Doublestop Magazine

Challenge

It was a word that made our knees quake and our hearts quiver in our chests … challenge. That is, someone else in the orchestra wanted our seat, and we’d have to perform to keep it.

When I was 13, I was a freshman in high school, playing in an orchestra with seniors, even. Instead of my cuddly, kind-hearted middle school teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, we had a hard-edged director with a band and percussion background who would take no crap from anyone and didn’t know his tailpiece from his scroll. Mr. Bennett had two different-colored eyes, a fact I wouldn’t discover until years after high school, because I had always been too afraid to look him in the eye.

I was the only freshman in the first violin section, something about which I felt great pride. We were playing challenging pieces (Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, Beethoven’s Egmont Overture), I had a mild crush on my stand partner, and I was over the moon.

Then, “Mike” challenged me. Mike was a senior in the second violin section, and apparently he wanted my seat. He issued the challenge, to be played out that coming Friday. We would each play a portion of the first violin part of the Unfinished Symphony, behind a screen and thus anonymous, and the orchestra would vote on who would get the seat.

Also in the second violins were my two good friends, Carolyn and Anna. I was dragging myself to my next class after being informed of the challenge, and the girls tried to cheer me up. Carolyn told me I could do it. Anna told me, “Don’t worry. You’ll have fun back with us in the second violins.”

Ouch. Was she really so sure I couldn’t win? She replied that Mike was a senior and therefore more advanced than little old me, and besides that he was more popular. He was sure to win. But, I protested, the challenge is blind. They won’t know which is which.

Anna told me with great authority that one can always tell a person’s playing by style alone. “Especially yours,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. I think she meant that I played with gusto, throwing myself into the crescendos and diminuendos and vibrato. It was not enough for me just to get the notes right. Based on my distinct style of play, Anna was sure I would lose, even if I managed to perform better than Mike, which was unlikely anyway.

A ball of dread hardened in my stomach as we got closer to Friday. I didn’t want to believe Anna was right, but I looked up to her. In my eyes, she was prettier, funnier, more confident, more fun. She liked to call me her little sister, even though I was only seven months younger, and that’s how I felt. Always one step behind. So it was easy for me to believe her. There was no way I could win.

At the beginning of class that day, Mike and I were sent into a small office adjoining the orchestra room. We would play from in there, around the corner from the door, so no one could see us. Mr. Bennett told us we had to decide between us who would go first. Mike looked at me and said, “You want to go first?”

In a rare move of boldness for my timid freshman self, I replied, “You challenged me. You go first.” He shrugged, and took his place at the music stand. Mr. Bennett boomed at us from out in the orchestra room to take out the Egmont overture.

Mike and I stared at each other, eyes round with fear. Now, instead of rivals, we were partners in our terror of that music, which we’d not prepared. He’d told us to practice the Schubert.

I slipped out into the orchestra room and approached Mr. Bennett, the man whose voice could make cymbals rattle on the other side of the room. I told him we were sure he’d said “Unfinished Symphony” and we weren’t prepared for anything else. I was horrified he would not acknowledge his error, and force us to play that difficult piece solo in front of everyone. He inclined his head about an inch, and then boomed out the measures of the Schubert we would play. I hurried back to the little office.

So, Mike began. And my heart leapt.

It’s not very nice to delight in another’s misfortune, and Mike hadn’t been mean to me or anything. But still and all, he had challenged me, and he was clearly not prepared for the quick fingering in that passage. It’s also true he was at a disadvantage. I’d been playing the first violin part all year, and he had to learn it specially for the challenge.

Then it was my turn. The doubts that had been choking me all week ebbed away, because I realized “senior” didn’t equal “all powerful” and my freshman status meant nothing when it came to my bow and strings.

I stepped up to the music stand barely able to keep the grin off my face. I soared into the piece. As the last notes rang away, I knew I’d beaten him. No objective person would say otherwise.

But, as Anna had said, the orchestra was not objective. I was a lowly freshman, and surely everyone knew that was me playing. I remembered Mr. Bennett had said he reserved the right to overturn wrongheaded votes by the orchestra. Would he do that in this case? But if he did, would the orchestra hate me for it?

They were voting silently, by show of hands.

“Number two, you win,” he said simply.

I gave Mike a sheepish smile, meant to convey, “Better luck next time,” but I hoped there wouldn’t be a next time. I strode out into the orchestra room to loud applause. I raised my bow slightly to acknowledge that yes, I’m number two. I returned to my seat in the first violins.

Mr. Bennett probably made them applaud, or they were doing it for both of us out of politeness. We did, after all, just perform for them. But in the movie-script version of this story in my memory, they were applauding for me. Because the freshman won.

Did I mention it was my birthday? I’d just turned fourteen.

Carolyn told me, delighted, that the vote was unanimous. “Could they tell it was me?” I asked, thinking maybe they believed they were voting for Mike. “Oh yeah,” she said, a smile as wide as a kettle drum. “We knew it was you.”

That challenge was one page in the long chapter of my youth in which I learned to have faith in myself, and to treasure friends who support me even – in fact, especially – against the odds. Because a senior may trump a freshman, but sometimes hard work and talent can still win the day.