Every day a weight hangs from my neck. It leaves a red mark, a long, narrow welt of imprinted flesh against my spine and a dull ache, undetectable until it has set in too stubbornly to remove. The source of this weight is a connection between all forms of my being, and it leaves its mark not only on my neck, but also on my hands, face, and mind. It has the ability to infuriate me, to soothe my worst fears, and to inspire my loftiest ambitions. It defines me and every part of me: it is my past, present, and future.
This is my Selmer TS500 tenor saxophone. The name is engraved in the bell of my horn, surrounded by clouds of sharply swirling leaf-like patterns etched into the crisp, golden lacquer. When I take my saxophone out of its case, though, I do not think of it by the title given to it at the factory where it was made. When I pick it up, I feel the cold, hard weight of brass in my hands and the power of the notes it contains, and I think, “This is me.” I gently twist the neckpiece into place, hook the horn up to my neck strap, and transfer a thin, delicate reed from a case to my mouth, allowing my tongue to saturate it with warm saliva. With fresh anticipation, my fingers glide over the silver discs and bars that make up the keys and settle into place on top of the polished-pearl round buttons. I run my fingers down the horn, rapidly closing one key after another and listen to the satisfying plonks of the windless descending scale. Finally, lining the reed up perfectly with the tip of the mouthpiece, I tighten the ligature that holds the reed in place and slide the mouthpiece onto the neck.
This is how the most beautiful moments of my day begin. Every time I pick my saxophone up, my entire body surges with joy in anticipation of the beautiful music I am about to make. It seems a little odd that I say this, knowing that most of my practice time is not spent playing the expressive, melodious pieces that I love so much. In fact, if someone were to listen to my practice sessions, he or she would wonder why I feel any joy at all while playing the repetitive, exhausting scales and rhythms that I work on for hours. It’s true that playing the same two notes over and over again is repetitive, but there is more to it than that. When my fingers and tongue line up perfectly in time with my metronome, I feel a wave of pure happiness wash over me—for a moment, that impossible goal of perfection is within reach. I know every time I master one more measure of music, one more scale, or one more phrase, that I am capable of reaching any goal with my saxophone.
I know this because I have failed. I have spent days in the practice room during which my fingers refuse to do what I ask, my tongue feels too thick to articulate any simple rhythm properly, and my anger and frustration build until they become a burning tide that threatens to bury me. On days like this I play through my routine, not stopping to fight the stubborn mistakes that continue to stoke my anger, and I leave the practice room in defeat. All day, I feel that defeat in my stomach like a smoldering lump, and I go to sleep with this on my mind. Overnight, my mind slows peacefully and the burns of defeat are gently soothed. I wake the next morning, ready to face the practice room and my saxophone again. When I do, I play the parts right the first time, as if I never struggled with them before. Immediately, the defeat I felt the day before is replaced by hope and I play with renewed joy that swells to fill the muffled cube of the practice room. This is when I realize that without my failures, I would not know true success. The failure I suffered brought me back up higher than I ever was before, and knowing this makes me appreciate every painful struggle that I overcome.
This realization about my music has shaped the way I live my life every day. Before my saxophone taught me how passionate I was about music, I did not think of the beauty of struggling to overcome the obstacles that I encountered, either in music or in life. In junior high and the beginning of high school, I was in an abusive relationship with a boy who affected me so deeply that I was reduced to depending on every move he made. He told me that I had no talent in music, and I truly doubted myself and everything that I did. I drifted after him day after day, miserable, but so out of touch with my own thoughts that I never stopped to consider what made me happy. When my mom decided this herself, she forced me to break up with him, which I fearfully and hesitantly did.
What followed was the most important transition in my life. For the first time in over two years, I began to discover what it was like to be an individual—unique and not dependent upon anyone else’s whims and control. As I discovered the power I had as an individual, I fell naturally into the pursuit of the one thing that had remained my own during the time I had relinquished all control over myself: music. As I explored more by playing saxophone and singing in choral groups, I realized that my boyfriend had been wrong; I did have talent. Ecstatic, I dove into music with zeal and never turned back.
Only recently have I stopped to think about what my days would be like without my saxophone. The thought of waking up without music on my mind creates an immeasurable void. I cannot imagine going through my day without that pivotal focal point to bring every thought, plan, and action together into one purpose. In high school, the more I explored music, the more it soaked into my body and mind. I sang at home as I fed the chickens and cleaned my room. I hummed at school as I walked to classes. The music I created became a part of me like nothing ever had before, and it in turn began to create me.
Through my saxophone and music, I discovered my identity. Music became my passion, and I knew that it would become my career. Even more than that, though, it became my philosophy. This philosophy opened my eyes to many things that I never noticed before. Like slowly learning to love the rigorous process of working on audition music, I learned to see the joy in walking to the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning under a blushing sky and the sounds of swallows catching breakfast bugs. Just like discovering my natural instinct to play my saxophone with tender expression, I discovered that I had natural instincts when it came to stressful or tricky situations. I began to believe in these instincts, both in music and in my everyday life; the more I trusted myself and my instincts, the happier I felt.
As I trusted my instincts more, though, I also became aware of the very different way that I viewed life compared to others. This was most noticeable in school, where I was surrounded by other teenagers, none of whom seemed to understand the sincere happiness I felt every day. I realized that the transition I had undergone was something that many didn’t experience until much later in life, if at all. The girls that had been my friends throughout elementary and junior high school treated me the same as they always had, but our friendship wasn’t the same. They gushed about how smart and mature I was and they told me that if they ever did something “stupid,” I should warn them. Once, I spoke up to one girl who was knowingly walking into an unhealthy situation, but she ignored me. Earlier, she had told me to help her out in this kind of situation; now she just said, “Not this time.”
After that, I stopped hanging out with my old friends; I simply couldn’t bear the helpless feeling that had replaced the close bond I’d had with them. A turnaround from my elementary years, when I enjoyed nothing more than getting on the bus and learning with my friends in class, school became a prison to me. Even with my saxophone as a stable friend, I felt alienated and alone. In part, this was because of my saxophone; I was pursuing music, something that only two or three students in my school would do. I could not escape the feeling that I was separated from the people I had grown up with, and this feeling became stronger as time passed. I slowly came to realize, though, that this did not have to affect me negatively. This separation was a quiet form of freedom from my peers’ expectations. I didn’t have to stifle my passion for music because my classmates didn’t understand it. I didn’t need to suppress the person I was just to fit in. I found new strength in my individuality, and I developed this while I continued to develop my musical skills. To me, these were one and the same. To put it simply, my saxophone is everything, and my saxophone is who I am.