Breaking the Sound Barrier

Another creative nonfiction piece, this one a bit more positive than the last that focuses on my sister, Kristen. I hope you enjoy it.

 

            Music privileges us with a special insight on how the world operates.  Our world is governed with rhythm and balance.  Every decision we make has a suitable reaction, and every word we speak carries consequences, both positive and negative.  This is the case as well with music.  There’s always a main melody with underlying themes, like a countermelody that attempts to go against the flow.  That one individual at a party who stands out to create problems, and the one individual who stands up to sooth the problems out.  The base drum isn’t just haphazardly nicknamed the band’s heartbeat.  What stands out the most to me is communication.  In order for an ensemble to function, each member has to be alert and in perfect synchronization with the director and their fellow musicians.  Communication is done through eyes, ears, and hand and finger motions.  It’s a mystical process that I couldn’t comprehend without firsthand experience in symphonies and wind ensembles.  The amazing thing about it, however, is that it doesn’t take experience in the musical world to understand how evocative the art is.  Everyone is affected by it, in all manners of ways, shapes and forms.

*          *          *

Citan Uzuki, a character from the Playstation video game “Xenogears” once said, “"Music is a mysterious thing... Sometimes, it makes people remember things that they do not expect.  Many thoughts, feelings, memories... things almost forgotten... Regardless of whether the listener desires to remember them or not..."  While this statement has remained true for everything in my life, it I’ve never felt its significance like I do when I’m with Kristen.

Out of everything that separates my sister Kristen and I, the greatest barrier has been communication.  She had the misfortune of being born three months premature, leading to numerous complications.  There are still various traits that she and I share, despite the differences in our ability to function.  She has Hello Kitty sneakers, where my Hello Kitty collection is comprised of charms on my cell phone and accessories in my bedroom.  She smiles and giggles the most in the presence, of all people, my boyfriend, Chris.  Her sight is poor, but she can distinguish through voices and sounds.  It is through this that she appears to identify us as individuals, where she can differentiate between Chris, my dad or myself talking to her.

            It never bothered me to have a sister living in such difficult conditions.  She’s five years and one month older than me, so I’ve never known her any differently than she is now.  When I was a little, visiting her was exciting.  Back when my family and I lived in the northeast, she was housed in New Hampshire.  Every weekend, clowns would be present at the home, making balloon animals and doing face-paints.  Once she turned eighteen, legalities forced her to relocate and since my family had already settled in San Diego, it seemed best to bring her out with us.  The household was already running in full capacity amidst mine and my brothers’ activities with music ensembles, work, and the Japanese animation club events, so she was sent to live in yet another state home—one that could offer her more attention and care than we could ever hope to. 

There weren’t any clowns at this new place, but I had grown up considerably since those days and recognized something of much greater value.  In the main dining hall, where the staff held holiday parties and special gatherings, was an old upright piano.  Its brown paint had chipped over the years, and the C sharp key in the middle octave was gone, leaving a depression that made me stumble whenever I reached for it.  Music has deep roots in my family, going all the way back to my grandfather on my dad’s side who has his own miniature recording studio on his property.  My dad and I would always try to put duets together, but as we played, I would have doubts of my own skill and my playing would falter.  I’m not sure if it was pressure or the fact that he was considerably more advanced.  My oldest brother, Matt, was someone I was always comfortable playing around.  Piano was my specialty and alto saxophone was his.  It was our pleasure to compose and arrange duets to play for each party at her home we were invited to.  I was twelve and had a passion for music, but my empathy for human compassion was far from developed.  For me, it was a moment in the spotlight.  How Kristen perceived it was beyond me, but every time I was invited to come over and play for another event, I did so without hesitation, with Matt at my side as my saxophone accompanist.

*          *          *

            “What’s amazing about music is that you can sit down with anyone from anywhere in the world,” Terrance Cooper, the high school wind ensemble assistant director, said as I sat upon the edge of my chair, oboe held firmly in my lap.  “So long as you can read notes, you don’t have to be able to speak the same language.  The music will flow freely.  It is its own language.”

