Chapter 16

As the rehearsals kept going on, nothing really changed much. I went to my lessons at CC’s like I normally would. I occasionally got yelled at for doing something minor. My mom would stay outside and no longer interrupt anything. I was doing okay. This balance was working. At some point nearing the end of grade 11, I would start learning the repertoire for grade 10 RCM, just as X and Prodigy were completing their tests for grade 10. 

Then, one fateful day, just before my lesson with CC was about to start, I overheard my name being spoken. The person on the otherside was a woman’s voice and I thought that for sure it was X’s mom. However, as I listened, it became clear that it wasn’t. It was Mr. Prodigy’s mom. The family friend of my mom. She was speaking with CC regarding something. I couldn’t get a good read from her tone of voice since I was waiting for my turn with CC in his living room where their conversation was only only slightly in earshot. Furthermore, she wasn’t speaking particularly loud. Despite the tone, I got wind of some of the questions that were asked of CC. 

They chatted about a few things here and there but the main topic that related to me was how on Earth did I get a silver medal. I first thought she wanted to ask CC for the blueprints to achieve such an award but as I listened in more and more, I think I understood what she was really getting at. I think the plaque on CC’s wall for being the teacher with a student who had gotten a silver medal must have made her curiousand I’d figured at some point she got curious enough to find out more about it. The exact question that was asked was 

“How on Earth did I get a medal when her son didn’t get one even after completing his grade 10 RCM?” 

A part of me wanted CC to defend me. I wanted CC to tell her that I tried hard and worked my ass off for a long time but as I kind of predicted, he simply told her the logical answer. He basically told her what the Silver Medal was. He told her that it was a seasonal award and time specific to the period of testing you did your exam in. The RCM level 7 I did was an easier grade with less people taking it so I stood out from the crowd and hence got the medal. Furthermore, the award was not something you get for doing more RCM grades but for doing one grade the best during a season. 

To CC’s credit, he did try to stand up for me a bit. He said I did well in it and that there was a requirement of excellence to even qualify for a medal. If no one in an exam season got over 90 points out of 100, there would be no silver medal at all that season. It was also at least somewhat merit dependent. Otherwise, it was entirely dependent on the examination participant pool. While CC wasn’t wrong to say that I got the medal because of circumstance, I don’t think Mr. Prodigy’s mom liked the answer. I think she was mad that she didn’t know about this award earlier. In the back of my mind, I think if she knew she may even have made Mr. Prodigy do easier levels of RCM just to get some more awards. 

While this may have been a way to exploit the system, I kind of understand where she was coming from. It was kind of an outstanding feat to stand out in an exam like RCM. If you really examine the requirements of a passing grade for RCM, it turns out passing was quite easy. A lot of people can do it and thus, the value of an RCM level wasn’t as high as I thought and definitely not as high as the Chinese community thought. Though passing is easy, excelling at RCM, that was actually kinda hard. The bottom line was easy to step through but the upper bounds of excellence on RCM was exponentially more difficult. At the top, where the medalists stand, there was heavy competition and everyone around that area is all type A to the core. So the RCM wasn’t such a big deal but the medalists were. I felt pretty good about this explanation but here’s the main question on my mind:

Is excelling at repertoire easier if the repertoire itself is easier? 

I ask this because as it turns out, I really do think I was overqualified for the grade 7 exam. Keep in mind that I only took the grade 7 exam on CC’s recommendation but regardless, I was overprepared. Did I just smurf my way into a medal? Most professional musicians these days are quite liberal and will tell you that technical prowess is not everything. A virtuoso at intonation does not make them a good musician, in fact, virtuosos are constantly criticized for sacrificing emotional expression for technical prowess. But the truth of the matter is, if your repertoire is easier, you do free up time to actually work on the unique stylistic things. Technical prowess does have weight.

Here’s a really short tangent that I don’t think too many people will understand but I really wanted to share this statement. Technical prowess in music is the equivalent of power moves in breakdancing. They are the flashy moves and the crowd pleasers. You see them and you think “WOW, that’s amazing!”. Now, breakdancing illustrates this very well because here’s the thing with power moves, they don’t define how good a breakdancer is. Most champions of breakdancers are balanced between all skills. It is rare to have power move fanatics exclusively winning. That’s because there is a level of expression and style in breakdancing. Power moves, though amazing and incredibly difficult to pull off, once done and learnt, are the same every time with very little variation. Same thing with music. The problem with something super difficult is that it becomes increasingly harder to distinguish your playing from anothers. For both power moves and virtuosic passages in music, there are simply too many things to keep track of to add in your personal signature. In breakdance, you can bypass this by doing powermoves that are even more difficult because the ceiling for difficulty can always be pushed higher. But how is this done in music? The tempo can’t be increased too much, the notes can only be played as they are because that’s part of the virtuoso requirement. So where do you stand out? Look further into this and you may even start to question some of the non-virtuoso things in music. Don’t worry, go down the rabbit hole ever further and you’ll cycle back to the top. 

