Tag Archives: dreams

No appetite

Some readers will know that I started this blog quite soon after my father died in June 2008. I had been using Twitter to keep friends informed about the progress first of his health, and then of our funeral plans, and after a while I felt the need to start a proper blog.

I think every bereavement is different and each person is affected by it differently. In my case, my energy for playing music was greatly reduced; it simply felt like emotionally the wrong activity. I dropped out of a number of concerts, reduced the number of amateur orchestras I was playing in, abandoned some violin lessons I had been having, and took a break from my usual amount of playing.

The feeling when I tried to play was that the playing was trying to use the same mental and emotional resources which were being used on adjusting after the bereavement. So the energy wasn’t really there, and any energy that was there was needed for that.

As the months passed, I gradually felt able to do more playing, but its nature was basically to agree to play in something, then do the minimum practice required to play adequately. Nothing that involved pushing myself to practise hard.

A dream

Just over a week ago, something happened. I had a dream, in which a number of us were at some kind of party at the house of my violin teacher (who I also know through orchestra). Maybe it was an after-concert party or something. In the dream, it got to about 5 am (it was a good party!) and the teacher said “Tim, do you fancy a violin lesson? … I could do one at 8 o’clock today if you like”. I said that the idea of having one soon sounded quite good, but that I really thought it was time for me to think about going home and getting some sleep rather than staying up even longer in order to have a lesson.

Next day, back in the real world, it got to about 9:30 pm and I felt a strong urge to practise my violin. Well not exactly an urge—more a hunger or a need. A need which had probably been brewing for a while, but which I’d not really been aware of until it came out in the dream.

Hungry again

So I got my violin out. For about an hour, I practised some Sevcik exercises then a Rode study, quite intensely. Then I got out the Bach Chaconne—which I’d worked on before my father died but not played since—and played through it to see how much of it I still knew. (Answer: I still know most of it, but it’s not as fluent and there are places where I now stumble which were fine before.)

Yesterday and today, I again had the desire to practise, and did about 1½ hours each time. And last Tuesday, playing for a Messiah concert, I found myself talking to one of my fellow players about what aspects of technique I’d like to work on if I book a lesson or two.

Is the energy beginning to return? Maybe. It’s about 18 months since I last felt this way, so I think it may well be a good sign. Will I book a lesson? Maybe. I’ve already got as far as texting the teacher to ask what she charges these days.