Julie A. Linder

For a long time I avoided serious playing for the same reason I avoid speaking Spanish now. I used to be fairly fluent. I read Cien años de soledad. After a summer in interior Mexico words rolled right off my tongue. It was a source of pride. Now when I speak, it’s as if I have a mouth full of sand. My brain grinds through the thought in English, as I chew on the grainy syllables, translating each word one by one. And forget pronunciation and grammar. It’s horrible.

It was the same with clarinet. After 6 months of not playing I needed to prepare for a performance of Rebecca Clarke’s Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale, one of my favorite pieces. Listen to Robert Plane’s very nice version of the Pastorale:

I wanted to jump right in! But it felt awful. The air wasn’t there on a piece that requires incredible control. My embouchure once could make it through 8 hours of playing a day; now it couldn’t make it through 20 minutes of practice. Plus, my hand still hurt. I managed to throw the Clarke together and have a decent performance, but it lacked depth and beauty. I was by no means happy.

That was it. I stopped practicing and focused on teaching.

Now, though, I’m ready. The recovery is going faster and better than I ever imagined. After walking away from it for so long I can finally accept where I’m at and how far that is from where I used to be. I’m discovering amazing things about my playing: Whoa! I tongue with the right side of my tongue. NOT THE TIP. How did I never know that before? Even better, I can fix it, shedding that old bad habit as easily as taking off a very heavy coat. I’m not re-training muscles that are strong in the wrong way, I’m training them anew and I can make them strong however I choose!

It’s a long way to go before I’ll stop apologizing for my playing to my peers, but the fresh perspective, leading me to whole new discoveries, inspires me to continue.

And why not? Hola. Me llama Julie. Me encanta tocar el clarinete. Maybe someday I tackle that problem too.