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The night I ruined my performance, I found my greatest inspiration. It was late spring. The semester was drawing to a close. New York was wet that April, showers every evening coating the streets in sheets of rain and oil, refracting the streetlights like a kaleidoscope, and forcing masses of people down below ground into the subway. I didn’t have a destination in mind as I entered the underground. I just knew I had to get away. The performance hall was suffocating me, teachers, students, family, witnessing my breakdown as the final reviews were handed out like death sentences. My failure made me question if it was worth it, the countless hours of practice, the sweat and fatigue I had endured pouring over the strings with my bow. Everyone told me how hard Juilliard was going to be, but with a 7.2% acceptance rate I thought once I was admitted there would be nothing left to hold me back, but my freshman year I became my own worst enemy.
Professors told me the performance was uninspired, but I had been perfect. The technical difficulty of my debut piece rivaled that of the senior students. Js Bach’s Chaconne from Partia in d minor was meant to showcase my mastery of Baroque performance. For months I had been smiling arrogantly when people asked what piece I had chosen to play. I locked myself in the practice room every waking hour. I had lost almost ten pounds, neglecting everything except the music, perfecting every bar of my opus.
Still, I could see where they were right. Even after wearing my fingers to the bone, I hadn’t learned anything new from my teachers in the past two semesters of study. I played just as well as I had before, but no better. Anyone can memorize the notes on the page. There was something missing in my schooling, something just beyond my grasp undulating just outside my sphere of understanding. I wasn’t a prodigy, all of my mastery had come from diligent work, the fruits of my tireless labour placed me among masters but it couldn’t elevate me to their level of understanding.
Beside the 72nd Street Station, just six blocks from where I had felt the cold chill of failure, I heard the comforting embrace of inspiration. I had taken my place against the cool concrete wall, avoiding the rush of pedestrians, the shuffle of heals, and the closing of umbrellas that fought against the screech of the subway as it roared by, a cacophony of steadily rolling waves like the ocean, approaching and receding through the tunnel.
Above all the madness hovered a perfect E7, not something an amateur subway violinist would attempt. It struck out against the cavernous walls of the station like a sunbeam warm and piercing. It’s golden glow was followed by a playful questioning melody that felt more like a dream than part of this dreary reality. I felt it vibrate in my bones, shaking me down to my foundation.
The tune was momentarily drowned out again as the next train flew into it’s stop, but when the doors opened I heard it pick back up, livelier and frolicking, technically perfect but lilting and carefree, as if the performer were pirouetting, leading the melody like a well trained dancer. Goosebumps broke out on my arms. I pushed myself up from the wall, trying to determine where the playing was coming from, but it was like searching for a ghost. The music was surrounding me, bouncing of the walls, crawling out of the brick and mortar, flying through with the breeze, left, right, across the platform, I had no idea which way to go and the crowds blocked the tunnel’s end from my sight.
And then it stopped, so I started to run. I was rude, I got some dirty looks, but I didn’t care. I reached the end of the platform, just in time to catch someone hurrying up the stairs, back turned to me with a beat up violin case slung in one hand over his shoulder, a yellow hoodie pulled up over his head. I raced up the stairs after him, but when I reached the top he had vanished.
That was five days ago. Since that evening I hadn’t been able to get the melody out of my head. It stuck with me, popping up in the rhythmic tapping of my keyboard as I typed, or between the tumbling whirl of the dryer as I finished my laundry. It crept up from the sound of my footfalls on the sidewalk, and jumped from the boiling water on the stove. I would have been driven mad it I hadn’t been so enamored with it.
The melody had been like a question posed by a fawn, lilting and playful, but still begging for an answer. As it consumed me wholly, dancing its way into everything I did, it dared me to answer it. But therein lay the problem: This wasn’t some test that could be passed by simply memorizing the answers or techniques. This was a challenge, posed honestly from the heart. The mysterious player had laid their heart bare in the subway that day, each note speaking of their soul. It asked, “Can you hear me? Can you understand me?” I came to realize that as uplifting and carefree as it had been, one thing rang out clear:
It was lonely.
~~~~~
The moon was high in the light-pollution faded night sky by the time I gathered my violin case and slammed my front door shut, trying not to think too much about what I was about to do. If I thought about it too much I was afraid I would second guess myself, or worse overthink the whole thing. I needed my head clear. I didn’t need it right now. What I needed was my heart.
The streets were never really empty around here, but there was a certain stillness to this night. Even the streetlights seemed to pale in comparison to the moon above, and I gladly let it light my path. A left here, turn right at the bank, each footstep reverberating in my ears, drowning out the sounds of the city around me.
