The Late Starters Orchestra (20 page)

PART SIX

The Beauty of an Open String

R

What we play is life.

—LOUIS ARMSTRONG

I
didn't even want to touch my own cello, Bill, the battered one Mr. J sold me thirty-three years earlier. Late one night, I got out of bed, took Bill out of its case, and looked at it in disgust. “You've done nothing but frustrate me all these years,” I said angrily. “I hate you. I can never play you. I'm no cellist. I'm no musician. Who was I kidding?”

And, then, the cello answered me. Or maybe it was Mr. J.

Open strings.

What about open strings?
I asked.

Play open strings.

Open strings, the simple act of running one's bow across each string to get the four unadorned notes of the cello, A, D, G, C—each one a perfect fifth from the one before and after it—is arguably the easiest note progression one can play on a cello. Or the hardest. Sort of like breathing. You can inhale or exhale without a thought or you can be totally mindful of every breath.

Play open strings.

Play now? In the middle of the night? I'll wake up the whole house. I'll wake up the whole building.

Just play open strings. And, I promise you, for now, only you and I will hear it.

I grabbed Bill, sat down, and began to play. Open strings.

Now remember. On each string there is a spot, a sweet spot, where you draw the most sound. Find it. Find it and stay with it. Now close your eyes. And bow.

I played open strings. A, D, G, C. A, D, G, C. A, D, G, C.

Again. Again. Again. Again.

Th
at's beautiful. You have to think of open strings not as a series of notes, but as a song, as music. You are playing beautiful music.

I spent the better part of an hour finding the right spot, the sweet spot, and playing open strings.

Okay, Ari, enough for now. Go to sleep. But I want you to play open strings again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Nothing else.

And what do I play at my party?
I asked.
Open strings?

Maybe. But we don't have to worry about that now.

I played open strings every day. But not only when I had the cello in my arms. I played open strings in my mind when I took the subway. I played open strings when I shopped for groceries. I played open strings when I walked the dogs. I played open strings when I taught my classes the next day. Open Strings, I was learning, was a state of mind, a continuous line of music that allowed for a serenity and calmness. Like water lapping at the shore. Like the paintbrush in the hands of an artist. Even if my hands were in my pockets, I could feel the bow moving across the string and hear its sonorous melody.

A few afternoons later, I was home playing open strings when I heard Mr. J again.

Now try the Bach.

I began to put my sheet music on my music stand.

No sheet music. Just play.

“The Bach” was Minuet no. 3, the piece that I failed to play at the concert at SummerKeys. I hadn't even tried to play it since. It's a simple melody and comes in two parts, one major and one minor. I played the first part from memory, and it never sounded better. I got lost in the minor part, but Mr. J didn't seem concerned.

Ask Judah to help you. He'll play along and you won't get lost.

I hadn't planned on asking Judah. The point was that I was going to play myself and prove to everyone, most of all myself, that I was a musician. But playing with him seemed right to me. Musicians play with musicians. Judah would lift my game.

Okay,
I said,
that's one song. What else?

What else would you like to do?

I reached for the sheet music but Mr. J again stopped me.

What else can you do without music?

Come on, Mr. J, I can barely do something
with
music.

How about “Mimkomcha”?

It was the song that I sang at my bar mitzvah. The song that the composer Shlomo Carlebach was going to tell Bach about in heaven.

I bet I can do that,
I said.

One more thing. You told Bill you hated him.
Th
at was good. Very good. In order to play cello, you must be able to say “I hate you” or “I love you” with complete honesty. Once you care that deeply, you can play “Mimkomcha” and anything else you desire. You've learned that music is more than notes and rhythms and strings. Music is emotion.

Now play, Ari. You don't need Judah. And you don't need me.

I told Mr. J that I loved him. And, suddenly, I felt that he had gone away, forever. And I was alone with my cello.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

A friend of ours who works in publishing offered us a reception room high above Manhattan for my party. It was an open, airy, and flexible space and there were some decisions that had to be made.

I wanted classical music in the background, but Shira thought rock was a better choice to put the crowd at ease. I wanted the lights on bright so I could see people; she said dimming them would create a more festive mood. I wanted lox and bagels but she ordered Mediterranean. Though our styles often clash, I have learned to defer to her on all things partyish.

On that pleasant fall Tuesday night, September 22, nearly one hundred people gathered. The invitation promised cocktails, food, and a cello presentation called “From Bach to Carlebach.” As the room filled with family and friends, I drank in the sight of my party with a large measure of relief. I am not a relaxed host and yet it was impossible to ignore the fact that people were having fun. They were eating pita, olives, hummus, and falafel balls as Elton John, the Talking Heads, and the Rolling Stones—Shira's selections—played in the background. There were people from every corner of my life—from my Uncle Norman, the chancellor of Yeshiva University, to some of the mischievous young children of friends from Rosmarins, our summer bungalow colony in the Catskills. Some of my former newspaper buddies were there, as were several university colleagues. A number of my former students showed up. Editors who've worked on my books came, as did friends from my synagogue and the Bruderhof, the Christian community in upstate New York that provided us with live-in nannies and impromptu music lessons when our children were young. Noah arrived with his cello and so did some of my pals from LSO. Our Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch friends came, too, so the fashions ranged from black hats, long skirts, and kerchiefs to bare heads, shorts, and miniskirts.

