Concierto+by+Heather

media type="custom" key="3428106"**__ Concierto __** By: Heather Heyer // On this journey to find myself, // // I finally listened up, // // Heard the music playing, // // My name was being called. // Music wasn’t my thing. I didn’t really enjoy it when I was younger, besides the “required” Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. Rock, country, even classical didn’t appeal to me. I was more of a reader and as I grew a bit older (let’s say second or third grade) I stopped listening to pre-teen pop altogether as well. Around then, I was shanghaied into piano lessons with my friend, Tiffany. “Welcome to the New School of Music!” a lady with bright red hair announced. Tiffany and I were standing in a bland and smelly waiting room, where a bunch of parents were waiting for their children’s lessons to be finished. Complex melodies ran through the rooms, making me feel nervous that I should already be up to that standard when I had not even started yet. The red haired lady led us to a back room with a grand piano inside. “I will take each of you, one at a time, in here to play a little something for me that I will give you to sight read.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, it won’t be anything advanced yet,” she said, noting the terrified expressions on our faces, “Tiffany? You are up first.” The cheery woman led my best friend inside. Ten minutes later, they came out, Tiffany looked quite relieved. “Alright, Heather, you’re next,” the cheery lady all of a sudden seemed too cheery and I did not want to go in with her. But my feet dragged the rest of me in against my brain’s wishes and I sat down at the piano bench Ms. Overly-Cheery motioned to. There was an open book resting on the piano with pictures of the black keys that are seated along the keyboard. Ms. Overly-Cheery had me play on just those keys. It was quite a simple piece; only quarter notes. Yet it was one of the scariest moments of my life. I wasn’t ready to enter the world of music and I certainly did not want to play the piano, but my mother thought it would be good for me to get some music education. I thought it wasn’t necessary but, whatever; it was something to do with a friend. We’d carpool to the New School of Music in Kingston twice a week, once for a private lesson, and once for a group lesson. Our group teacher, Mr. Cooper, was a very nice guy and was almost able to mold our brains into thinking we actually liked piano. He taught us some music theory to begin with. Eventually, I thought it rather interesting that all of the symbols and squiggles on the sheet of music could actually be turned into something that sounded truly beautiful. For four years we endured this misery together. Learning classical and jazz pieces, just about ruining the only type of music I did like then. Jazz. Its freestyle melodies were the only ones that actually appealed to me. I saw all of the possibilities of who I could be when I listened to jazz. I had always wanted to be my own person, so jazz seemed the best way to go. All of the different instruments mixed together in a jumble of sound made me feel as though anything could happen in the music. I started exploring instruments a little bit more. // First up was the piano, // // With its plinks and its plunks // // The black and white keys, // // Did not call attention to me. // The flute was my experiment. I joined the middle school’s Concert Band in sixth grade, looking in the cabinets and under the music stands for me. Band was fun. It felt good to be a part of something great (or going to be great anyway, in middle school, every person who played an instrument was not that good…). Concert band brought me new friends and new goals. The second week of school I ventured into the band room, flute in hand. A short, curly haired man was sitting at a desk with a Mac computer, typing in names as the horde of students around him asked to join the concert band. I joined the mob of kids and waited. Finally, it was my turn. “Hi, I’m Heather and I’d like to audition on flute,” I stumbled over my words. As soon as I said “audition”, the curly haired man’s eyebrows rose. “Okay,” he shrugged and shouted to the office door, “Hey, Perillo! Can you listen to an audition, I’m kind of busy here.” A larger man with blonde hair appeared out of the band room office, his eyebrows rising at the mention of an audition as well. “Uh, sure…” he said and waved me over as he walked towards a room full of music stands. “Okay, what do you got?” he asked. “I was going to play ‘London Bridge’,” I said, looking up expectantly. Mr. Perillo nodded. I began to play with meager enthusiasm because, all of a sudden, it hit me that for middle school concert band, you did not have to try out. Whoops. Anyway, I finished playing and Mr. Perillo said, “Alright, that was pretty good. You’ll be in regular Concert Band; it meets at 7:15 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Give your name to Mr. Fossa out there and he’ll sign you up.” He led me out of the room. Band. I never would have thought it would be so much fun, getting up early every morning to catch a bus at 6:55. I learned even more about music than I had taking piano lessons. More life lessons too because the Concert Band director, Mr. Fossa was always inclined to be a bit philosophical in an effort to get the band members to practice more. He could always make us laugh. In seventh grade, I continued with band, and I improved