            I recall Terrance’s words eagerly as I enter the music room for my first rehearsal at University of California, Irvine.  Stephen Tucker is my new director.  His background of accomplishments includes rescuing the symphony from demise and bringing it into one of fame and respect from the entire Orange County community.  I’m only playing second oboe.  Its bittersweet to be forced into second chair after all the memories I carry from being my high school’s main, but I know that Tucker has a reason for everything, so there must be a good reason for why he gave this other woman first chair.

            She doesn’t look at me as I sit down, but like most of the student body at UCI, she is Asian.  Her hair is dyed an unnatural reddish brown for her complexion and eyes, skin, and face carry the lines of aging.  There is a bandage on her right thumb; an indication of too much time in the practice room.  As I sit down and remove my brand new Howarth oboe, hand-carved, painted and constructed and accompanied by a price tag that nearly made my dad choke, I try to appear just as silent and confident as her.  It doesn’t take long before I notice everyone taking out music and organizing it on their stands.  Music I don’t have.  Nervously, I bend over and whisper to her, “Where am I supposed to get my music from?”

            In a heavy Chinese accent, she tells me, “I have extra parts for you.  You are?”

            “Crystal,” I reply with a reed pressed between my lips and my hands fumbling with a container of cork grease.  Its scent is potent and always reminds me of concert halls, because that’s where I’m so nervous I find myself putting on more cork grease than need be.

“I’m Yali,” she says and shakes my hand.  I can’t quite make out that first letter with her heavy, stunted articulation.  Was that a ‘V’ or… a ‘Y’?  I don’t want to appear stupid, and my idea of stupidity as a freshman in college is to constantly ask questions.  I accept the music she hands to me and I organize it just in time for Tucker to approach the podium and lift the baton.  As we begin to play scales, I struggle to remember all that Tucker has told me about Yali.  She came from China but has a history of playing with ensembles in Germany and England before she decided to pursue her masters in music.  English is probably only one of many languages that she speaks, but when it comes to her and her oboe, all spoken dialects crumple in wake of what emerges from her instrument.  Sound that is as powerful and impacting as it is pleasurable to the human ears. 

An oboe played poorly creates a raucous, bitter edge that can be painful to the listener.  I’ve long since passed those days, but my goal is far ahead of me—to play like Yali.  With Yali, the oboe is an extension of her being.  The vibrato and crescendos, the style and emotion she puts into her playing, act as a mirror to what’s going through her mind.  I’ve heard the term that music is an expression of oneself.  Yali is the first to define that for me.  Although we talk rarely throughout the practices, I depart from the school year feeling as if her and I have truly come to understand one another.  Our playing always captures how we feel.  When we’re nervous, the tone is muddled, stifled.  When we’re sad, it comes out in our breathing and our play style.  When she plays, nothing else in the world exists but Yali and the instrument.  Even long after I transferred away to Oakland University, I could close my eyes and hear Yali express herself.  I’d sit like that and listen until the world could fall in on top of me and nothing would matter but the sound of her music relaying the sincerity of her soul.

*          *          *

            ‘Band geeks’ is a term meant to encompass all of us who spend more hours each week in our high school music room than we do in our own homes.  We share everything, from coats to colds, friends and romances, and the bulk of our memories and experiences as teenagers.  We share personalities, travel experiences, dreams, wishes, and tears, because it’s impossible to live so closely with a group of people and not experience all those emotions at one time or another.  Some of these friendships are lost over something as meager as the other one getting the solo or first chair, but those people aren’t with us for long.  To be a musician, you have to be confident enough to put yourself on display and not care what people think or feel towards you.  You have to be willing to express yourself and let people look deeply into your eyes, listen to the sound of your music and know what’s happening in your life.  It’s not for the faint of heart, and those that are shallow enough to try to achieve pure glory without shame or struggle on the experience—a label to something that can’t be restrained enough to have one—never last.

