PART I
Departures
We live in a nation whose every other impulse is theatrical, but whose every other impulse is to insist upon “authenticity.”
—Richard Rodriguez,
Brown: The Last Discovery of America
How to Become a Famous Violinist
The space between a violin’s fingerboard and its bridge is about an inch wide. If a bead of sweat from the right hand causes the bow to slip a millimeter to the right or left, the horsehair will crash against the bridge or screech across the fingerboard. The left hand navigates an even narrower plank, approaching the fingerboard at an unnatural angle, with no spatial clues to guide fingers into their correct positions. Pianos, winds, percussion—they have keys waiting to be hit. But to produce a pure sound on a violin is to search for it in a haystack of squeaks, scratches, and sour notes.
Violinists perform with a ferocious physicality that’s easy to mock: bow hairs break, brows furrow, torsos and legs contort into bizarre poses. Some violinists, like Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, talk to the instrument as they play. Others, like Joshua Bell, slash the instrument as if in battle. Still others seduce it, their fingers encircling, caressing the instrument’s neck. Regardless of the approach, the violinist must hurry each note through a narrow keyhole of time; sustaining sound is a race against the finite length of the bow.
Many people believe there is only one path to becoming a famous violinist. I am here to report that there are actually two.
WAYS TO BECOME A FAMOUS VIOLINIST: A COMPREHENSIVE LIST
By: Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, Famous Violinist
Option #1: Be born with prodigious musical talent in or near a city with an excellent music conservatory, such as New York or Moscow or London. Begin lessons early and develop your gift by practicing the violin for at least two to four hours each day under the supervision of a skilled maestro. Win acceptance to a world-class conservatory and practice for at least six to eight hours each day. In a series of hundreds of grueling auditions, master classes, and recitals, beat out hundreds of other violinists. Begin solo career. Be better than the handful of other violinists with major solo careers so they don’t muscle you out of lucrative performances and recording contracts. Continue to practice at an exhausting pace for the rest of your life and/or until your fingers snarl into an arthritic tangle and/or until one day, undone by the pressure of being one of the top musicians in the world, you (a) collapse into a pile of neurotic mush; or (b) begin passive-aggressively pursuing hobbies that conflict with your career as a violinist, such as lumber splitting or knife juggling or sword-smithing; or (c) retire to a life of teaching “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to the young children of hedge fund managers.
Option #2: Play very softly in front of a dead microphone while a CD recording of another more talented violinist is blasted toward an unknowing audience. Go on a fifty-four-city tour of America doing this. Go on a six-city tour of China doing this. Appear on national television broadcasts narrated by Hollywood celebrities doing this. Land gigs at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center doing this. Pay your college tuition and New York City rent doing this.
Notice that even though the music the audience hears is not being produced by you, the audience’s applause for you, their praise, their standing ovations, are real.
Notice that the inability to distinguish Option #1 from Option #2, the inability to distinguish real from fake, is a classic sign of mental illness.
God Bless America Tour 2004
New York City to Philadelphia
The Composer is broiling himself a cake. None of us—Harriet, Stephen, Patrick, or me—know it is his birthday until he begins mixing batter while our RV inches through traffic in the bowels of the Lincoln Tunnel. The oven isn’t working, so The Composer holds the cake under the broiler’s pilot light. The cabin fills with the smell of oven gas. A pinpoint of light appears in the tunnel and we emerge into the sun-cooked marshes of industrial New Jersey, the entire North American continent spread before us, the Manhattan skyline receding in the rearview mirror.
A few feet from where The Composer kneels at the oven, I sit in the RV’s dining booth, looking at the tour schedule. It is a bound and laminated book with “God Bless America Tour, August–November, 2004” written on the title page. It is Tour Day One: New York City to Philadelphia. We have 74 days and 54 performances to go before we return