As many of you know from reading of my audition experiences, I was in the States in the months of February and March. There, I saw my faith balloon and contract at an alarmingly indecisive rate. As my faith fluctuated so did the quality of my playing. I needed to get a consistent footing, but I felt utterly powerless. Here I was, playing for panels of renowned pedagogues that I’ve grown up hearing about. One impressive school had a staggering combination of these famed cellists; I felt like I was about to show Roger Clemens how to throw a baseball.
I was so agitated, so tense, so beyond control, it’s no wonder some of the auditions went the way they did. But I was under the mindset that in order to control all my faculties, in which I needed all of them to play the cello convincingly, I needed to be nervously tense and alert. What I was doing, in reality, was putting the weight of the outcome on my shoulders – I was trying to do it myself.
Knowing that a misplacement of our fingers by even a millimetre will cause a drastic change, fidgety fingers are a horror. A cellist must feel that he is in complete control of his hands. Some people, in hopes to achieve this, tense up in their cello playing.
A few months ago, however, I realized that if you hold your hand in front of you, you may notice that your fingers twitch and somehow don’t hold perfectly still. Try harder to keep your fingers absolutely still. Notice that your fingers are even more uncontrollable now in terms of involuntary, minute movements. Now relax your whole arm totally (meaning, relax to the point where you think you cannot relax anymore, and then some more.) Now you see that your fingers really don’t move. If your goal is to have a still hand, you see how detrimental it is to tense up.
Tense muscles show me an earthly worry and my subconscious determination to do something right through means of my own control. Tense muscles are borne of nervousness and worry. Nervousness and worry come largely from my ridiculous instinct to put the burden of success on my shoulders.
I thank God for the cello and His leading me to it as my principal study. I’ve called the cello ‘heavenly’ several times in my poetry. I do so not only because of its capabilities in making beautiful sounds; I say this because of the way God uses it to teach me more about living a godly life. It’s a true gem when one event makes these two come together with a problem, and the solution is the same.
See, it occurs to me that relaxing is one of the more exercisable fruits of faith. With the knowledge that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, with the knowledge that God has my best intentions in mind, how can I worry? With the knowledge that God keeps the planets on their course, the stars in their place, and the sun at its temperature, how can I then worry about His adequacy in dealing with my life?
During this period, I’m waiting patiently for news, good or bad, from the schools that I auditioned for. The coming week is going to dictate a good chunk of my future: where I’m going to study in September, travel arrangements, financial information, living arrangements. Will my number one choice accept me? Will any schools accept me? What will I do if I don’t get in? What will I tell people?
It helps that I must approach the cello everyday. I must constantly remind myself to relax, knowing full well where the tension is coming from. Similarly, during this time, it helps to know that if I don’t find the time everyday to plumb deeper in my walk with Christ, I simply cannot handle any of this pressure. Moreover, I need to find it in myself to give over any worry, or tension, to God – in knowing who He is, in knowing that taking the reins into my own hands is both foolish and useless.
With that, I conclude that a relaxed approach, keep in mind I didn’t say lazy, is the way we’re to lead our lives. Just as I had to practise my cello to even arrive at a checked level where I would audition in New York, so I’m saying ‘relaxed’ and not ‘complacent’. It is more a being relaxed with the confidence that what you have done in practising is sufficient; it is more a being relaxed with the confidence that Who He is wholly sufficient.
And that handing over of the burden is where life and the cello meet for me right now.
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