infinitely. I was able to play longer pieces and make them sound beautiful, something I could never figure out how to accomplish on the piano. It was my second year of flute and I had moved from third flute, to first. My skills had become adept in just two years. // Next was the flute, // // With its flitters and flutters, // // Its silvery keys, // // Nearly brought me to my knees. // After a while though, the flute sounded so metallic and plain to me that I thought seriously about quitting band. It held no more joy for me to play. The thrill of a new instrument had gone and I searched for something else to play. My friend had taken up trombone that year and it seemed pretty interesting. She even let me have a go on her trombone once. It was pretty fun to slide from note to note, but I was used to keys and so I decided trombone was better off as my friend’s instrument, and not mine. One band rehearsal, there was a boy seated in the middle of the first row. There was a strange looking instrument in his hands. It almost looked like a clarinet, but not exactly. The keys were in all of the wrong places and it didn’t have any open holes, like a clarinet. It instead had blunter keys, and fewer of them. Its’ bell, the bottom part, was more rounded then that of a clarinet’s as well. The boy also had this funny thing in his mouth which he later stuck into the top of the instrument and blew into it. The instrument had the most, let’s say…//interesting// sound. I had never heard anything like it and it sounded like neither the flute nor the clarinet. It sounded more like a squawking goose. I had fallen in love. This instrument was completely original and screamed who I wanted to be. I couldn’t believe I was stuck playing a flute when I could be playing an //amazing// instrument like that. Except I didn’t know what it was called… So I ventured to the band director’s office one afternoon in search of the instrument’s name and how I might be able to play one in the band. “Hey, Mr. Fossa? What’s that instrument that the guy in the middle of the front flute row plays?” I asked. “Oh, Evan? Yeah, he plays the oboe,” Mr. Fossa explained. “Wow, that’s really cool, is there any way that I could play oboe next year?” I prayed the answer would be yes. He looked surprised. “That would be great! Sure, next year, come to us and we’ll get you set up with an oboe. You’d be in both Concert Band and Wind Symphony, because, well the band needs oboes,” Mr. Fossa explained. “Cool! That would be awesome! Thanks Mr. Fossa!” I was so excited that I would be able to play the oboe. It sounded so different, so original, that I knew it was for me. // And finally the oboe, // // In its’ black and wooden sheen, // // Its random noises, // // Could describe me in a single sound. // Ah, the oboe. Throughout eighth grade I played the oboe, in both Concert Band and Wind Symphony, as Mr. Fossa promised. It felt so right to be playing an instrument that not many people could play. I felt special that I was one of those few. The oboe stood out from the rest of the band. You could hear its’ caterwauling a mile away. Spring Concert 2007: the night of my first band solo ever, including flute. I was so nervous. I couldn’t believe it was my time to shine. Finally, after six years of not being able to adequately express myself through music, I had arrived. I worked tremendously on my solo, trying to make it the best it could be. On concert night, my solo had feeling and fluidity, something I could not recreate on piano or flute. It could only work on the oboe. After that night I was excited to dig into the world of oboe in more depth and see what opportunities it held for me. That summer, I was enrolled in oboe lessons to expand my abilities for freshmen year. According to my oboe teacher, I was pretty bad. But that did not dampen my spirits! I kept practicing and was soon a much better oboist. My oboe teacher, Ms. Bohl, is the best oboist in the world. She brought me into the light about being an oboist. Mostly how to really express yourself through the music you produce: it’s not just the oboe. //It’s not just the oboe//. The music has to be within your self. It has to flow and have an original sound. Your heart and soul has to be poured into it. The music on the page cannot just “be played.” It has to have some meaning. “You have to breathe with the music,” Ms. Bohl always said, “You have to make it your own.” Next challenge was the Wind Ensemble audition. The piece was not that hard but making the judges like it was going to be a trip. Ms. Bohl helped me with learning the piece but she said that I would have to bring it to life. She knew I could do it, but I was not so sure. How could I be judged on what I could do? What I could be? Whether or not the music is played well, is that what we’re really judged on? Nerves racked my body the day of the audition. I was determined to show the judges that I was not just going to “play” the piece of music and get it over with. I was going to turn it upside down and make sure it was the best they had heard in their possibly 70 or more years of age. I wanted it completely original to make sure that they had not heard all of the ups and downs of this piece in the way that I was going to perform it for them. I knew who I was and they were going to find out. The world was going to know that I had found my voice. // Who am I? // // Not the panicking pianist, // // Not the fumbling flautist, // // But the on-key oboist. //