My Other Left

March 27, 2008 at 6:01 AM

I have been diagnosed with a severe case of "Oraclitis".

Symptoms are short term memory loss, premature aging, inability to count, insomnia, and difficulties in mind/body coordination and spacial concepts, and speech issues (a mix of Chinese and English).

"Oraclitis" has been known to be brought on by repeated exposure too many Oracle ERP implementations. Long term exposure may cause the symptoms to remain long term. I have been exposed almost a dozen times now in the past 5 years. The good news is that once removed from the source of the exposure, symptoms will disappear within a few days to a week.

Tonight I went to lessons with my "Oracitis" flaring up. I walk in to my teacher's studio, remark that we both managed to find 5 minutes to finally get hair-cuts, and he asks me what I want to start with. With my typical wild-eyed look, I say "SCALES!!!".

It starts off well enough. One note per bow. He skips to 3 notes per bow - I play 2 notes per bow. It took me three tries to count to three correctly. Then 4 notes per bow. Then 6 notes per bow (I'm still playing 4 notes per bow). After 3 false tries on 6 notes per bow, we break down the scale 6 notes at a time, then string it all together. I'm still playing 4 notes per bow even though I'm counting to six. ARGHHHH! We won't mention about playing the right finger on the wrong string.

Move onto arpeggios. The first few go well enough. Then on the last few, my spacial concepts seemed to have disappeared. "Put your fingers close together in a half step on the two strings", I place my fingers far apart in a whole step on the same string. We finally work through the arpeggios, then onto Kreutzer.

Kreutzer goes better. I get a little instruction on where stacc. works best on the bow, refine my same bow legato. Then onto new bowings: "this one is a mind-teaser" :::::groan:::::

Finally, onto Hummel. :::sigh of relief::: Not so bad, the same typical rhythm issues I normally have (time dilation occurs when I count), but much improved. We work on breaking down some of the rhythms into separate bows. I try again, and my inability to count symptoms slowly start to go into remission. But a new symptom appears: "start at the beginning of the line", I start at the beginning of the measure. He says, "No, your other measure" :) Oh my!

We proceed to the final movement - that incredibly lightening fast "fiddling" section. I can now count effectively again, I know the difference between a line and a measure, my fingers know the difference between a half step and a whole step. I know where my C, G, D and A strings are in relation to each other. I play the first line of that movement. Stop. Look at my teacher. He's grinning ear to ear. "Why did you stop?" he asks. I reply "Because I have NO idea how to tackle the next few measures." He proceeds to show me how to practice that next lightening speed run of notes.

We then move on the the final bits of the movement. A few pieces of advise on some stylistic tempo changes and "tricks". WHEW! I play the last three chords and the low D with relief and a small sense of accomplishment for making it though the hour.

I am sooooo happy that Joel is so patient with me on days like this. We can laugh at the fact that from time to time I can't tell my left from my other left (my right). If he gets frustrated with me, it doesn't show.

We both know the cause of these lapses in my basic ability to function as a human. A gentle reminder: "Get out of work mode into music mode" does the trick most of the time. Other days, it just takes the patience of a saint to guide me through basic exercises to get me functioning normally again. After more than a year of lessons with him, he now knows when I beg for scales it will be one of those lessons where saintlihood is called for.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on March 27, 2008 at 6:22 AM

You're lucky to have a teacher who understands you and gives you positive feedback.

From Mendy Smith
Posted on March 27, 2008 at 7:29 AM

Evil Linda - I'm lucky to have a teacher who will go along with me for the ride.

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