I dressed in a tuxedo jacket and wore my favorite paisley bow tie. I topped off my ensemble with my black knit yarmulke. I don't always wear a yarmulke. I don't wear one at work or while teaching, but I do wear one at home, in synagogue, and at family and Jewish community events. It is a statement of who I am. And this was one of those occasions to declare who I am; I don't think I took anyone by surprise.

Indeed I was barely conscious of what was on my head as I happily drifted through the party. People were eating, laughing, schmoozing, and drinking. It was wonderful to see the many parts of my life come together in one place. After a short while, Shira quieted the crowd and welcomed everyone. She made a sweet toast and then opened the floor for others to follow suit. A high point was when my daughter, Emma, took the mike. Emma proceeded to reminisce about how, when she was little, she had so many things rumbling around her mind that she often had trouble falling asleep.

“My dad would come into my room, sit on my bed, and sing me folk songs,” she recalled. “He sang ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane' and ‘Kisses Sweeter Than Wine' and ‘Long Black Veil.' But my favorite was ‘Brown Eyes.' At least that is what Dad
told me
it was called. It wasn't until years later that I found out the song was called ‘I Still Miss Someone.' And it was about a sweetheart with blue eyes, not brown. I have brown eyes so he changed the song for me.”

Turning to me with a shy smile, Emma sang:

Though I never got over those brown eyes

I see them everywhere

My dad he would rewrite folk songs

And kiss away all my tears

Emma's voice was pure, sweet, and strong, reminding me of my long-ago lost boyhood voice. She took the song I first heard from Joan Baez and reinvented it. The years fell away. I saw myself sitting on the edge of my little girl's bed, holding her hand, offering comfort in the best way I knew how—through song. Now a beautiful young woman, my daughter was singing to me, helping me on a journey to a new phase of life. I savored the magic of the moment, realizing that what I had given her had come back to me in ways well beyond my imagining.

Then it was my turn. Looking around the room, I realized that my web of relationships was built on familial bonds, friendship, music, work, and my religious life. People knew me as a teacher, colleague, friend, and fellow congregant. Almost no one there, though, knew me as a musician. The time had come to discover if I really was one. I was not nervous. I believed in my open strings.

“Over the last sixty years,” I began, “I've used words, millions of words, in books, articles, lectures, and countless conversations. But some things cannot be expressed in words alone. Words cannot express my thanks to all of you for coming tonight. Words cannot express my love for Shira, who has stood by me—and put up with me and my music—for all these years. Neither can words express what a blessing my children are. The mere thought of them fills me with joy, amazement, and pride. As my beloved cello teacher Mr. J used to say, ‘When words leave off, music begins.' So tonight I want to express myself in music.

“Forty-seven years ago, at my bar mitzvah, I could sing ‘Mimkomcha' by the great Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Like Emma, I hit all the high notes back then. I can no longer sing it—my voice isn't what is used to be—but I can play it on the cello. I can, so I will. I also want to play Minuet no. 3 by J. S. Bach, but I cannot play it alone. So I have asked my son Judah to help me on cello and our friend Jay to join us on keyboard.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, my birthday program, ‘From Bach to Carlebach.' ”

Judah and I took our seats and tuned our cellos. I took a few extra moments to run through my open strings. Then we nodded to Jay at the keyboard and the Bach began. Minuet no. 3 is one of the most famous Bach pieces, and while I can't easily create it here on the page, it's a dance that you've heard a hundred times on the radio or in an old movie. It's the quintessential minuet and goes like this:

More than a song, our performance was a musical conversation, first among Judah, Jay, and me, and then among all these friends in the room. I noticed more than a few people quietly humming along.

I played expertly through the “major” opening section but then I lost my way—as I feared I would—during the “minor” section. But Mr. J was prescient in suggesting that I enlist Judah's help. While I sat out the minor part, Judah and Jay soldiered on without me. Luckily, the piece ends on a repetition of the major so I don't think anyone noticed my momentary lapses. Not from the sound of the applause, anyway.

With the Bach properly dispatched, Judah and Jay left the stage and I was alone with my cello. I took a deep breath and played “Mimkomcha,” without sheet music and entirely from memory, with all of its over-the-top beauty, longing, and emotion. Again, Mr. J was right. This one I could do alone, without him and without Judah. Here's a taste of “Mimkomcha”:

As I pulled the bow across the strings, I could feel the “soul” of the cello emerge and connect with my soul. For a moment I was taken back to my bar mitzvah, singing with all my heart. My mother was there; my father was there; together, if only for a moment. Mr. J was there. Rabbi Carlebach was there, too, and I even think I saw Bach hovering about after listening to us playing his minuet. I found my rhythm. I found acceptance in the faces watching me. I found a sense of wholeness and joy in the moment as family, friends, music, and memory merged. It took sixty years to get there, even longer than the forty years the Israelites wandered through the desert. But the journey was worth it. I had reached my musical promised land.