The Pull

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I count the measures meticulously as my accompanist Celty begins our piece, rising from a gentle pianissimo to a comfortable mezzo. I count my final measure of rest and lift my violin to my chin. Wedging it comfortably between my right shoulder and the side of my face, I raise my bow and begin, barely touching the tightly-wound steel strings as the music cues me in. The bow pulls across my violin and I allow the sound to quiet everything else in the auditorium.

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Visualizing the score in my head, my fingers reach up and down the neck with practiced precision, an opening I’d played countless times in the last eight weeks. It starts with a series of sixteenth notes that tie together into one fluid sound. I can almost see the sound waves as they float away from Celty and I, bouncing off the walls, and then flying back towards the audiences awaiting ears. The lights on the crowd are darkened, keeping me from watching them as I play. Their anticipation, their excitement, it’s all lost to me as I focus on my craft. 

 

*    *    *

 

When I’d first been handed Beethoven’s Violin Sonata no. 8 in G major, I’d assumed it would be little trouble to learn. I’d played plenty of Beethoven in my time as a violinist, and his pieces—while enchanting—tended to be pretty straightforward. Most of them anyway. However, this piece seemed to fight back with every measure I studied. Not to mention that this was my first experience in an accompaniment, and having Celty as my pianist was something that made me pretty nervous at the time. I spent countless nights practicing, struggling on my own even before I began practice with her, gearing myself up for this moment. Walking into our first duo rehearsal, my nerves felt like they were on fire. What if she hasn’t practiced enough? What if I haven’t practiced enough? If we can’t solidify the piece separately we have no hope of putting it together. These thoughts swirled around in my head, making me sick with dread as I walked into the practice room. There I found Celty, perched happily on the piano bench, playing the last few measures of Chopin’s Nocturne. I cleared my throat when she finished, she turned and greeted me with a big smile spreading across her face. “Hey Nora! Are you ready to practice?” she beamed, and her cheery voice felt like it was going right through my chest, grabbing the last bits of my carefully constructed confidence and flying out the other side, splattering on the wall behind me. No, I wanted to say, I’m terrified to play with someone else. But I kept my mouth shut, answering her with a curt nod, unpacking my violin from its case. I could feel the doubt and panic swirling around me as I lifted it to my chin, but in the pull of the bow across my strings, it's like all that anxiety and difficulty was pulled away from my body with every upstroke.

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*    *    *

 

The bleached, starched horse hair bow was moving vibrantly across the strings, each one having been pulled and stretched to its very limit, tuned to perfection moments before I lifted my violin to my chin. The keys being played behind me guide me forward, setting the tempo and the tone for me. The stage lights were hot on my face and chest, the performance gown I’d chosen shimmering under their glow. I listened carefully to my accompanist, following her lead as she led us further into the music.  

 

The Hit

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The moment my fingers drop to the keys, it's as if the hammer within my piano hits the wires of my nerves, the sound settling inside my body, a familiar weight. I’d always wondered if other musicians felt the same way, like their instrument was locked inside their body, the melody resonating from my pores instead of echoing out of my wooden Steinway & Sons. 

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My eyes dart over to Nora, admiring how poised she looks as she brings her bow up to the violin. She always makes playing look so effortless, even when she would struggle in practices, she always seemed to hold her frustration close to her body, maintaining the air of virtuosity. This piece had been challenging for me, lots of trills and tempo changes, not to mention a time change in the middle from six-eight to three-four. A real nightmare, but I’d come to think of pieces like this as a challenge to triumph in, rather than an obstacle to overcome. 

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I remember when playing piano felt like drowning, no matter how much I kept treading water I still just couldn’t make it up for air. Now it feels more like flying, like I’m above it all and I can just watch as my hands fly across the keys. My childhood instructor had called that feeling “the zone,” the moment when playing felt as natural as breathing. Of all my instrumental endeavors, piano was my most beloved; it fascinated me that an instrument so musical and melodic could be considered percussion. Now, I listen closer for it, the sound before the sound, the hit of the hammer on the string right as my finger presses down on the ivory. It takes a lot of ear training, but once you can hear it, you can’t help but listen for it every single time.

