Your Instrument of Choice

I have heard it said that your instrument of choice reflects something about your character.  I chose the cello.  I tried the piano, and I play limited guitar.  I have often wished I had stuck with piano lessons rather than cello because the piano seems more available and can be accompaniment, not just for solos or ensembles.  However, as I have thought on it as of late, I never would have made it as a pianist….I can’t multi-task for ANYTHING!!!  Hahahaha!  However, I DO see me in the cello.

I do better supporting the melody rather than carrying it by myself, as a violin would.  As a mom I’m doing dishes, laundry, meal prep, etc. and while those tasks seem routine a lot of the time, they also hold the ensemble together! The song that comes to mind, when I think of me and my cello part is Pachelbel’s, Canon in D for a string quartet.  I had the privilege of playing that in an ensemble in Jr. High.  While I was tempted to call my part “boring,” I got to play the same sequence of notes and revel in the music being created.  I was not worried about hitting a high solo.  Just because my part is not generally flashy, it doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.  On the contrary, I matter to the music! If I don’t play the “laundry” note, my kiddos or hubby would suffer in their given parts. If I am out of tune, it spoils the larger ensemble. If my mood or ‘tone’ is off, the other musicians struggle too.   We are intertwined and connected. To you other moms out there of littles, I hope that ‘resonates’ with you and reminds you afresh that we are part of a bigger ensemble!  Our music is not our own, but how we play our part can change the ‘dynamics!’

After Jr. High, I remember taking my cello outside in bare feet and a folding chair and playing at our farm.  Glorious memories!  I remember coming home from tryouts for All-State Orchestra, and I was full of doubts and misgivings as to how I had performed.  In spite of my uncertainty, I made a spot on the All-State Orchestra that year.  And then?  Things changed.  I was supposed to go to summer camp with all the other chosen musicians, but my Dad passed away that May.  I was a wreck.  I procrastinated practicing because I was so lost in my grief.  And then?  Rather than go and risk being last chair because I wasn’t prepared, I chose not to go at all. 

Now, I share that because of the hard times our world is seeing currently.  We have a choice, dear friends, to pick up our instruments—however different they may be--and make music or put them away and stop practicing for a multitude of different reasons.  Let me encourage you that EVEN IF you stop making music this season or a season before, pick it up again!  Your notes or tone might be different but the world needs your song, your voice!  And?  Whatever instrument you might choose to play will reveal something about you and thus keep us all connected!