By Myra Ross | From BayLines Express, August, 2022
For many years, the Manhattan String Quartet (MSQ) has run week-long conferences in Europe in January and in the U.S. in June. Each conference focuses intensely on one string quartet, between thirty and forty-five minutes in length. Participants spend many hours each day dissecting the music, determining perfect intonation and balance, and polishing phrases, the real music geek stuff that I love!
A fairly good totally blind amateur violinist/violist, I had known about these conferences for many years but never participated because I was working, and besides, I had never played string quartets. Although I learn music easily, I didn’t think I could memorize every note in a forty-minute piece of music when there would be no one else playing my part if I got lost. Improvisation is not OK! I am used to playing in orchestras, where there are others around me who are all playing the same thing. The pressure to get it right is extreme in a string quartet. I know many people, all sighted, who play chamber music all the time and have always told me how fulfilling it is. Although I am physically capable of playing most 2nd violin and viola parts (I prefer viola), I just didn’t think I could do it mentally.
All of that changed when I retired in June of 2019. I learned that spring that the focus of the January 2020 European conference in Bonn Germany would be Beethoven Op. 59 #3, a masterpiece from his middle period and one of my favorite quartets. It has a great and challenging part for the viola, in fact one of the most famous viola parts in the quartet literature. I was motivated. Could this be my chance? I decided to try to take it. I asked respected people from my orchestra who knew my situation and had participated in these conferences in the past to recommend me to the MSQ. It is a credit to the MSQ that they were willing to have me based solely on those recommendations. They had not heard me play and I’m sure they could not imagine how a blind person could memorize the viola part in such a long quartet, but I guess the recommendations were persuasive. They accepted me! (Wouldn’t it be great if blind people’s experiences were always like that!) The pressure was on.
I had sort of taught myself Braille music many years ago and hardly use it. I do not read it well enough to use for this purpose. Whereas in vocal music it is relatively easy to find the notes, string parts have many symbols for fingerings, bowings, and chords. The clutter makes finding the actual notes too difficult for me.
I have always learned music aurally. I know what notes I am hearing and can play them automatically. My first move was to listen to recordings of the quartet a lot and to try to pick the viola parts out. A viola, which looks like a big violin, is played like one but is tuned a fifth lower. It has a deeper sound than a violin. It is much smaller than a cello and is tuned an octave higher. It sounds different from the other instruments most of the time. so, I could get the basics just from listening to recordings. Then I asked a violinist friend who played some viola to come over and record the part. I learned a little more of it from her recording in the Victor Reader Stream notes folder. I needed a polished recording to learn the rest. My new viola teacher recorded the part. I loaded his MP3s onto my Victor Reader Stream, and I was in business. On the Stream, unlike the iPhone, it is simple to rewind even one or two seconds, and it is easy to slow passages down. I could easily listen to a difficult passage over and over until I got it.
After lots of practicing, I was ready to try it with some friends from orchestra. The first couple meetings were rocky, but with their support I started to become more confident. By early January, I thought I might just be OK.
For the first rehearsal in Bonn, I was assigned to some wonderful players. The first violinist of the MSQ was the coach, really the judge. He needed to see if I could do it and decide whom to place me with for the rest of the week – people who needed a lot of help or people who could really play. Although I was scared to death, I did well I guess, because for the rest of the week I got to play with some wonderful players. I learned a lot –especially that I CAN play string quartets after all! I hadn’t had that much fun in years. What a thrill to be a part of such glorious music-making!
Since Bonn I have played regularly with a quartet here. I sometimes learn my part from commercial recordings and only need to ask people about certain passages. Sometimes I need to ask people to record my part from a whole multi-movement quartet. Learning notes can be painstaking, but sometimes it is relatively easy. My quartet had already worked on Beethoven’s Op. 59 #1, which the MSQ had planned to do at Colgate University two years ago and delayed by the pandemic, finally did this past June. I was ready. I was more experienced this time, far more excited than scared. Again, I had the time of my life playing with some conservatory students and graduates. What a thrill to meet people from all over the country who love doing this as much as I do. Next summer the MSQ conference will focus on the remaining Beethoven “Razumovsky” quartet, Op. 59 #2.
For both conferences, my husband was with me. I could not have done it physically without him. He helped me find rehearsal rooms (there was no Braille on the hotel rooms in Germany). We walked around a lot in Bonn, which I would not have done without him. I had no time for O&M training at Colgate, so after driving us out there, he escorted me between buildings and rooms until I found people in the group who were going where I was going. He carried my food which was cafeteria style in both places. I still can’t imagine how to use a cane while carrying dishes, silverware, and drinks with or without trays. I am eternally grateful to my husband, my local quartet friends, and to the MSQ for opening the door to these opportunities that changed my life. Myra Ross lives in Amherst. Contact her at myraross@comcast.net.