(HOST) Today, as part of a continuing collaboration between VPR and the Young Writer’s Project, Rebecca Landell of Richmond, honors her music teacher, who provided her students with enough inspiration to last a life time.
(LANDELL) I can still see her there, on the front steps, standing by her son. She wasn’t beautiful. No, she wasn’t beautiful, but she was lovely. Her arms would be crossed, her carrot-red hair brushing her shoulders, and she would be saying – as she always did when I thanked her at the end of a lesson – “It’s a pleasure.”
My lessons always began the same. My teacher would greet me at the door, one hand on the latch, the other holding her son out of the way of my cello, smiling and asking me how I was. She would ask me how the week had gone, and we would talk about what problems we’d correct.
She didn’t just teach me music. She taught me lessons that I could apply to my life. She taught me to look for encouragement in the midst of frustration. “When you know you have a problem and it bugs you,” she would say, “the battle to fix it is already half won.” She taught me that fifty percent of learning is admitting you have a problem.
She taught me to face my fears. I’ve always disliked competing, and I shrink from the thought of failure. Being judged and graded on my playing has never been fun for me. But my teacher was Scottish and her fierce will always overrode my fears. She had me competing up to four times a season, in addition to playing concerts and gigs, recitals and other performances. My schedule was packed with things I was afraid to do, but I was exhilarated.
Hard work was a must in my teacher’s studio. She made us keep practice charts and at her recitals she gave public acknowledgment and prizes to the students who had practiced the most. It wasn’t just the time spent practicing that she cared about. She also paid attention to the quality of practicing we did and made charts and notes for us to help us practice better. She went to all her students’ competitions and performances. She supported us in our other interests. And she encouraged her students to live healthily by playing sports and exercising to keep in shape. She pushed us as much and as well as she could, and then said, “You’re the teacher now. I can only do so much. The rest you must do if you want to move forward.” Her devotion and energy inspired me to push myself, even after her death.
My teacher died of sudden heart disease in her early thirties. The doctors said that her heart had aged prematurely and looked seventy instead of thirty. But she gave more of herself in those thirty years than most people do in seventy.
As I stand on the steps she once stood on, my memories pulse through me like heartbeats. She stands beside me inspiring me to my last.
Rebecca is a home-schooled junior from Richmond, who will attend Oberlin Conservatory next fall.