Okay, back to the conversation I was eavesdropping. Why don’t I tell you what I was actually thinking when I heard this. I was thinking why were they even talking about this? I won the medal like a year ago. How can someone look at me with disdain about something that happened that long ago? Also, the more she repeated the question the less she sounded like she was asking about instructions to get a silver medal and more like she was accusing CC of not telling her about the medal. CC caught on to this and then chose to promptly throw me under the bus. He said grade 8 is usually when most people start their RCM career but that I had decided to start mine at level 7 which gave me an edge. He then deliberately left out the part where he chose level 7 for me and started to say how it was all my idea. I realized at this point I was being character assassinated. He was painting me as a sly dog who wanted to do anything to be recognized, even if it meant being grouped with easier competitors and repertoire. In other words, he said I had smurfed my way to a win. 

Though I wasn’t sure of his intentions, something about the way he said those things rubbed me the wrong way. Eventually they stopped talking and I finally walked in to do my lesson. I briefly said hello to Mr. Prodigy and he said hello back. Then he finished packing and left. Soon, his mom also left after a few last words with CC. She didn’t even look at me as she left. I wonder if it may have been different if my mom was there. Hard to say. My mom had gotten a car at this point in our life and had dropped me off at practice to go shopping. Since she didn’t do much aside from waiting, she had developed a habit of going grocery shopping during my cello lessons. Regardless, I’m not sure my mom would have stood up for me at any point.

Back to the lesson. This lesson was a bit different than the other ones. I felt a bit uncharacteristically angry. I wasn’t sure if it was the conversation, the character assassination or just something I ate that day but as the lesson kept going on I got more and more angry. Maybe years of yelling and years of verbal abuse was finally starting to get to me. Maybe it was because CC didn’t care for me much after all this time. Whatever it was I had enough. During the middle of the lesson, CC got on to one of his rants again. He said something along the lines of “you’re doing this wrong and you should do it this way like I showed you”. 

I snapped. 

“You never told me that. You never showed me this. I write down every thing you ever tell me that can be used and there’s no marking here.”

A simple response and an accurate one to be sure but my tone of voice gave away my inner feelings. How? I had almost yelled this sentence. It was unconsciously done and way louder than I anticipated. I was taken back after speaking so loudly, I don’t think I’ve screamed ever before in my life and now suddenly this happened. Figuring it would be too awkward to recover from this conversation, I thought…

Whatever. Might as well finish this. 

I packed up my cello and started to walk out. CC instinctively responded back

“How dare you say that to me! If you can’t follow my instructions you should leave and never come back” 

I heard this talk before. Being with CC for so long, I heard this talk every now and then. One of his other students would get to their breaking point and just not take any more verbal abuse. Sometimes they yell back and tell CC off then leave. When they yelled, CC would say that phrase. I never thought I would do something like this though. I felt that I deserved a better exit. Something that meant something unlike a generic exit by his short term students. But life is often disappointing and has no closure. 

I didn’t even look back. I just kept packing. I got my stuff and went outside. I was so concentrated on anger I had completely forgotten whether or not I heard my mom come back from her grocery run. Luckily, it turned out she had. I walked past her and got into the car. Enough was enough. My mom quickly understood the situation as soon as she saw me walking, she then proceeded to go to CC and gave him the money for the lesson. She had a few chats with him afterwards and then walked out with me. I wasn’t sure what she talked about. I was also unsure which side she may have taken in the end. This didn’t matter though.

When she finally joined me in the car, I turned to her. 

“I’m not going back.”

My mom didn’t say much and didn’t take any convincing. I think she may have come to understand throughout the years that the verbal abuse was not healthy. Moreso, what could she have said? I no longer told her anything about my day to day and we weren’t close. She didn’t have any authority over my life anymore. Being so absent from each other’s life and only being dependent on each other for permission slips for school or cello lessons, it’s not like she could have that much say in what I decided to do with my life. She stayed silent. I mourned the loss of whatever my bond with CC was but I didn’t give it too much thought. He had taken enough of my mental energy. I wasn’t going to give him another thought. 

I hoped I could cut him out of my life entirely but I couldn’t. The crappy thing is that when your young and impressionable, your father figures influence a lot of what you become. I had an absent one and then an abusive one. This was not a healthy upbringing. The roots of your early development are hard to rewire. However things went in the future, I knew I would always be branded with CC’s signature and scars.