Tree Symphony

by Gina Marie Wylie

  I searched in my mind. I knew no one wanted to hear what the trees were going to think. “You play the music with your heart,” I told him. I had no idea what to expect and got what I expected. His eyes turned from flint hard to soft in an instant. I heard a blast of air through his nostrils as his eyes held mine.

  “Thank you.” He turned and started to walk away. He stopped after two steps and turned back to me. “The part I play. It is the most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard. Thank you.” He turned, and was gone.

  Rachael led me to the other group again. She had one of the cello players do a longish piece, then looked at me. “What do you think, Kira?”

  I shrugged, helpless. “It was nice.”

  Rachael smiled slightly. “It is. Josh’s a fine cellist. Now, the question is, what instruments do you think would go well with it?”

  I stared at her. This wasn’t my music, it was someone else’s. What would the composer think if I changed it? Still, Rachael had asked, so I tentatively said, “The last few bars. I think they should go,” and hummed as best as I could how I thought it should go.

  Rachael stood frozen, looking at me and then grinned. “No, what other instruments do you think would go with the music theme, as written?”

  Evidently, Rachael had written it.

  I ran a few parts over in my head. I really didn’t know what to think. Finally I picked a part I’d liked. “Here,” I pointed to the oboes, “they should play here. And a few of them.” I pointed at the clarinets.

  “All of the oboes, and some of the clarinets?” Rachael asked. I nodded. “What should the rest of the clarinets do?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “Don’t need very many clarinets, and the ones who play shouldn’t play very loud.”

  Rachael nodded. “Okay, then please, Kira. From two after fifty-six. First clarinets, oboes and cello.” She led them and I listened. It was better, but there was, I thought, something missing. There had to be more here than just the cello, I realized. The violins and the violas needed to play.

  For the next half hour Rachael kept asking questions and I kept trying to answer them. I thought I did poorly, but afterwards, she hugged me and grinned.

  When Mom came to pick me up, Mr. Gora joined Rachael. “Mrs. Kinkaid,” Mr. Gora started to say, but his eyes were on me.

  Mom looked worried and he laughed. “No, Kira’s doing fine! Better than fine, actually!” He nodded at Rachael. “Why don’t you take Kira outside for a few minutes, Rachael?”

  I raised an eyebrow. Had I messed up? Outside, Rachael walked over to a small picnic table near the school cafeteria and sat down on top of it, patting the spot next to her. “You don’t understand hardly any of this, do you, Kira?”

  I shook my head and sat down next to her, looking out over the sere winter grass around us.

  She too stared straight ahead, speaking in a soft voice. “You can teach most people to play music adequately. With sufficient practice they play the required notes at the required pitch for the required duration and the music is, at least, interesting. They need, though, lots of practice.

  “Some people, though, play music with a special gift. They understand the music, themselves and their instrument. The combination is, literally, enough to take your breath away. One way you can tell you’ve found such a person is because the first time they play an instrument, it sounds like they’ve played it all their lives.

  “Like the way you play the cello.”

  I shook my head. Did I play the cello so well? I was only trying to make music the trees would like!

  Rachael lightly touched my arm. “Then there are people who can tell what notes from various instruments sound glorious together. That is, most of us think, much harder. It’s called composition.” She giggled. “I am relieved to see you struggling, however slightly, with it.”

  “I just try to make the music sound good in my head,” I told her, not wanting to be the subject of this much attention.

  “And a good job you do! So good, right now Jerry is asking your mother if we can perform your piece at the Christmas concert.”

  Rachael was silent for another few seconds. “There is a third thing. Listening to a group of musicians playing and understanding how it all fits together. Hearing the good and bad, knowing how it should go. And then making them do it right. That’s conducting.”

  Rachael rested her hand on my shoulder. “It is given to few people to do any of these things well. One in a thousand, perhaps. Of those, perhaps another one in a thousand can do one of the others. All three?” She snorted. “There are literally only a handful in the entire world.”

