Certain Songs Are Time Travel Devices

Monday Memoir

I played the violin from 6th grade to my senior year in high school. I played the violin because my mother played, and we owned one. It was not the perfect reason to play an instrument. What I loved about being in orchestra was my director/teacher for those seven years. I adored Mr. Grivetti.

Photo by Joel Timothy on Unsplash

Junior or Senior year the full orchestra played this song for the group contest in Indianapolis. We toiled over this tune for months.

Whenever I hear this song, I am transported back to my high school self. I sat third chair, which placed me on the outside row, visible to the audience. There is more pressure when people can see you. I couldn’t get a higher chair because two prodigies held 2nd and 1st chairs. My Oma was at every performance and brought me flowers every time.

As the song plays, I remember the places I held my breath to focus on my bow position and my finger placement. I remember my eyes glued to Mr Grivetti’s baton waiting to start and checking to make sure I was on time. My foot tapped on its own, and not consistently. There was collective energy when we played this song which was different than any other we played before or after. Listening to it again this morning brings tears to my eyes. To experience moments that transport me back to a time of intense emotion is hard to articulate. It feels more than just a memory. It is a time machine where I am transported back into my body. I have other memories of swimming competitively or running, but the music lands differently.

We played it at contest, and there was uproarious applause. We wanted to make Mr. Grivetti proud, and we loved this song. There were sections of this score that were odd timings and he would tap them out for us and we went over them ad nauseam. It was as if we were a collective that merged into one large being during that song.

Mr. Grivetti had perfect pitch. I learned this after I graduated and had even more respect for him thinking back to him teaching sixth graders. There are some sounds of hell that come out of school music rooms and scraping bows across strings are one of them. (Recorders are another.) Both instruments play Hot Cross Buns at the beginning. He traveled every day between the high school and middle schools too. I never heard him complain about any of it.

I could write a whole series of stories about Mr. Grivetti. He retired my senior year. The one thing he wanted before he was done teaching was to play his sax with a quartet. I was part of that group and had a page-long solo in the arrangement he chose. We played at the last performance in May in a sweltering gym. I am not sure if you are familiar with the acoustics of a gymnasium, but they are not ideal. Strings can be tricky with sweaty fingers. It went well, and he was thrilled and that was all that mattered. I wish I would have brought him flowers that night.

A special piece published in Gone Lawn about my last individual contest and his assessment is here for your reading pleasure:

The Last Time