The entrance to the subway loomed before me, dark and foreboding, telling me to turn back, to not enter. But as I came closer I could hear the melody that had been haunting my days begin to ring out, and it strengthened my resolve. Tightening my grip on my violin case I started down the dark steps, ignoring the rising feeling of bile in my stomach. This stop seemed almost empty this time of night, as forgotten and lonely as the notes bouncing off all of its walls, invading every crevice. Many of the lights had gone out and were in sore need of replacement, making the air seem all the more mysterious. I came to a turn in the stairs and silently took out my case, my fingers fumbling with my quickening heart as I pulled out the beautifully carved wood I had come to know like a third arm. I gripped it tight, closing the case a little more loudly than I would like, and swiftly but silently descended the rest of the stairs.
There was no one else there, only the music.
The violinist hid himself well, and in the dim lighting I couldn’t see the mysterious man. So I danced among the pillars, looking, waiting for my opportunity. The tune was much the same as it had been days before, with minor changes or notes being held for different lengths of time. But it was confident in what it was, never faltering with the changes, and ever pressing on in delivering its message.
I readied my bow, attaching my chin to the rest and preparing myself to answer the challenge that lay before me. I felt like I was close to the source of the sound now, but the way it bounced off the walls it was almost impossible to tell. The notes rose in a flurry of longing, sending out the call that begged to be answered. It was here, as they descended into the lonely actuality of reality, that I made my move.
I started off slow and deep, as if not to startle the other player. I weaved my own tale of sadness, of futility, of unknowing. I continued to move slowly moved along the pillars, closing my eyes and letting the music guide me. I let the music speak for me, questioning the other player: “Who are you? Where are you?” and finally, with a high pitched, almost crying plea: “I want to find you.”
There was a pause as my world stood still, my heart the only sound reaching my ears. A train flew by, not bothering to stop at the empty station. More silence followed, and I began to panic. Maybe I had been mistaken. Maybe the other player hadn’t been lonely at all. Maybe they just wanted to practice some piece they were working on alone. Maybe they were a hyper competitive fellow student that was afraid their idea had been stolen now.
Maybe I had been wrong all along.
And then, piercing through the darkness came a comforting hum, like a lover being held in a warm embrace. It came from the direction I had just come from, or did it? It picked up into a light and playful tune, tip-toeing around, almost childlike in its joy. It said “I’m sorry for your pain, did you hear my call? Did you hear me crying out? Who are you?”
I replied with a flurry of notes, expressing my relief that I hadn’t been wrong, that I hadn’t scared them away. My fingers weaved the tale of my failure, tripping over themselves as they struggled to find the right notes, a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. But each time I rushed forward, renewed determination to reach the other player. I wove my way around the station, answering his questions and asking a few of my own. As we played back and forth I began to realize he, too, was moving, but we were getting closer.
I replied with a flurry of notes, expressing my relief that I hadn’t been wrong, that I hadn’t scared them away. My fingers weaved the tale of my failure, tripping over themselves as they struggled to find the right notes, a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. But each time I rushed forward, renewed determination to reach the other player. I wove my way around the station, answering his questions and asking a few of my own. As we played back and forth I began to realize he, too, was moving, but we were getting closer. I hadn’t even met the other player, but my soul now felt tied with his, like they had already closed the distance between us and were holding each other close, trying to learn everything about each other through the music. My heart was on fire, my fingers fumbling but truthful. I felt naïve, like a child learning to walk for the first time. This is what this other player had brought out in me without ever even seeing my face. This player had given me the greatest gift of my musical career: freedom of expression.
It made me soar just thinking about it, and I struck up again, suddenly not caring if I was being reckless, leaving all the memorized movements and pieces behind. All that mattered was playing my violin and letting others hear my song. This is what had been missing from my failed performance: a soul.
So caught up I was in the music that I barely registered backing up into something warm instead of the cold, hard surface of the stone pillars in the station.
When my brain caught up, I quickly turned around, now face to face with my teacher. He was a man, about my height with no hair on his head to speak of, making him appear much older than I guessed he actually was by his facial features. He was extraordinarily ordinary looking otherwise, but the outer shell didn’t matter. I already knew him, inside and out, and his inside glowed with a light brighter than the sun.
“Uh, hi.”
His voice was instantly recognizable to me. I felt like I had heard it a million times over already as we had let our music ring out. He scratched the back of his head, seeming suddenly nervous now that we were face to face.
I didn’t waste another moment to thank him the only way I could think of to express my gratitude for the incredible gift he had given me.
I stepped forward, closing the small space between us, clasped his face in both hands, and kissed him.