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*    *    *

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Once, I’d told Nora about it and she’d told me that when playing the violin, there's a moment when the bow catches the strings before the sound resonates out, there is a tiny sound, one that becomes almost invisible the more talented a player becomes. “But it's still there,” she’d said, “to me it’s as loud as anything else I play.” After that, every time we would practice I tried to listen for it too, the little squeak of the bow touching the strings, fiber sticking to steel with the help of the sticky rosin she covered her bow with. I’d heard it once or twice, but when you have someone as poised and masterful as Nora wielding the violin, the sound was nearly imperceptible, just like she’d said. Watching Nora play the violin was like watching a captain pilot a ship. Her presence commanding, her skills unmatched, she was able to lead her crew through even the darkest of storms, all the while maintaining complete control. I was enthralled. 

 

*    *    *

 

Even now, as we play this piece for what may be the final time, I can feel that practiced form and control radiating off of her. I knew the audience and the judges could see it too, and I imagined how they thought of us. The devoted, classically trained virtuoso, accompanied by the aloof, self-taught pianist. What a pair to be tied together, marching forward through the piece with the ease of breathing. 

 

The Tie

 

One of the best parts about playing violin is the ability to play more than one note on one bow length. They call this “a tie”, the tying of two notes together to make it sound like a subtle switch from one to the other. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata was full of ties, my favorite of these is in the middle of the piece, a series of sixteenth notes all tied together, a recurring motif in the piece that guides each section into the next. 

 

*    *    *

 

Celty explained once that while the piano can’t tie like a violin can, she can create the illusion of more than one sound occurring in a single breath by using the sustain pedal. I wasn’t ever much of a pianist, and I’d never really thought of the pedals as much more than extra flair to add to the music. Apparently, piano is an instrument that requires much more bilateral coordination than I ever knew. “I’ll show you, watch me play and I’ll kind of over-exaggerate the pedals.” she’d offered one afternoon at the end of one of the first practice sessions. I agreed, and watched as her feet moved from one pedal to the next—sustain, then soften—the notes of Beethoven's Sonata drifted out of the piano and into the air around us, Celty’s eyebrows furrowing as she focused on the white and black keys before her. She was always so debonair when I’d been in courses with her, seeing her this focused was something unexpected, and I found myself watching her face while she played, her expression growing from intense focus into a confident glow as she continued through the piece. At every page turn, she’d move her eyes just slightly, a barely noticeable shift in her gaze to look towards me. My face flushed every time she did it, and I would quickly avert my gaze down to her hands and feet.

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Later, as I pondered why she would keep looking at me in those crucial moments of rest, I realized that Celty loves the attention, she loves a captivated audience who recognizes her talent. That’s what brought her to stage performance, she wanted to make sure that all eyes were on her. And, as we practiced more and more together, she began to pull my gaze away from our music and over to her more times than I’d care to admit. Every once in a while, she’d giggle when I’d turn my reddened face away, but she never said anything about it, she would just go right back to playing as if she hadn’t seen me looking at all.  

 

*    *    *

 

The ties in Beethoven’s Violin Sonata no. 8 in G major are some of the highest pitches the violin can squeak out, pushing the limits of my reach, all the way down to the base of the fingerboard. I used to feel like notes up that high sounded like screaming, but now that I can feel it instead of just hearing it, it feels like singing. What used to make me cringe and cover my ears when I’d be in rehearsals now felt like some of the most beautiful tones my instrument could create. I continue to play, paying close attention to the tempo Celty sets for me. This section was more about her part than mine and allowed me to mentally catch up. After this is where things begin to get truly difficult, but I was confident in my ability. This competition meant so much to me, marking the end of my musical education at Julliard—provided we met the judges criteria for full marks. I’d spent years leading up to this moment, wrapping bandages around cracked fingers, popping strings in my face, breaking bow after expensive bow. Violin used to feel like I was sinking in quicksand, never able to pull myself out far enough to grab onto a rope or a vine, but somehow always keeping my head above the suffocating sands. A slow death. Now it feels more like walking through a marsh, getting your boot stuck every few steps, but somehow always managing to dislodge the limb and continue forward. Music is movement, and movement is powerful. 

 

The Movement 

 

We’re halfway through the piece, things seem like they’re going well so far, we’re moving quickly, but not so quickly that things sound off-tempo. Nora and I have practiced this piece in every tempo we could, learning how to keep pace with each other no matter what. She was astonishing in her ability to adapt to tempo changes in the moment, and I found that practicing with her helped me learn to keep moving, even when something goes wrong. 

