Question

note making on hobbies

Answer 1

ur favarite likes
ur dislikes
plz Mark me as a brainlist plz

Answer 2

Many years ago, when I read Mark Salzman’s novel The Soloist, about a cellist whose childhood promise overshadows his adulthood, I was introduced to the cello suites of J.S. Bach. Salzman’s protagonist is a cellist in his 30s, a former child prodigy who no longer plays in public. Determined that he will someday play again professionally, he practices the Bach cello suites every day but only for himself and his cat.

When I finished the novel, I wondered what sort of pieces could hold that kind of allure — to warrant revisiting each day? Was it their technical difficulty? Their emotional richness? Alluring melodies? I went out and bought a CD of the pieces. I’d never really heard much string playing, but I’d assumed I’d only hear a melody, a single voice carrying a tune. But Bach had embedded harmonies in the melodic line of a single instrumentalist. The sound was dark, rich and complex. It suited the instrument on the cover of Salzman’s novel. I loved the cello suites. From then on, in my fantasy life, I was a cellist.

Years later, I lived in a city with several well-regarded music schools and a dearth of jobs for the professionals who were trained there. Opportunities to take music lessons were all over, including at the music school a brief walk from my apartment. I wanted to learn to play the cello, but I had no car and would struggle with it on public transportation. A friend played the viola, and she taught me all of its virtues: less flashy, less shrill and richer in sound than the violin; smaller, more manageable and cheaper than the cello. It is hard to hear the viola line in a string quartet, but you’d miss it if it wasn’t there. “The inner voice of the strings,” she said, “the alto.” I sang alto in choirs, and I loved low notes. Alto strings would suit me. I could rent a viola from a local instrument store.

I mentioned my idea to a few musician friends. “Learning the viola is hard,” I was told. “It’s really easy to pick up the guitar, but you have to learn the viola when you’re young, or you won’t be any good.”

“But I can sing,” I objected. “I have a pretty good ear. I sing on pitch. I can read music decently.”

“It takes so much practice,” I heard. “Do you have time for that?”

This was a good point. I had a full-time job. I sang in a chorus and took voice lessons. I was thinking about going back to school for a Ph.D., so I took a biology class most semesters. No, I probably didn’t have time to learn to play the viola. But it was summer. My chorus was on hiatus, and I wasn’t taking a class. My work schedule had become a little lighter. The local music school offered trial lessons – as many or as few as you wanted – over the summer. No, I probably didn’t have time, but I was curious: Could I do it, or was it too late? I would only know if I tried. So I went to the instrument shop, picked out a rental viola and signed up for a handful of summer lessons.

The first surprise: For reasons I still don’t quite understand, the viola has its own clef. As a choral singer, I can read the treble clef, and in a pinch, I can summon some mnemonics from childhood and muddle through the bass clef. But a C on the alto clef is just half a line below its position on the treble clef. So I was constantly looking at a note and thinking, “OK, that looks like a G, so that means it’s an A. I think that’s a D, so it’s really an E.” To play the viola, I would have to learn to read the alto clef, a skill that would serve me no other purpose unless I also decided to take up conducting.