            Erica is one of the people I let grow closest to my heart.  We have the powerful experience of sharing duets together, her on flute and me on oboe.  We have to have perfect synchronization and communication with one another or the music will collapse and bring the entire ensemble down with us.  Come summertime, our favorite pastime is to go to the ocean and sprawl upon the beach with our notebooks so we can brainstorm and discuss story ideas.  We tend to arrive midday, mid week.  The sand is almost vacant, save for a few pieces of trash and seaweed that wash up on shore.  When the sky is clear of the coastal haze, my vision plays tricks on me.  I feel my sight is limitless, but I have to remind myself that the horizon must end somewhere, because there are other countries, whole other cultures and societies on the other side of the Pacific that I can’t see from here.  Is anyone standing on the other coast, staring back and wondering about us?  It’s hard to imagine other lives outside of mine and Erica’s, but I wonder if anyone else has the same connection that we do, and if they appreciate its importance.

            The sun will set in a few hours and I have an appointment that night to pick someone up at the airport, but I’m not in a hurry to leave.  As years pass us by, Erica and I find it more and more difficult to shrug off responsibilities and have time just for each other.  As I gaze into the endless illusion of the horizon, my eyes glide over the tips of waves and swells.  They rise and fall in a continuous, circular pattern.  The smaller ripples are quickly engulfed by the more grandiose waves, but their presence still adds to the whole.  Is that what it’s like to play harmony?  I’ve always been a wave—the main melody or soloist whose voice is heard primarily above all others, but I still have awareness for the voices beneath me.  Without the contribution of the other instruments, my melody would be meaningless.            

As Erica and I rest upon our towels, watching the waves rise and fall, I become aware of the tide.  It’s coming closer to us, part of a cycle that is under the control of yet another authority greater than it.  Erica looks at her watch and at me hesitantly but says nothing.  I can read her thoughts and realize it’s time to go, so I speak up, “Why don’t we walk to the pier and get something to eat before we leave?”

            We pack up our towels and notebooks and make our way towards the pier across hot sand.  Our feet are mostly protected by sandals, but grains still scramble under our skin and toes.  I have never been able to judge what the perfect amount of time at the beach is—by perfect, I mean how long you can be there to enjoy yourself, do everything you intend to, and make it home before getting sunburned.  I chuckle, thinking that it doesn’t exist.  I also chuckle because as I look out over the waves, I can’t help but wonder at who is directing them.  Never mind Terrance Cooper, or our other directors—I like to think that God is the greatest musical conductor of all.

*          *          *

            Many years have passed before I return to visit Kristen.  My brothers moved out on their own without taking the time to say goodbye and my mother moved away to New Hampshire with only a quick visit, but has never once sent a card.  It’s not in my position to psychoanalyze her, because I have no concept or comparison to how the situation with Kristen could have affected her, but it’s in my nature to try.  Matt lost touch with music.  My other brother, Justin, hardly ever played to begin with and certainly didn’t take his lessons seriously.  I don’t know how much of this is left up to coincidence, but it was those three that couldn’t break the communication barrier with Kristen.

            From what I can remember, my last visit with Kristen happened when I was in high school.  Now, I can’t help but feel awkward in her presence.  What has seemed like a lifetime of events has happened when the two of us were apart.  I’m entering my senior year of college.  I’ve transferred schools across the country.  I’m no longer the kind of person content to sit and absorb the spotlight.  I feel like everything I do, everything I say has to contribute to something.  As my dad and I take her out into the blistering Southern California sun, we present her to two special visitors—my boyfriend, Chris, and his mother, Pamela.  Kristen smiles in a way that I’ve never seen from her as Chris walks alongside her and talks to her.  Feeling out of place, I know I should get out of the shadows and do or say something, but what?  Why is it that Chris is having so much of an easier time talking to my own sister than me?

            We approach a park at the top of the hill by the home.  My dad is pushing her wheelchair and Chris is clutching one of the sides to help him along when he speaks up, “What is it that she likes so much about the shade?”

