There Is No Perfect
A note on practice. In the last post, I wrote about playing a few pretty notes on the flute. Unfortunately, during my next practice session, the memory of those pretty notes dissipated, then disappeared into the distant past. Especially because I still don’t know how my lips are supposed to pucker to play in the new way; the old way is much more familiar.
Frankly? This change sucks. Especially because I am supposed to look in a mirror in order to study and watch the lift or lowering of the corners of my mouth.
Now then. I have spent most of my life avoiding mirrors. They make me uncomfortable and judge-y. As a woman in this—let’s call it what it is—misogynistic, patriarchal society, I am King Critic of my Self. That’s why, as they grew up, I held my great niece Peyton and first cousin once removed Lulu in awe. They spent more time in one day holding their phones up before them—primping, admiring, and reveling in their appearance as they modeled for a photo—than I have in my lifetime. That was never me at their age; I would wince and look away. And so to face my face in the mirror at my ripe old age of—gulp—61? (I know. I can’t believe it either.)
But! It’s only the mouth I am to look at. As I lift my flute, I lower my elbows so as to release the tightness in my neck and shoulders and throat and what’s that!? OMG. I have my grandmothers’ necks! What happened? The skin is so soft in an old lady way, no longer elastic and supple. And the tendons jut out like a…a well-developed turkey’s neck!
“Tory!” you might say. “Why are you looking at your neck? You are practicing the flute. Lips, Tory.”
Lips poof. Puff. I shove the chopstick sideways into my mouth to encourage my lips to…I don’t know what they are supposed to do. Puff? Poof? The sounds that come out . . . are. Not. Notes. And a too familiar frustration forms, welling up into rage and disgust and I wonder, am I actually going to carry on with this bright and shiny practicing idea?
Carl appreciates my pain. In fact, we were talking about the hell of practicing the other day. He described a new series of exercises he had downloaded to change things up with his trombone. Twenty pages of myriad exercises: scales, intervals, long tones. All the things musicians must do to get the technical aspect of practicing and playing under those fingers, firming up those lip muscles while keeping them loose and supple, if not as supple and loose as some people’s necks. The exercises take around an hour, he commented.
And on the last page there is the note from the musician who wrote them: Repeat daily for 50-60 years.
Breathe. There is no perfect. But if I put in time. Am diligent and focused. Patient. Forgiving. Compassionate. Then maybe those beautiful, sweet notes will become my new normal.