  “I have only a little idea of what I’m doing,” I told her. “I can barely play the cello. Seven weeks, that’s all. Writing music?” I snorted. “I can’t! Telling the others how to play?” I shivered. “I wanted to be somewhere else. Doing anything else!”

  Rachael laughed, full and hearty. “No you didn’t! You want to play the cello and moreover, you want to conduct and compose! Any or all of those things, more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life! Seven weeks or seven years, you do just fine! I know, and so does Jerry!

  “The only cellist in the middle group anywhere near as good as you are right now is the section leader. She’s played seven years, not seven weeks. Her parents have spent major money on the best private lessons, camps -- anything that they thought would be of benefit to their daughter. Of course, she knows you are no threat to her: she’s decided to be the big frog in the small puddle. After the concert you will be in the Symphony and will be a threat to someone else. Actually, you are a threat to no one: there is no one even close to you in any group here.

  “Composition: you may not be able to write all the notes down yet, but you certainly can play them! And if the orchestration isn’t what you like, you fix it! And you fix it by making people play what you want! And what notes! Not only do you hear what’s wrong, you hear what’s right.”

  “I’m just learning!” I said, thinking it mitigated my sins. “I’m not a threat to anyone!”

  She laughed. “Oh yes you are... and you’ll be learning the rest of your life! The rest of us will be playing catch-up. And musically, you are a threat to anyone who plays the cello, quite literally any living cellist; you are that good.”

  “Rachael,” I started to ask, thought better of it, and bit my lip.

  She looked at me. “What, Kira?”

  I couldn’t let it go; I had to know. “Do you like my piece?”

  “The other day,” Rachael said after looking at me steadily for a second, “Eric told you that it was the prettiest piece of music he had ever heard. Kira, it’s one of the prettiest pieces I’ve ever heard.”

  I folded my hands in my lap and looked straight off into space, closing my eyes, squeezing them hard shut, my body rigid. “How do you know I didn’t just copy it someplace?” It was all I could do to choke the words out; I was so afraid, so very, very afraid.

  Rachael laughed, just laughed! “Kira, dear Kira! You are what, twelve?” I nodded, still stiffly rigid, terrified. “You’ve been playing less than two months. I’ve been playing for more than twenty years; Jerry has been playing more than forty. Neither of us would claim to know all there is to know about music, but between us we’ve heard the best ninety-nine percent, that’s for certain. Your piece is in the best one percent, not the worst one percent. There is no way you copied it.”

  I contemplated that. “I hear the music in my head,” I came as close to saying it as I could. “I can’t say where it comes from.”

  She put her arm around me and hugged. “I know, dear. I know.”

  “There’s more music,” I told her quietly.

  Rachael nodded somberly. “We know that too, Kira. But Jerry thinks, and I agree, that you need to learn more first before you try to express what you feel inside you.” She laughed and said, “I have a hard time writing music, it’s an effort. I like to plan and plan and plan. From you it flows as naturall
y as a stream running over rocks, on the way to the ocean.”

  I wondered, for a second, if water spoke to her. I wasn’t sure how to ask, so I didn’t.

  Mr. Gora and Mom came out of the building. “We weren’t very good this week,” Mr. Gora told me. “We really need to work on the remaining orchestration for your work. Thursday night I’ve invited you and your parents to dinner with Rachael, myself and a few others. Then another jam session on your composition, followed by a special treat.”

  I nodded, still trying to put it all in perspective. What had Rachael said? My piece wasn’t in the bottom one percent of music? But the top?

  “Next Saturday, another treat. Don’t make any plans for the late afternoon and evening!” I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder, gripping firmly. I knew she was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t sure what.

  V

  Mom was quiet on the way home, which suited me just fine. There was so much to think about! We walked into the house and she put her hand on my arm, “I think we need to talk with your father.” I shrugged. Everyone seemed to be making such a big deal about all of this!