 

*    *    *

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There were so many times during practice that Nora would say she messed something up, but I’d think it sounded just fine. She would suddenly put her bow down in the middle of the rehearsal, always saying something like “It’s not about sound, it's about technique. I ended on an upstroke instead of down. Let’s go again.” And we would, we’d practice over and over until we both felt like it was perfect, and then we’d practice some more.

 I’d go home with sore hands and tired eyes, collapse onto my bed, wake up and go back to campus to do it all again. I hate to admit it, but I secretly loved it. I loved having to tape up my hands and bring migraine medicine with me everywhere. I loved having to cancel plans to attend more practices. Music was what propelled me forward, what moved my body when I couldn’t do it myself. I wonder if that’s why pieces of music are often called “movements.” Even in my darkest hours, it had been the piano that pulled me forward, the obligations that music brought with it got me out of bed, and now it was finally paying off. 

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I think Nora feels the same way, but instead of music pulling her from depression or loneliness, I think she uses it as an outlet, something to curb her anxiety. She’d always struck me as someone too uptight to truly enjoy playing music. I’d made my judgments about her when we’d first met, someone who was too tied up in harsh, precise classical training to really feel anything she was playing. She understood that musicians are supposed to have feelings when they play, but she didn’t know how to bring out those feelings herself. She was all about the technical talent, the ability to sight read any piece and play everything perfectly. Buttoned-up, a stickler for the rules; she was someone I’d never get along with. I assured myself that I couldn’t be around someone who took music so much more seriously than I did. It wasn’t until we’d been paired for our final performances that I was able to truly understand her. She was someone who had never gotten a chance to develop a love for music, but was expected to develop a talent for violin instead. Pushed into the musical world by her parents and instructors, she never got to make a choice for herself in the matter. In a world where she couldn’t make her own decisions about where to go and who to be, Nora needed something to make her feel again. She told me that as she learned more about her own style and preferences, she began to understand music instead of just the violin. When she finally saw it, she realized that music gave her an edge, something to peer over and look down into, but it also gave her the support of knowing she wouldn’t fall off as she stared down below.

 

*    *    * 

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I continue moving us forward, leaning into the next few chords for a little bit of dramatic effect. We were making great progress in our performance, and I hadn’t heard one wrong note or missed tempo change from either of us. Our hours and hours of practicing were paying off beautifully, and I did my best to bite back the smile that welled inside of me. Music gave me a goal, something to run towards at full speed, something to make all the work worth it, something to move me. 

 

The Edge

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We’re almost done, just two pages left. My arm is sore, and my cheek is beginning to ache at the spot where it meets my chin rest. I wish I could look back at Celty, to see if she feels it too, but I knew if I distracted myself that I opened the door for error. The sound waves that bounce off the wall and back to us are enveloping me, and I feel everything that I’m playing, that I’m doing. 

 

*    *    *

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When I was sixteen, I decided I hated the violin, so much so that I threw my second-hand instrument into the fireplace in a fit of rage, and vowed to give up forever as I clutched the match in my hand, ready to burn my only goal to ash.

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I was tired of calloused fingers and pounding headaches. It felt like one step forward brought me two steps back every time. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t burn the thing that allowed me to peek into oblivion over and over.  L'appel du vide, a French phrase that translates to the call of the void. As I stood hunched over my unlit fireplace, hands trembling, eyes watering, I found I couldn’t do it. I needed music like I needed air. Music was what allowed me to stare into the void without being consumed by it. Music enveloped me, kept me safe and comfortable, but it also scared the shit out of me every single day. It gave me something to keep my hands busy, something to focus on, something to care about. It held tight on the collar of my shirt as I leaned down to look over the edge, into the void. The call of the void was strong, but the music’s grip on me was even stronger. It told me I had to stick around, had to be ready for the finale, the crescendo as the piano keys reverberated in the room, the pressure of my bow on the strings as I brought us up to a forte, then a fortissimo. Then, the grand pause, the breath of silence before the fine—the end. 

