Dear Erin,
I'm terrible at starting letters. I never know what my first sentence should be, so it almost always ends up being a statement of my inability to begin letters.
You brought my confidence a long way. I remember when I was headed for my Cornish audition, you told me that it was as much about me as a musician as it was about the music I was playing. "Your leather jacket. Your tattoo. You know who you are. And you adore what you do. Show them that." That was always my biggest challenge: setting aside what I thought of my abilities (and lack thereof) and just letting my love for my cello shine through. Very occasionally you would get me to let go and just focus on enjoying the sound I was making, and it made an incredible difference. You said, "I know you love your cello. I know you love music. I can hear it if I close my eyes. But when I open them, I don't see it."
Seeing it matters. Obviously music is mostly about our ears, but you can see when a musician is totally absorbed and swept away by what they're doing. And I appreciate how hard you tried to get me out of my shell in that sense. You said, "Make the mistakes properly. Attack them. If you don't make a mistake all the way, you can't fix it all the way. Dare the mistakes to happen. You can only whack the moles that pop up, right?" "Right." "Don't just kinda play it. Don't just get through it. Make every single mistake, and relish every single good note--there are more of those than you give yourself credit for." "No kinda."
I've always had performance anxiety--I still do--and you worked hard to get me over that. I would start panicking before auditions and you would tell me to breathe; if I couldn't get a full breath, you would make me laugh and just that little bit of relaxation enabled me to breathe properly, which relaxed me further. You never told me there was anything I couldn't do. You didn't laugh when I told you about my future goals. And I could talk to you more freely than I could talk to my own mother. You were so intuitive about anything that was bothering me, about my insecurities, my competitiveness. You were there. Every single time.
And now I am here. I am here doing what I love and learning to do it better and better. While my new teacher has to correct some minor technical things that he didn't care for, he approves of what you instilled in me about attacking the music and just loving it. I still get so frustrated sometimes by the limits of my current ability, but I can feel myself getting better. And I know I wouldn't have gotten here without your help and encouragement. Believing in myself is something I've always struggled with, and you not only cheered me on, but you helped me work toward cheering on myself. It's still a struggle, but I'm learning every day to have more confidence in my abilities and be okay with the fact that they are a work in progress. As you reminded me, even those who seem so much more talented than I can still learn more and improve their skills; I can only fairly compare myself to Past Me, and then I should feel nothing but pride in my progress.
Thank you for every Monday morning.
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