  We went into father’s office. He was reading an economics journal, listening to Boccherini, one of his favorite composers. Up until then he’d said very little about my music, it had been Mom who’d wanted me to stop at night, who thought I was going too fast. “Dennis, they want to play a composition Kira has written at their next concert.”

  He nodded, his eyes on me. “The Youth Symphony?” he asked.

  “Yes, that one.”

  “I think I’d really like that.”

  I was surprised. Normally my father never really liked anything. Things at home were okay, things outside the house, rotten or not working well.

  “I think they are pushing her too hard, too fast,” Mom told him.

  He looked at me and for the first time in a long time, I met his eyes. We held our gazes locked until he said, “Kira, do you think you are being pushed too fast? Too hard?” His words were quiet and soft, like always.

  I shook my head. “The only person pushing me is myself,” I told him. The trees didn’t count; I smiled inwardly.

  He smiled a bit, something I hadn’t seen him do in the longest time. “I can hardly wait to hear your composition -- and you playing it.” Mom looked appalled -- she didn’t have a chance to start on all the reasons why not.

  I saw him glance at Mom out of the corner of his eye.

  “It is very easy to get carried away with something new, Kira,” he continued. “You have to be careful. If you ever start feeling tired or depressed or confused, come and talk to me or your mom. A friend from school or someone from the orchestra. Promise me.”

  I promised, but I didn’t think I’d ever have the problem. I loved the music so much! How could you ever tire of it?

  “Dennis, they would like us for a dinner on Thursday, and then a rehearsal, then again Saturday afternoon another rehearsal of the Arizona Symphony. And dinner and a concert that night.”

  “We can afford it, dear,” he said with a small smile.

  Mom gave a nervous laugh. “They don’t want our money! We’re guests.”

  He grinned. “Are you going to practice tonight, Kira?” I nodded. “Then come downstairs before you are too tired and play a little for me. I apologize for not having paid more attention, before.”

  That evening he and Mom were sitting on the couch in his office. She leaning against him, his arms wrapped around her while I played. When I finished the whole tree piece he sighed deeply; Mom was almost asleep.

  He leaned down and kissed her hair, and she looked up at him with an expression I hadn’t imagined my mom could have. “Do you remember,” Mom said softly, “Casals?”

  My father laughed lightly. “Something I’ll never forget!” He looked at me, his eyes shining bright.

  “Tomorrow I’ll move my stereo into your room,” he said quietly. “I have some LPs and cassettes of Pablo Casals -- you should listen to them.”

  Mom went on, “The first time Dennis and I went on a date, it was to listen to Casals play at the Hollywood Bowl. We sat on the grass and Dennis wrapped his arms around me just like this, and we spent the most wonderful afternoon of our lives listening to Casals’ music.”

  For the first time since I could remember it wasn’t “your father” she was talking about. I looked at them, glowing in the early evening duskiness of the room. Could I do this to people? Was the music inside of me, no matter what the source, able to do this to them? To others?

  When I went to bed I lay wide awake, listening to the murmuring of the trees, the soft sigh of the wind. My favorite tree was laughing and laughing. “You hear what is in our souls in your soul, Kira,” the voice sang to me. “Some call it imagination, others inspiration. It’s in your soul, Kira. In your soul. And ours. There is no shame in sharing your soul. Just joy, Kira. Just joy.”

  The next day my dad installed his stereo in my room, a project that took most of the morning. While he was doing that, I played the first part of the Tree piece, running over in my mind how I wanted it to sound, even the parts we hadn’t experimented with the full orchestra.

  When he finished, my dad came over and put his arms around me and laid his head on mine. “Sometimes Kira, we get so caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of life, we can’t see the forest for the trees. You’ve opened a wonderful new window in my life and I will never be able to thank you enough.”

  I waved at the rack of electronic equipment now occupying a corner of my room. “What are you going to do for your office?”

