O Sleep, thou dost NOT leave me…
Jeff and I are classical musicians. We met because Jeff was looking for a soprano to sing a piece he wrote for his former teacher and colleague, John Mack who had passed away in 2006. So in April of 2007, as he was planning this tribute to John Mack, he cold-called me after having received my number from another musician friend. The rest is history, and maybe I will tell it in more detail since our 13th wedding anniversary is coming up in 2023.
Being musicians means there is a good amount of practicing going on at the house. And so anyone living with us, mainly dogs, will get the full experience of the musical process. This means hearing a lot of mistakes, sometimes swear words or laughter to accompany them, repeated phrases that start out as rough but finish with a shine, experimenting with different expressions, etc. etc. The amount of thought and work that goes into a world-class performance of the final product is something that perhaps only musicians know and can commiserate with. And the dogs that live with us and have to hear it all.
When Maris was just a few months old, I was still a full-time musician and a professor. She grew up listening to me practice at home with all the strange exercises that classical singers do to train our muscles. I remember practicing one particular piece called “Alice in Wonderland: Child Alice part 1, In Memory of a Summer Day” which was an extremely difficult piece for a soprano and orchestra. I must have killed a number of brain cells practicing notes that hovered just beyond the stratosphere. Poor Maris was at the house with me as I practiced, trying to get this monster 60-minute piece under my belt. Poor Maris, I thought. She happily and peacefully slept through all my practice sessions, repeated high-C’s be damned.
And it was so for all her life. Every time I started my warm ups, basically easy lip trills and step-wise 5 to 1 scale, she would know to get into her day bed. And then she would promptly fall asleep. Now that she has left this world and has crossed the Rainbow Bridge, I like to think that she can still hear my voice and the musical phrases I spin out as she had in her dreams when she was with me.
Today, we have Little Lucas. I have not yet practiced in front of him in the month that we have had him. But Jeff has! No, not singing, but on the oboe. Whenever he practices downstairs in his studio, Lucas falls asleep. It’s as if on cue. There must be something to this… beautiful sound is indeed nourishment for the soul. And I think these dogs must somehow be enriched and soothed, enough to be lulled into sleep. OR, we are just a big snore! For two musicians living in the same house, this is a really interesting experiment!
The Little One 