Emerging from Quarantine

Mid-March hit, like a ton of bricks. Like many people, my priorities shifted overnight. The first few weeks were absorbed with creating online teaching content, reaching out to students who were AWOL, and hatching a game plan to tend to the needs of my two children, ages eight and sixteen. There was no time and certainly no energy to practice the piano, or think about my blog, or nudge along any of the handful of creative projects I’ve had simmering on back burners.

As the weeks marched along, I found it hard to look at the Steinway in my living room without a deepening sense of despair. So many activities need to take place in that room—my own teaching, my son’s piano lessons, my daughter’s cello practice. The quiet state of mind required to practice felt entirely out of reach. I was saved, somewhat, by my daughter’s desire to devote her extra free time to her cello, which meant she required my services as her pianist. We started work together on her first Beethoven sonata, the A major. It is hard to think of a piece of music more straightforwardly joyful. It buoyed me, as did the astonishment I increasingly felt as I communicated in music with my own child. Her artistry seems to fit me like a glove; our communication easy, clear, uncluttered, full of mutual love and understanding. This is astonishing in part because outside of music, my daughter is prickly, serious, terse in her communication, and refuses to engage in conversation that is not essential (the question “how was your day?” can send her into hysterics. Ask her a smart question about politics or quantum mechanics and she will talk your ear off).

The Beethoven sonata with my daughter led me to my bookshelf, where I found Schubert and Mozart. Solo repertoire, which I haven’t played in years, seems to capture the solitary feeling of this moment. It is allowing me to dip my toes in some music without confronting the looming questions: what is collaboration really, and how do we nurture it, practice it, teach it in a time when we cannot share close physical proximity? Combining separately recorded tracks, or working in separate spaces might facilitate some individual music making, but is this really collaborating? Collaboration is about exchange of energy. It is trust, openness, generosity, empathy. When we make music together, where is the music exactly? It emanates from a singer’s body, and from a pianist’s own in connection to their instrument. Do our musics intertwine, do they dance together? Where is the listener in this dance?

Many of my former students have reached out to me in the past few months. They have expressed worry about their livelihoods, both short-term financial worries, and also anxiety that their work as musical collaborators will be replaced in the long-term by recorded tracks. I feel confident as I assure them that no one will enjoy rehearsing with a machine, and the experience will only draw attention to all the ways that live collaboration with a skilled pianist is better. I am convinced that our musical partners will be overjoyed to return to our studios and practice rooms once the pandemic is over. We just have to find ways to sustain ourselves until then.