Lessons from Jinxi
When I was young, my grandparents would tell me stories about Jinxi, the Chinese province where they both grew up. It is an ancient water town surrounded on all sides by lakes, and when my grandparents were young, the only way to travel anywhere was by boat through the maze of canals that flow everywhere through the town.
In Jinxi, the day begins at dawn. Fishermen ready their boats for the day, farmers tend to their crops and gardens, and the townspeople begin their daily chores. As the sun rises, the canals start to fill with boats, and people line the canals’ stony ledges, chatting and laughing while they go about their morning routines.
On mornings when there was less to do, my grandpa would bring his erhu, the Chinese violin, sit on one of the historic covered bridges overlooking the canal below, and play familiar local melodies while my grandma sang along. Sometimes other people would bring their own instruments and play together with my grandpa for a while, but without fail and within a few minutes, the sound of voices joining in from below would begin. Women sang along while they washed their clothes and rinsed soil from the morning harvests, men sang along from their boats as they passed below. The morning passes like this, full of bustle and music.
As a child, I wasn’t quite able to grasp just how valuable experiences like these are. My only experience performing was in a formal recital setting, and it always made me feel very nervous. I felt nervous performing in front of anyone, even my family, and I always felt that it must have taken my grandpa a lot of courage to play in front of so many people so often.
As an adult, I do still feel nervous performing sometimes, but I’ve learned to overcome a lot of that anxiety by reframing performances as a way to share music with others rather than a test that must be studied for. My grandpa doesn’t worry about whether he makes a mistake or forgets the second half of a song because he’s simply telling stories about the joys and sorrows of his home and childhood in a conversation amongst dear friends.
When we perform, we are just sharing music so that we can invoke emotion and tell stories. Performance doesn’t always have to be playing at a recital; it can be for yourself at the end of a productive session of practice; it can be an impromptu performance for your family while they’re cooking dinner; it can be half a song or just one line; the important part is that you are simply sharing your music.
—By Jennifer Shao, South Loop School of Music teacher
