At Sea

April 29, 2008 at 10:57 AM

Last week was another school vacation week that ended with a concert. And, like the last vacation, I was rushing home after a trip sans instrument, to play in the concert. This trip was amazing: we went on a Caribbean cruise on the Crown Princess. A different island every day: Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, Tortola, St. Thomas, beginning and ending in San Juan Puerto Rico.

Since this is meant to be a blog about music, though, and since we haven't finished uploading and processing the 500+ pictures we took, I am going to write about something other than the beaches. Cruise ship performances and performers are admittedly a topic that I haven't given much thought to in the past, and when I did, it was with uninformed disinterest. However, at night between ports you're something of a captive audience, and there are a broad range of shows to choose from: comedians, magicians, singers and dancers, Broadway-style musicals, and even a string quartet.

I was very curious about the string quartet. They were an anomaly amongst the general pop culture/easy listening/show tune atmosphere. I never found out what their name, the Quadrivium String Quartet, meant. I thought I would be able to google them when I got home and that they'd have a fancy website with YouTube videos and podcasts telling us when and how they were available for bookings. But alas, no. If I just search on "Quadrivium String Quartet," I get something like this: Neighborhood Concert: Quadrivium String Quartet (Members of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela).

This is not who I saw. I saw 4 middle-aged American performers, two men playing the viola and cello and two women playing the violins. They were set up in a part of the ship called the piazza, kind of an on-board cafe where you could order coffee and wine, sit at tables and chat with a view of several decks, the Bursar's desk, and the panoramic elevators. For them it looked more like busking than performing. They also were scheduled to play every afternoon right around the ship's departure time from the ports, to provide a festive atmosphere for the sail-away but not very convenient for those of us rushing back from the kayaking trip in our full-body sunsuits and hats, sunscreen on every other exposed part of skin, and sand in our hair.

They played an assortment of jazz and popular tunes, in tricky and complicated arrangements. The players were very well-suited to each other, as if they'd been playing together for a long time. Their sound was rich and seamless, even when they were playing something like "La Bamba." The performance was interrupted several times by announcements from the captain. "Would the following passengers please contact the Bursar's Desk?" Never anyone I knew . . . people who missed the last tender? People who mistakenly left their check-in card in port? I would idly wonder what happened to people who missed the ship. It never left late.

Since I've been playing the violin and viola again for the last year and a half, it has given me a different perspective on performers of all types. There is the aspect that now, having performed myself, I'm sort of "one of them." I now do know what it's like to "put yourself out there" for an audience, and there is certainly nothing like trying something yourself to give you a new or renewed appreciation for the personal risks that performers take, for the myriad skills required to do this kind of thing well (or even to do it mediocrely as in my case).

But there's more to it. I still wonder, as I'm sitting in the audience for the comedian making the obligatory jokes about tourist as cash machine or spending too much time at the buffet, fundamentally, why do people do this? Get up there night after night and say or do the same thing over and over and hope a group of strangers sitting there in a dark room will laugh or applaud or whatever? I'd still personally rather ride that zipline over the 800-foot-deep gorge or take my chances with the jellyfish!

Maybe it's an introvert/extravert thing. I took the Keirsey Temperament Sorter online several years ago. The test supposedly analyzes and gives your temperament according to the Myers-Briggs scale. My brother, a cognitive psychologist and human factors engineer, thinks Myers-Briggs is just another form of astrology, maybe worse. And he may be right. But learning my type, INFP, did seem to explain a lot. The first category, Introvert vs. Extravert, pertains to "where your energy comes from." Introverts recharge their energy in solitary pursuits; Extraverts draw energy from being with other people. By that definition, I'm an Introvert with a capital I. I enjoy being around other people at times, but it's very draining, energy-wise. This, more than fuzzy fingers, general lack of talent, or anything else technical, is probably why I never pursued music as a profession. It would make an interesting Weekend Vote; I would suspect most people who enjoy performing and/or do it for a living are extraverts.

I found the most sublime moments with my iPod out on the balcony to our cabin, looking at the moon on the water and listening to the Bach cello suites played on viola.

This entry has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

At Sea

Subscribe

Laurie's Books