Music, like life, operates in the realm of consonance and dissonance. Consonance is considered the melodious, pleasant sounding part of the music. It's the stuff that sounds overall pleasing to your ear and that you are most used to hearing. Dissonance is a deliberately placed interval in music that sounds clashing. Flats, sharps, grinding, unharmonious chords that make you cringe a little. Generally a dissonant section of music is placed to create tension and to emphasize a consonant section.
That has been my life. I have had extremes of consonance--extremely pleasant parts of life--and extremes of dissonance--extremely uncomfortable periods--in the past year and a half. The last thing you knew was about my amazing trip to Disneyland. Consonance. A pleasant, melodious, unbearably happy section of my life. Things were fun and amazing and exciting. I was blossoming into a young intellectual in University, dancing with the hep cats and making new friends. Everything seemed like it was fitting in a perfect place in my life.
I don't know if you could tell from my previous posts (if you read them), but while I was in Bible College I struggled with some identity issues. I wanted to be a part of a certain group of people really badly (Amoroso, B Flat, etc), and I didn't seem to know how to integrate myself with them. I didn't seem to know who I was, and was unbearably unhappy with how "outcast" I felt. During my first year of University I was able to move past this unhealthy obsession with impressing people. I realized that I didn't really want a relationship with these people, I wanted to feeling of belonging it would have brought me.
In a crazy random turn of events, I started hanging out with some of the young adults that went to the young adults group at my church while I was in Bible College, and one of the people from that group I always had a particular affinity for. She would be a very brassy, very self assured, very deep Baritone Saxophone. She suggested that I hang out with some of the young adults that went to this University, and it was harmonious. It had this consonance; this pleasant feeling to it. It just seemed to fit. I didn't have to fight to fit in here, I didn't have to pine for attention, I didn't have to blast my Trumpet just to be heard. I acted like myself, and I started to make friendships.
This was a big thing for me, because that was what I wanted in Bible college. To be liked.
I goofed around with these two guys from young adults, acting like a loser, geeking out about Lord of the Rings, and cramming Subway in my face like the wildly unattractive eater that I am. And it was okay!
The one guy would be an Accordion or something. Unique, for sure. The other guy is definitely a Trumpet, just like me. He plays First Trumpet, loudly, with a unique flair, and a brassy charm. We clicked right away, and I begged him to help me learn my Chemistry, because I was struggling.
We began to hang out more at school, because I was desperate to do well in my course. He had already taken it and was more than willing to talk me through the online questions, explaining the manipulation I had to perform on the formula to get the answer that was required. I was more than thankful.
He is a much more easy-going Trumpet than I am though, and tends to play his song with a carefree, improv-ish, jazzy feel to everything. I am a performance minded Trumpet who always wants to do good, and follow the score to a "t". My unique flair might be in the volume I play the crescendo up to, or how emphatically I hit the sforzando. I don't stray from the music though, I play by all the rules. If there's not a written in improv section, I'm not gonna mess around.
The Jazz Trumpet, he's different. He's got this confidence that overwhelms even the score, and he can bend the music to work for him. He doesn't deviate from the music so much that you can't tell what he's playing, but he makes it his own. In everything he does, he takes it and makes it unique to who he is.
Well this became interesting because when midterms came around, our different Trumpeting styles made themselves evident. I was stressing, as per usual, and banking on doing the best I could possibly do (AKA getting my performance in school as close to perfection as possible), and my Jazz friend was totally chill about the whole thing. He told me, in as kind of words as possible, that I needed to relax. I was told to cross off one day during reading week, and devote it to "Fun Times".
I gave him a "You can't be serious" look, and he smiled. Somehow, his impromptu way of playing music, got through to me. I gave in and found myself watching Sochii Olympic half-pipe at his house during the reading week.
And it was the embodiment of Consonance. It just seemed like we could be friends, we could play together as first Trumpets, our songs melding together, and sounding freaking awesome. It was fun. I learned some things about improv, and solos and playing my song the way I wanted to play it. I could be a part of a band and still make each thing that I played somehow my own.
So my Jazz friend invited me to this hockey game a couple days after one of my Bible College friends invited me to a hockey game. I went with my Bible college friend and found myself really looking forward to the game with my Jazz friend.
