The May 4 broadcast of Fresh Air featured an interview with James Levine, recently-retired orchestra conductor for the New York Metropolitan Opera. His approach to conducting in rehearsal versus conducting during actual performance seemed very logical, yet novel.
But the part of the interview that really caught my ear was when Terry Gross asked him about his conducting debut at The Met in 1971, at the age of 27. (His debut conducting the Cincinnati Symphony occurred 17 years prior, at age 10!) As part of his response, he noted that musicians tend to focus on musical skill and ability rather than age.
Revelation, circa mid-70s
I have made it clear in conversation and in writing that I am not a skilled musician, just a persistent one. I dearly love rehearsing, performing, and just “pickin'” with other people, but I am awful at “woodshedding,” the term applied to the intense solo practice required to improve one’s skills. As a result, it is more accurate to say that I know how ‘operate’ my instruments, instead of knowing how to ‘play’ them.
And yet, I have had some wonderful opportunities to perform with musicians of all ages during all stages of my life. I started out singing with my older parents and my younger sisters around the piano in the living room. When I was a teen, I sang in choirs with some old timers whose voices ranged from the gravelly to the mellow, and began to learn guitar picking from my older cousin (OK, he was just a year older, but that seems like a lot when you are 14.)
I’ve performed with a 100-year-old banjo player, and sat in once with a country band of high-schoolers who called themselves “Fenced In.” I played handbells for years in a choir that ranged from teenagers to retirement home denizens. I won’t include my own talented children in this list, since they sort of have to let me pick with them, except to say that one summer Bo did invite me to accompany him in several very pleasant outdoor performances hosted by a Decatur wine and cheese bar.
Through all of these experiences I can’t ever remember feeling like I was being judged by other musicians because of my age. Insufficient skill, weak chops, lack of practice, bad puns, and even lack of shoes on occasion, but not age. My personal musical experiences have confirmed James Levine’s assessment.
OK, maybe there’s one exception. Not too many years ago, my wife helped assemble a band of college-aged musicians for a series of Sunday night contemporary church services, and, almost accidentally, pulled together some of the coolest musicians I’ve ever played with, run sound for, and schlepped equipment with. These guys seemed larger than life, and they went on from that church event to play together as a band for a year or so, write some cool songs, and record a couple of CDs. Though they have each gone their separate ways in music and in life, they are still good friends, and I still cherish, and proudly answer to, the nickname they gave me during their nicknaming phase. During that phase, for example, they called my son who picked with them “Tall,” they called his younger sister “Tallette,” and they called my wife “Hot Mama.”
So what did they call me?
“OLD.”