thrill seeker

There is no doubt but that I am a thrill seeker, but not one of the classic variety. I am not interested in the race car driver's, or sky diver's, or suicide bomber's thrill. I am always on the lookout for the most intense experience, but only so long as it does not involve real danger. As I always point out about my trapeze stunts: there's this beautiful thing below me called a net. I may believe in reincarnation, but I love this life I'm living and dearly want to stick around for much, much more of it.

One thrill of which I am particularly fond is the that of being concertmaster of an orchestra. Fortunately, most (i.e. more than half) of the orchestras I have spent any significant time in eventually made me their concertmaster. I'm not bragging; at least after graduating high school, I could have sought out and found scores of orchestras where that would never have been the case. I could have affected the attitude of "well, if they want me as concertmaster, then it must not be any good." But the truth is, I really, really like sitting up there. And it's not because I get to stand up and show off my glamorous all-black outfit while pointing at the oboe before every concert. It's because of the intensity of the music making experience.

The conductor is the finely tuned race car driver of the orchestra. His (usually it's a he) baton is both gas pedal and steering wheel. Somehow, sitting in that seat, right under the baton, I feel more like the high performance car than I do in any other seat. The location of that seat totally blocks anything resembling ADD from kicking in. I am alert, I am engaged; body, mind, spirit. Sitting there, every concert becomes, rather than a chance to bliss out behind someone's back, nothing less than an uninterrupted thrill ride.

There is no dreamy relaxation, no kicking back and listening to the lovely music wafting overhead while the brass and woodwinds run with melody for 14 bars. The concertmaster has to do the counting and listening for the whole section and never drop her (although usually this is also a he) concentration. Hers is the posture that the rest of the section will observe obliquely while they rest. When she sits up a bit straighter, lifts her bow to place it on the string, that's their signal to wake up and clue in: hey, it's about time to resume playing!

And I know my harpist friend will argue that she (almost always a she) is much more exposed, because when it is (finally!) her turn to play, she plays alone. And while the bassists may stand for the duration of the concert, the cellists and violists are the workhorses of the string section. They practically never cease in their laborious provision rhythm texture and depth. But the first violins' job, of dishing up the melody in its brightest, most soaring register, is, to me, the most thrilling job in town, and no one feels this more than the leader of that section.

I think the difference, as in real estate, boils down to location. The immediacy of being so close to the baton that you can almost feel it move through the air, so close to the conductor that you can hear his breath, see the first beads of sweat form on his forehead, produces an intensity of connection that you feel nowhere else in the orchestra. I got to experience this thrill again this week for two hours, and let me tell you: it beat out my two hours of trapeze in December by a full bow.