 

The lights are still burning bright and hot on Celty and I, and I know the audience can see the beginnings of our exhaustion. Sweat glistening on our foreheads, tense arms and hands, it’s all visible to the trained eye. I took a moment of breath between notes, relaxing my posture. My fingertips burn, my wrist aches with each vibrato I add. However, in this moment, I can hear the reverberating of the keys behind me, a gentle push forward. The sound dulls my aching body, and pushes me towards the finish line. It’s almost time for the coda, a fake-out of a finish before we get to the real ending. A finish line I usually find myself sprinting desperately for, but this time I want to make this moment last, to show the audience how much emotion and labor we’ve put into each and every note. Celty comes to a measure of rest at the same time as I do, allowing us to take a gulp of air into our lungs. The grand pause, a moment of anticipation and excitement for the audience as they wait for the breath to end and the finale to begin in earnest. 
 

Fine 

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The grand pause allows us a moment of reprieve, though not for long.  I’m counting the measures, and I know Nora is doing the same. We must look like statues, waiting in position, hands poised over our respective instruments.

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*    *    *

 

When we’d been given this piece for our final performance, I’d been worried it wouldn’t have nearly enough life. It was difficult, sure, but it wasn’t exciting. Well, at least I’d thought that for the two weeks I practiced it alone. Then, I heard Nora play it for the first time. I knew she’d been frustrated with this piece, and that she had been practicing too much. Her left hand had bandages on each of her fingers, meaning she’d managed to get calluses on top of calluses. She was angry about the pacing, the stylizing of the piece. 

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Expressivo, our instructor had told us when she handed us Violin Sonata no. 8 in G Major. 

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“The audience should feel every note you give them, they should feel their bones pulling them towards the music, they should feel every note hit their bodies just like you’re hitting the keys. Give them expression, give them movement. Then, during the grand pause, allow them to lean forward, have them on the edge of their seat before you play the coda. Give them something to wait for!” 

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After practicing independently for weeks, finally we were able to tie the two parts together. I’d never heard Nora play like this before, she was usually so detached from the pieces she chose; stiff classical pieces that were always stylistically described as legato—smooth and connected. But this piece was different, it required feeling, an expressiveness unusual for Nora. I’d never seen her express much variety in her emotion, her face never revealing more than mild frustration, but here, in this piece, I saw something different. After week one of dual practice, she’d started playing it differently. Not only that, but she’d been acting differently too, coming into practice with a smile and a warm greeting—a stark shift from the awkward ‘hello’ and lack of eye contact she usually gave me. I wondered if she’d changed her perspective on the sonata, and then I saw it, written in green ink on the top of her sheet music. 

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Con Fuoco—with fire. A message from our instructor clearly, the green pen was her trademark, but I could see how it fixed her attitude about the whole movement. To tell someone like Nora to “be expressive” doesn’t help her, she doesn’t know how. But fire, that’s something she understands, a feeling she knows how to harness. It made me feel better too, because it felt like I was able to be the kindling to the fire she was creating with her music. Fire is nothing without fuel, it will burn out without something to power it.

 

*    *    *

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2…3…4…my hands drop to the keys again at the same moment Nora’s bow hits her strings. The ending of the piece was coming up on us, our final performance together. I sent a quick glance towards Nora, her performance gown sparkling in the bright lights. Her posture mirrored the strings on the violin, pulled taught, and tuned to perfection. Nora had been standing on stage with a violin for her whole life, this was natural for her. I think that was where we were able to find the most common ground. The love for performance, the desire to show the world what we’ve accomplished. 

 

*    *    *

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“I think you were born to be a performer.” she’d said to me once, idly applying rosin to her bow before practice one afternoon. This made me laugh, since performing came to me as easily as walking does to a fish. She’d glanced up from her task, raising an eyebrow at my display of amusement. “What? You just seem to love the attention!” she defended, placing her bow down. 

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“No, no, I do! I just certainly wasn’t born a performer. At the first recital I ever had, I threw up on stage from nervousness, and then ran out of the theater. My mom had to send the neighborhood on a hunt after me.” I found myself wondering why I was telling her this, my most embarrassing moment. Something was pulling me to be wholly honest with her though, to give her the truest version of myself. Nora’s eyes widened as I finished my story, and I saw her bite the inside of her cheek. She’s trying not to laugh, I realized. “It’s okay,” I gestured, “you can laugh, it was pretty funny.”