That second game ended up being a good one for our team, and a big moment in my life too. Mr. smooth Jazz player asked me out after the hockey game, and I found myself shrieking with delight and saying yes. I hadn't even consciously acknowledged to myself that I liked him, but inside I just knew that we sounded so good together and that I never, EVER had a Trumpet in my life--not a first Trumpet player who was so compatible with me.
Thus started the biggest consonance moment of my life.
As April approached, we had already officially become "a thing", and were getting to know each other better every day.
It was four days after my birthday when the dissonance came in. My sister, you remember, the Flute player? She left. There was a whole fiasco that, to be honest, I don't really want to get into. All I can say is that it was a ridiculously hard thing to try and deal with.
I had lost my best friend, my music buddy, my confidant and sister. We didn't always see eye to eye on everything, and we could be insanely competitive, but that didn't mean that I wasn't crushed when it seemed like she had deserted our family and that things would never be repaired.
My Jazz player was amazing during this time. Keep in mind that, at this point, we haven't even been dating a month. He came over to my house, and sat with me on the couch, his arm around my shoulder as I buried myself in my school books, trying to focus on finals and struggling, hardcore. I had dragged myself out of bed, thrown on workout clothes, and not bothered to fix my hair or do my make-up.
Note: A girl does not go make-up-less and sit motionless all day on the couch, ignoring her boyfriend, when they haven't even been going out for a month.
That's exactly what I did though, and I couldn't seem to do anything else. I barely talked, because I didn't know what to say. I didn't have the will to put myself in nice clothes, and make myself presentable. I didn't know what to do. I just sat, staring at my history notes as though looking at them would put them in my head, and if they were in my head I would do well at school, and the Flute would come back.
It was a weird transition period, getting used to her being gone, getting used to the new family dynamic. My Jazz player brought my so much joy though, so it was weird. It was like being punched in the stomach by one person, only to be hugged by another.
There were times where I was so mad at the Flute that I never wanted to see her again, and other times when I just sat and cried because I wished we could just hang out like we used to. There were times where I took out my conflicted emotions on my Jazz Player, and other times when being with him made me forget I had conflicted emotions.
It was a wildly tumultuous experience for my emotions, but you know, it all comes out consonant in the end. What composer makes a dissonant ending to his piece? None. The end of the piece brings resolution; this can only be achieved through consonance. A dissonant part of the music leaves the listener feeling unresolved, that is the point. It is generally the build up to a resolution. It makes the audience uncomfortable so that when things are resolved, they feel so much better.
Where is this going, you might be asking. Well! The Flute player has returned to us! It hasn't been long that we've been re-establishing communication, and building back a relationship that was thrown into a very confusing pit, but things are going so much better and so much faster than I ever would have though possible! Things aren't perfect, but heck, they are a million times better than they were. I really feel God is working in her life, and working in the lives of my entire family. A work of restoration is being done, and that feels so right. I might still be confused (we all might still be confused) working through emotions or whatever, but we are getting so much closer to consonance. The pitch sounds just about right, the notes are melding just about seamlessly, the contrast of instruments seems to be coming to just the perfect place where it sounds--right.
As for my Jazz player, we are madly in love, excited and eager to proceed through this score called life, playing in perfect harmony. I am wildly blessed to have him in my life, and so grateful to God that He brought me my counter-part Trumpet player, the one I so badly wanted--the one I didn't realize I needed.
Here's the thing, God is the master composer, and understands that in the end, consonance is what dominates. He allows dissonance in a piece, because it makes the consonance that much more powerful! It is what makes the score real, the nitty gritty, grinding conglomeration of consonant and dissonant chords is what makes music music. So of course, He composes our lives with a little bit of both, knowing it will make a fuller, more complete, more powerful work of music. But, He is the God of peace, and He restores the peaceful calm of consonance one way, or another; in the way we expect, or not; in this life, or the next. Because He knows what it means to make a beautiful piece of music out of your life.
So--Bravo! You've made it through the dissonance. And if you haven't yet, you will. Keep on trekking performer! Consonance is coming.
--Trumpet Player
