwinds. And to make things worse, they were all adults and good and there I was in my plastic chair, wishing that the floor would open up and swallow me whole whenever I missed a note or got lost or couldn’t hit a high note. In the car ride home after my first rehearsal, I cried all the way home. My mom found it hilarious. In the moment, I thought that it was pretty funny too, but I couldn’t stop crying. I made myself go back the next week, and then the next. I still got cut from the more selective Christmas concert and I was disappointed to find out that the caroling, which I was good enough for, was taking place during my finals week. So to date, I still have not performed with the orchestra, but I have been getting better. The other flutes are incredible and always lend me pencils to mark my scores when I forget mine at home. And rehearsals in English, Mandarin, and Hokkien are so entertaining; it makes them worth the number of times that I have trembled in my seat when the conductor singles me out to play. 

Staying at home has given me a lot of time to practice. I pity the eardrums of my family members as they listen to me miss the high C for the fifth time in a row. But the trills and high notes come to me much easier than they did a month ago. Even though there are still a lot of missed notes and funky rhythms, and I’ve played the same piece so many times that my brother can now scream along as I play, it has been nice making music again.