 

Nora’s eyes widened at my permission, and she dropped her gaze down to the floor as her shoulders shook lightly. Then, she looked up suddenly and blurted out; “When I was eight, I ran offstage crying after my bow broke in the middle of a performance. I hid in a janitor's closet until the competition was over.” She looked surprised at her own admission, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I laughed loudly, and put my hand on her shoulder. 

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“Well, surely our performance can’t be worse than that, right?” I smiled at her, and she smiled back, and I found myself taking a mental note of one of the few moments that Nora opened up to me. 

 

Fine Con Fuoco 

 

Finish with fire. When my instructor had first told me that, I had no idea what she meant. I could read tempo indicators and time signatures all day, it was easy to understand that here you play fast and loud, and later you play quiet and slow. But this piece asked for feeling. It begged for emotion to be tied to every note, every rest, every single measure demanded attention and care. This was not something I was used to. Playing violin for my whole life has caused me to stiffen, to stop feeling what I was playing and simply hear it. I thought I’d never feel my music again, until I played this sonata with Celty, when I played it con fuoco.

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While this is my first time playing an accompaniment, I’d met plenty of pianists before, and Celty was different from them all. She truly felt her music, like her instrument was just an extension of herself. She showed me how to play with emotion, with fire. She made me want to feel each note again, to internalize it and understand it in a way I hadn't in years. Classical training had made me jaded and dry, my creative brain all but used up. But watching Celty play the piano, watching as she read the music and then interpreted it, letting her feelings bleed into the piano keys as she played, I felt it—the creative spark. I was six years old again, standing on stage and clutching a tiny violin as I played a piece that made me happy. I wanted that again, I wanted violin to make me happy, to bring me the joy it had when I was young, and when I played with Celty, I felt it. I feel it now, and I felt it as we practiced. Music is like breath, and I have been gasping for air for far too long.

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Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was one of the first times I’d felt music move me. Its quiet beginning leads into the wall of sound that could capture the hearts of any audience. It was a song that exemplified suffering, gave it a voice and let it scream its story. Then, I’d played Swan Lake as an audition piece to get into Juilliard, sucking away all the emotion the song made me feel and making it into a means to an end. With every note that floated away from my instrument, I felt that passion going with it. When I’d received my acceptance letter, the last of the love for my craft dripped off my body. What was once passion was now an obligation, a shift I ignored for years. I thought it would never come back, and I would've never thought it would be handed back to me in the hands of a self-taught pianist who I’d only ever described as “loud.” 

 

*    *    *

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I turned my body, and going against my better judgment I locked eyes with Celty, mesmerized by the smile on her face. She loved this feeling, playing music with someone else. She’d told me once that being an accompanist made her feel like she was holding a torch while she led the audience through a darkened cave. 

 

“So if you’re leading the audience through a cave, then what does that make me?” I’d been annoyed by the analogy, still thinking her to be another overly egotistical accompanist, unwilling to let anyone else take the spotlight.

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“That’s obvious, Nora,” she’d said, legs swinging off the side of the stool she sat on, “You’re the fire in the torch!” 

 

My fingers moved faster, Celty looked up from her hands to lock eyes with me. 30 more measures, then 15, then 10. We were nearly there, the final notes suspending the audience in anticipation for the ending, the fine. 

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As we played the last measure together, I quietly asked the universe that I get to play with Celty again someday, that this won’t be the last time our paths cross. I drew out the final note, Celty’s feet holding down the suspension pedal to allow the last chord to hang in the air around us.

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It was over just as quickly as it began, and as I lowered my violin I felt like I was underwater, the sound of the audience applause muffled and distant. Celty stood from her place at the piano bench, signaling me to turn around to face the audience. I did, and we bowed—a move we’d actually had to practice. Everyone in the crowd was standing, their cheers and claps overtaking the room.

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I turned back to Celty, and before I could even realize it, she was stepping forward and pulling me into a tight hug. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, and I fought to keep them down. Wrapping my arms around her, we just stood there for a moment, locked in an embrace as the roar of applause surrounded us. She pulled back slightly, still gripping my shoulders, a wobbly smile covering her features. I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it again when I realized I didn’t need to say a word to Celty. She knew what this meant to me, and in turn I knew what it meant to her. I realized in that moment that being the fire in the torch that Celty holds isn’t such a bad place to be. After all, it is the fire that gives her the light to be able to be such a great guide. We bow once again, soaking up the final moments of our performance, and then we exit stage right.