Very Good

When he was young he believed he had it in him to be great. Music swirled around his head like moths at a lamppost, so thick it would make him dizzy. There were moments when the violin felt organic, a part of his body. The bow was an extension of his hand, musical cartilage. His fingers seemed to move of their own accord, as though the music bypassed his brain and sizzled directly through his hands.

But those were moments, only moments. The great violinists, he discovered, felt that sensation every waking hour. He realized he was not great and never would be. He wasn't even excellent. He was merely very good. The gap between very good and great is exceedingly narrow to the untrained ear. To him it was a galactic expanse...immeasurable, cold, alien.

Very good was enough to get him work. No concert halls for him, no symphonies or command performances, but he was hired to play at tables of good restaurants and in hotel lobbies. He worked at catered events and performed at weddings on weekends. Very good was just barely enough to earn a small living.

Being very good filled him with despair. It gave him the ability to recognize and appreciate true greatness and to know he'd never achieve it. At times he wished he'd been born tone deaf. But then he'd pick up his violin and play a measure of Mozart's Sonata for Violin and Piano in B Major. And it was very good. Good enough to break his heart from joy and from anguish.

Very good violinists do not get record contracts. They get no royalties. They have no pension plans, no retirement accounts. As he grew older, they no longer hired him at the restaurants. He was no longer welcome in the hotel lobbies. He was not asked to play at weddings. He played instead in the parks and in the subway stations.

And still there were moments, brief beautiful moments, when the music would swirl moth-like round his head, when his gnarled fingers moved on their own, when the music seemed to rise straight and pure from his own resonating skeleton and the violin was its voice. One day, he knew, those moments would disappear. And then, finally, he'd be able to lay down his violin.

posted by greg @ 12:41 AM