In my life (and this is getting to sound almost prehistoric), I have had more than 20 years of professional music experience. I know an orchestra like the back of my hand. I also know the pros and cons of being a full time professional musician. It's quite funny sometimes, sad sometimes, and downright a jungle at other times. And by jungle I do not mean that it's one colourful place full of lovely animals who can eat from your hand. Rather, it's a big survival of the fittest. Opera may sometimes look silly, especially when you are listening to a woman singing her heart out about love when she should actually be dead. But not withstanding the silliness of it all, opera never fails to be dramatic, and the same thing is carried on in orchestras. We live music, we breathe music without having time on our hands to consider anything else. I do not really know how I fell into music as a profession. My mum didn't want to hear about it, my dad kept silent but I knew he didn't mind it at all. The trouble is that when you're good at a lot of things, it's so difficult to decide. And for me, who cannot even decide which socks to wear, it was even harder. So I just followed suit and just went for the something I loved the most, without realising that I would have to give up most of my life.
One of the worst periods of my life was in 2005 when I switched professions. I hated it. A lot. I never considered myself to be able to work with little people on a daily basis. Me and kids? Forget it. I remember trying to figure out why my dad happily left for school every day for more than 40 years. I just thought he was hopping mad. As a child I was Freud's textbook daddy's little girl who could get envious of mummy! No I wouldn't share my dad with anyone, it was enough having to share him with my twin. Why was my dad always so happy? Because he knew he would be going to school the next morning! It sounded like some terrible OCD something. But it wasn't. Now I understand. I understand that walking into a workplace and seeing smiling little faces is so much more beautiful than walking into a workplace and seeing disgruntled adult faces. When people come to watch an orchestra, they think that we're a prim and proper lot. Wrong. We aren't. We're just a dangerous sum of different people from all walks of life who are thrown together into an arena. Worse still, there are no lions in there because we're even more fierce than the lions themselves. And we're supposed to make harmony. Yeah right. A packet of Twistees and a Mars bar make so much more harmony than that. Evening wear and highly polished shoes do not automatically transform people into being a harmonious lot. But normal jeans can transform little people into the men and women of tomorrow. It's not that hard. I only do what my dad did with us when we were young. With little people you do not have to watch your back because of a devious colleague. No little person is plotting against you and throwing venomous arrows at your back. The most problematic of children will somehow always respond to a smile. And now I can understand dad. And Jesus. Ok I am not very religious but maybe I should be. It's Jesus who said "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for it is to those who are childlike that the Kingdom of the Heavens belongs." And I think that Jesus was better than any Freud, of Jung, or anybody else.
One of the worst periods of my life was in 2005 when I switched professions. I hated it. A lot. I never considered myself to be able to work with little people on a daily basis. Me and kids? Forget it. I remember trying to figure out why my dad happily left for school every day for more than 40 years. I just thought he was hopping mad. As a child I was Freud's textbook daddy's little girl who could get envious of mummy! No I wouldn't share my dad with anyone, it was enough having to share him with my twin. Why was my dad always so happy? Because he knew he would be going to school the next morning! It sounded like some terrible OCD something. But it wasn't. Now I understand. I understand that walking into a workplace and seeing smiling little faces is so much more beautiful than walking into a workplace and seeing disgruntled adult faces. When people come to watch an orchestra, they think that we're a prim and proper lot. Wrong. We aren't. We're just a dangerous sum of different people from all walks of life who are thrown together into an arena. Worse still, there are no lions in there because we're even more fierce than the lions themselves. And we're supposed to make harmony. Yeah right. A packet of Twistees and a Mars bar make so much more harmony than that. Evening wear and highly polished shoes do not automatically transform people into being a harmonious lot. But normal jeans can transform little people into the men and women of tomorrow. It's not that hard. I only do what my dad did with us when we were young. With little people you do not have to watch your back because of a devious colleague. No little person is plotting against you and throwing venomous arrows at your back. The most problematic of children will somehow always respond to a smile. And now I can understand dad. And Jesus. Ok I am not very religious but maybe I should be. It's Jesus who said "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for it is to those who are childlike that the Kingdom of the Heavens belongs." And I think that Jesus was better than any Freud, of Jung, or anybody else.
