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Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music
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About Practicing: A Musician's Return To Music
Product Description In a remarkable memoir written with insight and humor, Glenn Kurtz takes us from his first lessons at the age of eight to his acceptance at the elite New England Conservatory of Music. After graduation, he attempts a solo career in Vienna but soon realizes that he has neither the ego nor the talent required to succeed and gives up the instrument, and his dream, entirely. But not forever: Returning to the guitar, Kurtz weaves into the narrative the rich experience of a single practice session. Practicing takes us on a revelatory, inspiring journey: a love affair with music. Review “Graceful. . . . A lovely, unique book. . . . A personal journey [that] becomes universal, elevating all in the process.” — Los Angeles Times“A thoughtful and fluid meditation on the subject. . . . [Kurtz] might just compel you to call your old grade-school piano teacher to see if she's taking on any new students.”— The New York Times Book Review “A sensuous, evocative memoir about love lost and regained. . . . Kurtz has gone back to work on his guitar playing, and his devotion seems like a rebirth of self.” — San Francisco Chronicle Book Review“Absorbing . . . [Written] with uncanny sensitivity about his brief career as a professional performer.”— The Wall Street Journal About the Author Glenn Kurtz holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Stanford University and was a 2016 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. He has taught at San Francisco State University, California College of the Arts, and Stanford. He has written several critically-acclaimed books, including Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music, and has been published in The New York Times, Salon, Southwest Review, and ZYZZYVA. He lives in New York City.www.glennkurtz.com Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Sitting Down I am sitting down to practice. I open the case and take out my instrument, a classical guitar made from the door of a Spanish church. I strike a tuning fork against my knee and hold it to my ear, then gently pluck an open string. During the night the guitar has drifted out of tune. It tries to pull the tuning fork with it, and I feel the friction of discordant vibrations against my eardrum. I turn the tuning peg slightly, bracing it between my thumb and index finger, until the two sounds converge. Another barely perceptible adjustment, and the vibrations melt together, becoming one. From string to string, I repeat the process, resolving discord with minute twists of my wrist. Then I check high notes against low, middle against outer. Finally I play a chord, sounding all six strings together. Each note rubs the others just right, and the instrument shivers with delight. The feeling is unmistakable, intoxicating. When a guitar is perfectly in tune, its strings, its whole body will resonate in sympathetic vibration, the true concord of well-tuned sounds. It is an ancient, hopeful metaphor, an instrument in tune, speaking of pleasure on earth and order in the cosmos, the fragility of beauty, and the quiver in our longing for love. With a metal emery board, then with very fine sandpaper, I file the nails on my right hand. Even the tiniest ridges can catch on a string and make its tone raspy. In 1799 Portuguese guitarist Antonio Abreu suggested trimming the nails with scissors, then smoothing them on a sharpening stone to remove “rough edges that might impede the execution of flourishes and lively scales.” Some guitarists disagree heatedly with this advice, preferring to play with the fingertips alone. For support, they quote Miguel Fuenllana, who in 1554 stated that “to strike with the nails is imperfection. Only the finger, the living thing, can communicate the intention of the spirit.” But to my ear, the spirit of music speaks with many voices, and a combination of fingernail and flesh sounds best. I run my thumb over my fingertips. They are as smooth as crystal. I shift the guitar into its proper position, settle its weigh
