May 9, 2011 12:15 pm I completed my first year of conservatory training with only finals and a jury left to go.
Background (skip this part if you don’t like grimey melodrama)
In August of 99 as a newlywed student at The University of Virginia, I pawned my trumpet at the insistence of my then husband in order to buy groceries. Charlottesville wasn’t the happening jazz town I hoped for, my husband was annoyed by my association with “the kats”, so my horn went and I fully devoted myself to becoming a social studies teacher.
Fast forwarding about nine years. I missed a birth control pill a long the way, so while I have a degree in History minor in Foreign Affairs, instead of a social studies teacher, I am a stay at home mom, wife of a medical school student and a web developer. While I was working hard to make sure everyone in my little family was on course for their purpose I was still searching for mine.
Then one Sunday in 2004, I lead the praise team at my father’s church and afterward the minister of music Otis Gaskins laid hands on me to pray. His prayer was that my soul would never rest until I delivered the songs in my heart that God had given me. The seeds for my return to music were planted. In February of 2008, I purchased my dream horn as a gift to myself for completing the Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction program at Virginia Tech.
Not long after, my marriage went into an utter tail spin of insanity. After two kids, a harrowing trip through a Caribbean medical school which required at least 10 moves , hubby is a physician and Captain in the Air Force, has patented a drug for sickle cell anemia and has thus decided I am no longer useful to his life.
April 19, 2008 after a night of counseling by church friends, he shows me the lease for his new apartment and tries to force me to sign separation papers. He felt I had done nothing with my life since we had been married, while he had courageously pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Never mind that when I met him he had no legal right to be in this country, failed several science courses and had no money of his own to go to medical school. Apparently I never prayed for him, bought him study aids, drove two hours to work during two pregnancies, paid for tons of educational expenses, helped him get citizenship, and connected him with other medical students who could help his career. But I digress…
THE YEAR IN REVIEW
So like any red blood American woman abandoned by an ungrateful husband, I decided to assuage my pain with music and by some miracle by August of 2010 I was a jazz studies major at Peabody Conservatory with a $100, 000 scholarship. In the words of my dear friend, actress Maggie Kettering “Charmaine when life gives you lemons you put them in your bra and pretend you have bigger boobies” So I guess you can say I took her advice.
But I think maybe only God and I know how truly miraculous it was for me to gain admittance AND a scholarship to a world renowned conservatory. However to give you an idea. I have never really studied music and for 9 years I didn’t touch the trumpet. Up until 2008 I had no clue that people around my age besides Wynton Marsalis were even still playing jazz. When I first heard the name Roy Hargrove I thought he was some white guy from Texas. In addition, it was instilled in me from a young age, any music outside of gospel and classical was basically worldly music that would lead me straight to hell.
Yet, in spite of these physical, spiritual and emotional hurdles, as of today I have finished my first year of classes through a grueling conservatory program, with my sanity in tact and a better musician. I SERVE AN AWESOME GOD.
Again only God and I really know how challenging this year was but here are some highlights. In the middle of the first semester I learned I had lost 60% of my hearing due to a genetic condition called otosclerosis. A little hard to be a musician when you can barely hear. At the end of that semester my ex-husband learned that he would be deployed to Iraq and his new wife of SIX MONTHS, tried to file for custody of my children despite the fact the divorce decree remits them to me in such cases. After some angry emails where I was basically called a crazy jazz whore and my father a loser, my ex ended up not going to Iraq and his wife lost her case in court. However, by the middle of the spring semester during midterms no less my ex did successfully get me evicted from apartment and I had to move to Baltimore. But did I mention I SERVE AN AWESOME GOD !!
On a more positive note, I got many awesome opportunities to give back to the community. I played music to support causes like Artists against War,gave a master class at a Middle School, and helped the Peabody Black Student Union put on a benefit concert for a local elementary school.
As for the jazz music program itself ? I think David Liebman best describes my situation and the situation of most jazz students in a college program:
“When you’re in school, you hear a lot of stuff that you’re not ready to hear, because you’re just not up to that level yet. You can’t practice what [an instructor] said and get it together by next week; So when you move up to week two or
whatever it is, there’s no way you can keep up with it. So you’re always behind. And that’s not natural, and you do the best you can..” (Jazz Ed 2011, January, “David Liebman: This is Not Something You Enter Lightly” by Christian Wissmuller)
For the most of the year I was drowning in a sea of information, wondering what the heck did I get myself into and why I insisted on torturing myself like this. There were definitely some tearful nights in the practice room. However, despite the challenges at the end of my first year I am light years away of where I was as a musician. In 09 when I started studying jazz, I knew more about diaper changes than chord changes. I thought Neopolitan was a sort of ice cream and augmented is something one did to enhance their breast size. Now I can do such things like read music in three different clefs, compose using figured bass lines and know at least 7 types chord scales and their modes. To be clear I am NO virtuoso but I can definitely say that I am getting the information needed to clearly articulate myself as a musician. What I eventually produce may not remind folks of the great Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis or Wynton Marsalis but you will clearly hear the story of a black woman who triumphed through many trials and tribulations by trusting her God and strongly believing she could impact humanity in a positive way.