Badly played music

I hate badly played music.

I always feel that I should help out in camp. But I always don't want to. Every year I make myself do it, and every year I enjoy myself some of the time, and wonder why I do it the other times. This year was better. I still worked full-time, and just helped out with camp in the afternoons and evenings. But this year, I might have figured out why I'm not fond of camp. It has to do with badly played music.

We only had one other violist this year, so it was her and I for most of the orchestra practices. She was really shy, but towards the end of the week I had her talking with the best of them. We worked on some fingerings and bowings to help her play the music better, and she was attentive, nodded her head, told me she loved to shift, and then immediately went back to her open strings. At least I tried. My chamber group was definitely the most advanced, which was nice. I got to run 2 of the practices, which was also good. But there were severe weaknesses in the areas of counting, intonation, and counting correctly. We managed to get through both performances without stopping which was a relief for all of us.

But, believe it or not, that is not the point of this post.

We all came home yesterday after the concert and the obligatory lunch, and broke off to do our own things. But around 6:45, when we were all back together we started to discuss what we should play in church this Sunday morning. We quickly came to a decision, went downstairs, grabbed dad, and played through the song 2 times.
It was such a relief, the counting was right, the musical expression was right, the intonation was right, the music was well-played. Now please don't misunderstand me, there were mistakes, but everyone knew it was wrong, and the people fixed them.

Hearing the music back to back, was such a revelation. I understood why I was always annoyed with camp. I understood why I enjoyed playing with my family so much. It's because it wasn't badly played music. It was music. Real music. (Don't misunderstand here either, I understand that we have played together our whole lives, and the campers just had a week. I'm not blaming them, I'm really not.)

When we put our instruments away, us 4 younger kids went upstairs to watch the Olympics. And RuthAnn put it the best way, she walked in the room and said, "I just want you guys to know, you're my favorite group to play with." We all agreed and then turned our attention to mens gymnastics.

It's good to be a part of music.