For a road trip I’m taking across the States with a few nature hikes thrown in – during which I’ll still need to practice – I’ve ordered a battery-operated electric violin. I thought it would be more indestructible than a handmade instrument while still giving me something of the right dimensions to practice on and help me keep up my strength. The package arrived in the mail today. It weighed almost nothing. The violin came in its own structured cardboard box within the shipping box, while the (wooden) bridge was in a Ziploc baggie. The carbon-fiber bow I ordered as an extra came in nothing more substantial than a little plastic sleeve that floated loose in the packing material.
We’ll see how the whole thing works in due course. It’s all part of a grand ongoing experiment I’m conducting to see what I can do to stay in shape and preserve my classical violins and go out and commune with nature and maintain my practice levels. No one else will be able to hear me, but at least I’ll be playing.
My 2011-12 concert season has officially started. It’s back to the proverbial grindstone for me, although my work is hardly tedious. I’m now on a train I almost didn’t make. Wind screams through a door, bells clank, and I can hear the wheels hitting the joints in the rails. I have plenty of time and I’ve built a practice buffer zone into my itinerary. I’m on my way to NPR (National Public Radio) to record a concert to be broadcast at the time of the release of my next album: the four sonatas for violin and piano by Charles Ives. Modern- day transport noises are layering over thoughts of the music I’ll be performing in a few hours. Bach, of course, plus snippets of American folk melodies that show up in the secular-seeming Ives sonatas, such as, ‘Shall we gather at the river’, ‘Jesus loves me’, ‘Battle cry of freedom’ and ‘Come thou fount of every blessing’. I kind of enjoy this part of an album’s life, when it hasn’t yet been released but there’s little more I can do to help the recording itself: I get to talk about the pieces in a low-pressure way and I’m also looking into the unknown.
I’ve been thinking about how people listen. I think the context must be influential: the music that one grew up hearing, what the familiar patterns are, what inflections are pleasant to each person’s ears and how much ownership they feel over what they’re listening to. Yesterday, I wound up playing a command performance for a group of Afghani visitors to the United States; they’re part of a think-tank on tour to various cities. We were all in the same place at the same time and when I was introduced they asked me to play something for them. Thinking this circumstance may never recur, I gave a performance right there in the hallway – two movements of Bach. They seemed really to enjoy it. I’m curious about what they listened for – not because they’re from another country, but because they’re different from me. One of them, I know, is studying an instrument back home. Was this combination of sounds new? Did it bring back fond memories? Was this music logical or mysterious?
Most of the time, I experience music as a musician. Out of sheer interest, I can’t help but dissect what I hear: the performance, the piece, the delivery. It’s the auto mode my mind goes into. Occasionally, though, when I’ve been on vacation for long enough, I can hear sound as sensation instead of notes. The first time was two years ago, when I turned on the car radio while running errands at the end of a lengthy break from touring. It was a revelation. Magic.
by Hilary Hahn for Gramophone Magazine