  He laughed. “Drive your mom bats! I’m going out this afternoon to see about a replacement.” He saw my expression, “I’m spending savings, yes. But right now, I’m thinking you won’t need as much put by for college as we’d thought.” He laughed again. “Oh, you’ll go to college, but I suspect it will be on scholarship.”

  I was getting straight A’s, but I knew college was a long time away. Could I get A’s through high school? Everyone said it would be a lot harder. My dad shook his head. “Don’t worry, Kira. Everything is fine.”

  I liked the music my dad wanted me to listen to, so I played parts of it loudly for the trees. They liked it too, but still at the end, they were clamoring for their own.

  Monday at my regular lesson Mr. Gora was there with another man, even older than he was. This man was the one who’d been there the night Rachael had brought me the new cello. I had a hard time remembering him, but I did. They listened without a word through my lesson. Their presence seemed to make Mrs. Walker quite nervous, more so than me.

  Thursday, Mom made me take a shower after school, a first, and then I had to put on a nice dress, not a first, but not common. Both Mom and Dad were dressed like we were going to church, something we only did once or twice a year.

  Dinner wasn’t what I expected. There were about thirty people in a group at a restaurant. The only ones I knew were my parents, Rachael and Mr. Gora and I recognized the man who’d been at my practices. Everyone ordered and afterwards Mr. Gora made a big deal out of trying to pay for ours, and my dad just as firmly told him no. I wasn’t sure who ended up paying in the end.

  Afterwards everyone drove in separate cars downtown to the Symphony Hall. Rachael met us when we got there, her eyes sparkling and led us towards a practice room.

  “Playing after a big meal is a big mistake,” Rachael told me, “but do the best you can.” Mr. Gora had told me that we’d be working more on orchestration, so I wasn’t sure if it was important if I played well.

  The musicians were different than the ones I usually practiced with. These were adults, older adults mostly, and they all played much better than the ones from the youth symphony. It really didn’t seem to be important how well I played; we worked almost an hour and everyone seemed very relaxed and we finished the orchestration for my piece.

  The man who’d been at my lesson and who’d sat at the head of the main table at dinner came up and nodde
d to me. “I am Taylor Ford,” he told me. Obviously it was supposed to mean something to me, but it didn’t. Instead of being unhappy that I didn’t recognize him, he seemed strangely pleased.

  “Jerry tells me that this piece you’re doing with him is part of a longer work,” Mr. Ford told me.

  I nodded, and he smiled. “Could you play it for me?”

  “It’s kind of long,” I told him.

  Mr. Ford laughed. “We don’t start the full rehearsal for an hour. Longer than that?” I shook my head, and he motioned for me to play. “Start at the beginning, Kira.” This was the third week I’d had the new cello, and tonight it sounded better than ever; I loved playing it.

  I tuned, then played for the longest time, drifting on the music, trying hard to ignore anything else.

  When I finished I looked up at Mr. Ford, who was sitting quietly, watching me. Around the room I saw perhaps a hundred people. I didn’t remember one of them coming in. There was simple silence and I smiled wanly. “I hope that wasn’t too bad.”

  I saw Rachael look away; it looked like she was laughing. Mr. Ford smiled and shook his head. “No, that wasn’t bad.”

  “Freaking great is what it was,” a voice said from the back; I blushed. The voice went on, “Look at her! She hasn’t a clue! Not a clue! Don’t you dare tell her, ‘Not bad!’”

  Mr. Gora came up and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Forty years, and I have a right to say anything I want! Not very bad at all!” There was a ripple of laughter from the people, followed by applause. I thought they were clapping for Mr. Gora. It took a second to realize they were all looking at me.

  Mr. Ford came over and sat backwards on a chair in front of me. “Jerry has asked if you would let him play part of your work with the youth orchestra. I’d like the Arizona Symphony to be able to play all of it in a few months. And I very much hope you’ll play the cello part for me.”

  I was confused, then I realized that they wanted me to write more music for other instruments. Even considering how much effort I’d spent on it so far, I was not at all confident I could do it, but I knew he was expecting me to agree. So I nodded.