            Finally, I remember the sensory details, how poor her vision is and her inability to vocally communicate with us.  Voices.  Any distinguishing sound.  She can hear someone’s emotions and attitude through their tone.  Chris is an expert at speaking softly and soothingly to those who need to hear it the most.  I approach her on the other side of her wheelchair and let her feel my hand.  Because I know touch isn’t enough to create a perception of me, I start speaking softly.  The more relaxed I become, the more it prevails in my voice and, in turn, relaxes her.  Chris has to take this time to point out the Hello Kitty shoes.

            “You two really are sisters,” he laughs.  Kristen laughs as well, just from the pleasantry in his voice.

            We get her back to the home and it’s almost time for her dinner, but my dad is slow to give her up.  He takes her to the courtyard out back, but we only stay for a few minutes because the heat is making her irritable.  I can understand why.  Even under the shade, I feel like I’m being baked alive.  We visit her room to see how the staff has decorated it, but I can tell that she’s too antsy to return just yet.  Finally, my dad’s the one who turns to me and says, “Do you remember where they keep the piano?”

            A wicked smile flitters across my face as I guide him through the numerous halls.  I only make a wrong turn once—pretty good for being away for seven years, or so I’d think—and find the room, which is active with residents busy having dinner.  My dad leaves Kristen with the rest of us for just a moment at the door as he approaches the woman overseeing everyone and whispers something in her ear.  She nods and he throws the thumbs up at me.  I sit down at the piano and at first play a slow, soft song for the sake of warming up my fingers.  I can see that no one is in the mood for delicate music, and my dad asks for something lively.  My favorite piano song to play is “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saens.  It’s a lively song with a ghastly, haunting melody full of numerous chances for technical chaos with the runs, octaves and key changes.  It runs twelve pages of sheet music, all of it memorized in my head from playing it at least a few hundred times, which is a good thing because after all the time I’ve spent practicing it in the past, the sheets are ready to fall out of my book.  As I begin to play the first eerie chord of the song and the left hand rises in a consistent crescendo, my dad takes Kristen out to the center of the room and begins to slowly move her in a circle.  The introduction quickly fades into a dark but fast and lively melody as my dad gently lifts the front of her wheelchair into the air and gives her a smooth spin.  I can’t risk looking away from the piano too often due to the chip in the C sharp key, but every time I do, I can a powerful image out of the corner of my eye—a dance between two people who don’t care if the walls around them are the elegant gold and pillars of a ballroom or white chipped paint of an old dining hall.

*          *          *

            Some people claim they carry the ghosts of their pasts wherever they go.  Maybe it’s because my perspective on the world isn’t that bleak, but I prefer to think that everywhere I go, I hear my countermelodies—Kristen and my old days of high school.  My experiences with Yali in the UCI symphony.  Setting goals and coming to understand what those goals mean.  Everything else pales in comparison to what it’s like to know someone else is sensing my emotions, peering into my heart.  To me, music is a more powerful form of communication than speech will ever be.  Speech is restricted by geographical borders and by mental capacity; it’s restricted because of how many forms of dialect there are, and how no one person can master them all.  Music does not change.  It is a universal entity, and regardless of if you know how to speak or read sheet music, you can still feel the emotion and purpose driving both it, the composer and the player.

            The greatest decision of my life has been to leave the Oakland University ensemble, and not because I fear of collecting dust on my beautiful Howarth oboe whose cost that my mom still reminds me of.  I fear limiting myself to what I might feel and share with others.  I cannot work without music in the background because every song carries a stigma, a memory, a countermelody that has shaped my life.  I’m a firm believer in Citan Uzuki’s quote on music because I’m reminded every day of my past in one way or another.  I can never play Danse Macabre without remembering my visit to Kristen.  My goal is to perfect it and one day, when I have the money, to make another visit to my dad in Southern California.  This time, I’ll perfect it because music is contagious and I don’t want them to adhere to my emotion of frustration for stumbling over a broken C sharp key.  I want my dad and Kristen to adhere to the emotion of pride and enthusiasm of being able to share yourself openly with complete strangers, and emerge knowing that I’m better as a person for having done so.