Playing for Fun

I started playing the flute when I was in medical school.  I lived in Brookline and the Flute Center of Boston (I think that was what it was called) was nearby.  My sister had played flute in elementary school or middle school and my parents had bought a nice flute for her, used, around 1960.  We still had it, and (as I remember telling people at the time), flute lessons were cheaper than therapy.  Later, when I was living in Nashville, I took lessons again, and then a few years ago I took lessons again for a while here in Atlanta.  I'm not very good, but it's fun, and many Saturday mornings I get together with my friend Susan and we play flute duets.  Neither one of us practice much -- most Saturday sessions start with the admission that neither one us has played since the last time we got together -- but it's still fun.  Our standard repertoire is duets by Loeillet and Telemann.  The Loeillet pieces are easier than the Telemann ones, and we play them better.  At Christmas we play Jonathan DeLoach's wonderful arrangements of French and English carols.  We're not very good, but it's still a lot of fun.

Sometimes when I have trips for work I take my flute with me, and play in my hotel room.  Not in the morning or late at night (people might be trying to sleep) but earlier in the evening, just before or after dinner, usually.  I've never gotten a knock on my door, asking me to stop, and occasionally I've had someone tell me they enjoyed hearing the music.  I've heard of amateur musicians meeting up with other musicians while travelling, to play music together, but I'm not good enough and don't really have the time, either, even in the evening when I'm on a work-related trip.

But I was delighted to see in the New York Times a week or so ago an article about a global event that took place earlier this month, the 2014 Worldwide Play-In Weekend.  It was sponsored by the ACMP--The Chamber Music Network, a non-profit that "facilitates informal music-making by people of all ages and nationalities, from beginners to professionals."  Members use the organization's directory to find partners for music-making, in their hometown or on the road, and this is the second year that the Network has promoted music-making by classical musicians of all skill levels on the first weekend in March.

The story in the Times ends with a great quote from an 11-year-old girl named Inez who plays the cello."'Mom always said that one of the reasons she thinks music is so great is because it's something you can do forever.  If you do ballet, and you don't end up being professional, when you're like older you can't just meet up with friends and do ballet.  But you can do that with music."

I used to be worried that classical music was going to die out, that only middle-aged and old people went to the symphony and when we got to be too infirm to go, there would be no audience left.  Whatever issues symphony orchestras have (and I know that many orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony have serious financial issues) I no longer think symphonies are going to go the way of the passenger pigeon.  I do see lots of young people in the audience at the ASO -- more than I remember seeing in the past -- and that's a good sign.  And of all the children taking music lessons, some of them will keep playing for pleasure into adulthood.  I think music is hard-wired into us, the enjoyment of listening to it, and performing it, and performing it with others.

So thanks to the ACMP for reminding us that music is a fundamentally social thing.  (There's a reason that the verb we use for operating a musical instrument is "to play.")  And that if we practiced a little more frequently, we probably could do that Telemann duet at a Play-In next year.