A Promised Post

Okay, so I know I said I would write yesterday. Well, I my words were a challenge to myself, not a promise to anyone else. But even though I did not write yesterday, I do not consider the day a failure. Rather than writing, I decided to spend time with my wonderful sister, Stephanie. Seeing as she lives in a different city, the opportunities that we have to see each other are much more rare than my opportunities to write.

The story for my Elgar piece is going to take a little more finesse than I originally thought. So rather than writing it on blogger, I am going to use my handwritten journal to compose the short work. When it is perfected, I will post it here.

Today I succeeded in completing the novel The Spanish Bow. It is a wonderful story about a boy who receives an unlikely and unexpected gift of a cello bow. The bow marks the boy's fate, and although he starts his career as a young musician on the violin, he is immediately drawn to the cello at his first experience of hearing the melodious instrument. My favorite part of the novel is when he goes to his first classical concert. The featured musician is a pianist, but the boy's ear is devoted to the cellist. The pianist gives him the opportunity to play his violin for the professional musicians backstage when the concert is over. The boy is left in such a state of awe at the cello, he picks up his violin and begins to play, realizing only after he sees everyone laughing that he is holding his violin like a cello. I remember when I used to be so in love with my instrument. I've never been one for practicing, but I would play things that I already knew, at least, just because I loved the sound. Where has that excitement gone? Where is that thrill that I used to get from the privilege of playing such a soulful instrument? The narrator of The Spanish Bow says that the cello has the most human-like voice of any instrument. I believe whole-heartedly that it not only sounds the most like a person, but it is the most capable of producing the emotions that we feel. I suppose I am a bit biased, but of any solo instrument, I have never felt another take me through such a wide range of emotions. I need to rekindle that old flame. Hopefully this novel and the book I have about the cellist Jacqueline DuPres will act as the sparks that I need to get the fire started.

For tonight, I must say adieu. Laundry awaits me, as do such things as Pumpkin Ice Cream and Chocolate Chips.