It has been a couple of months since I began my music classes. So much seems to have changed since then. As I dwell on this, I begin to realise that music is really a very potent form of energy. Though we all know this at some level, we take it for granted many times. The sense of hearing is linked so closely to our brain that the softest of sounds is capable of triggering memories, affecting moods and even altering breathing patterns.
I began my music classes unintentionally. As I have written earlier, I was searching for a music teacher to help my little son sing. But in the very first class, things seemed to be going according to a completely different plan. After my son had finished his lesson, the music teacher asked me to sit down and sing. "You must be knowing sa, re ga ma.. (notes of the octave)," he said.
Yes, almost everyone knows that.
But not me.
My mind went back to school days when I had always been considered a poor singer in my class. I think there were a lot of talented musicians in my class and the task of making a large, heterogeneous group sing in tune was a Herculean one for the music teacher. So there were a few students like me, who were asked just to stand there and not really sing much.
I don't think adults mean to influence children so much but over the years this message somehow stayed and got amplified in my mind. "I cannot sing."
While all this flashed through my mind, I was sitting before the computer during the first music class, wondering how to get out of this excruciatingly embarrassing situation. The teacher was proceeding to explain that my son would learn considerably more if I could participate in his singing and help him during his practice.
So I began, perhaps where every music student begins, with the first note (sa). "Apna sa khojo (search for your sa)," said the teacher, as many teachers have said to their students. Thus began my search for a note, and I had no idea where to begin.
"You are doing very well," the teacher said a few weeks later, "even though you have just begun."
Yes, I had just begun. But was this the real beginning? While singing, I often found my mind taking me back to the past - the time I was about six years old and I could see my mother practicing music. I could almost hear her notes. So the octave was not really unfamiliar, it was just hidden somewhere inside me.
I did not have too many more memories of my mother's singing because the next few years of my childhood were those of transition for our family as we moved from place to place. The musical instruments were lost somewhere in transit and it seemed my mother was not able to find time to continue her singing. My brother and I moved to my grandfather's house at some moment and singing was forgotten.
My mother passed away when I was twenty three, after a valiant battle with leukaemia. Though it was a battle she lost, she had given us and many others around, so much strength and happiness that we did not know how to cope with her absence.
When I began my music practice, these memories suddenly came flooding back. I had just buried the pain, not finding a way to release it. It sounds incredible (it felt incredible to me) but as I sang and sang, I felt the pain go. I was closer to my mother than I had been for years. I felt her (and my father's) presence somewhere very close to me- as if I could reach out to them anytime I wanted. This was a big step in healing a source of continuous pain that I had been carrying about for years.
Healing rarely happens in one go. I felt lighter and was able to practice more joyfully. But there were other swirling patterns of negativity that I only recognised after some time. Just as when a pond is stirred, many things seem to rise to the surface, not all at the same time.
Why was I so convinced I could never get the notes right? What was this strange feeling of guilt telling me I was just indulging myself and neglecting important work at home? What was the uneasiness that crept in each time I visualised myself learning from the music teacher over a long period of time?
Why, instead of discussing music, as I wanted to, did I find myself sending messages to my teacher like 'Burnt rice again because I was practicing in the kitchen' or 'Very bad headache. Cannot record anything.' This did not feel like 'me' but I realised gradually that it was a phase of settling in. Something new had suddenly entered my life and I had to come to terms with it. Life was affecting my music, and music, in turn, was affecting my life.
My husband helped tremendously. Each time I discussed these thoughts and wondered if I should give up, he said, "This is important for you. It's something you like to do and it is good for you. You must continue."
Yes, my son could manage for a little while, finding ways to entertain himself. Yes, we ate smoky rice for a few meals and I did waste precious water by putting plates under the tap but not washing them until I had finished singing an octave. Yes, we had to order some food when I ran out of energy. But... I did find my 'sa' (sometimes).
And with it, I discovered many other things I had never experienced before. I perceived strongly the sense of silence that encompasses everything, the source from where music arises. I felt I was reaching out to each note, requesting it to make its presence felt. And to enable me to express its presence in the best way I could - with my voice.
The notes did make their presence felt, most strongly at night just before I drifted off to sleep.
Sometimes, I hear them in between dreams and many times just before I awake. They are perfect then because they lie unsung in the stillness. Singing makes them imperfect but also beautiful in some way.
There is another energy that is driving me on. Partly within me and partly outside of me, saying, "Don't give up. Continue. Everything will be alright."
And so I carry on, as best as I can. I know that I am fumbling and faltering as each new step comes in sight, but I believe I will find my way. Until then, we will just have to make do with smoky rice and imperfect notes. My family doesn't seem to mind.
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