Double stops are unforgiving

I recently took a couple of lessons from Alan Kaufman, the fiddler who leads the well-known old time jam at Skellig. Alan seems to live in one cluttered bedroom, where instruments, music, books, and computer spill from the walls, leaving space only for Alan and one student to sit in the center of the room, unscathed by the chaos, for a lesson. Each time I have gone to Alan's home, we have worked on one of the tunes he regularly leads at the Skellig, with attention to the challenges of old time bowing and timing. Then he makes a recording of himself playing the tune and emails it to me so that I can perfect it at home.

This week, when we were reviewing "Duck River," the tune I had been working on since the last lesson, I noticed that Allan was adding a double stop that I wasn't playing: when the melody bounced up to a high B, he put his first finger down to play the B below it. I tried to add in this extra touch, but even I winced at the resulting screeching out-of-tune octave. Double stops are completely unforgiving. Any intonation inaccuracies are magnified and made uglier when played against another note, in unison or in harmony.

Alan noticed my look of disgust and paused. Double stops are unforgiving, he says, it's ok. Remember three things.

1. Keep playing them, even when the going gets rough.

2. Set the bar high. Listen for and expect the highest level of intonation.

3. Be very forgiving.

Show up, set the bar high and be forgiving. Can these last two concepts go together? I was recently discussing the nature of ambition and setting goals with a friend while hiking in Vermont. I don't worry too much about any of my goals, I had insisted. It's all about finding joy in the process. I didn't even care if we reached the summit after hiking the better part of a day, I had claimed. And it is true, I would have been perfectly content to turn around at any point, but perhaps my story was missing something.

I have learned to be extremely forgiving of myself and accepting of whatever I am at any moment and whatever comes my way; this has brought me great joy. But this forgiveness can go hand in hand with a high bar--with setting out to reach a beautiful mountaintop, a goal of learning a new Irish tune each day of vacation, or striving to one day master old time bowing techniques. In the cramped lair of Alan's home, it finally occurred to me that challenging goals and forgiveness do indeed go together. Perhaps each makes the other possible.

So here's to showing up for life, setting the bar high, and, above all, forgiving ourselves.