Playing Music; Unlocking Mary

Dynamics are a funny thing.

They're absolutely essential to making music. Without them—without that natural rise and fall of intensity—music is bland and lifeless. Every phrase becomes the same color.

Until I was about fifteen years old, I had been playing notes, not music.

And honestly? I played those notes pretty well. I had a nice vibrato. I could keep a steady rhythm. I could play fast. I could play slowly. Technically, I was doing just fine.

But I was missing something.

I was missing passion.

I'll never forget the violin lesson when my teacher, Paula, finally broke through.

The Paula I remember was fiery. Passionate. Completely unapologetic about who she was. Sometimes she dyed her hair purple. Sometimes green. She laughed loudly, taught fearlessly, and poured every ounce of herself into music.

As a very sheltered, modest, refined Catholic girl, I was both fascinated and scandalized by her. Yet, in a thousand ways, I envied her fire. Deep down, I knew I had that same intensity inside me. But my upbringing had taught me to keep so much of myself carefully contained. My values were deeply rooted, but somewhere along the way I had also learned to fear expression itself. Even small acts of individuality felt rebellious. Multiple ear piercings? Questionable. Dyeing my hair? Absolutely not. Even speaking too boldly felt deeply, deeply inappropriate.

So imagine my horror when, during one lesson, Paula leaned over, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Mary...this piece is incredibly sensual and sexy. You need to bring the fire. It's about longing. It's about desire."

I was absolutely horrified. For a brief moment, I actually wondered if I should go get my mother.

Or maybe...

Maybe I needed a new violin teacher.

The piece was Méditation from Thaïs. The music captures an emotional struggle between desire, faith, and transformation. It comes from the opera Thaïs, whose title character begins as a courtesan before undergoing a profound spiritual conversion. The music lives in that space between earthly longing and something greater.

I stayed for my lesson, however. I decided dynamics probably weren't going to send me to Hell.

Little by little, Paula taught me how to sink my bow into the string. How to draw richer sound from the violin. How to shape every phrase with intention. How to let the music breathe.

I thought that would be the end of it.

It wasn't.

"Mary," she said one day, "move your body."

Ummmm....imma go with NO on that. Hard no.

Absolutely not.

Peace.

I'm out.

"I don't want to," I answered as calmly—and confidently—as I could.

Naturally, Paula wasn't giving up.

"You're playing the dynamics beautifully," she said, "but I don't believe you."

Ouch"When you're on stage, you're an actress. You have to convince your audience of the story you're telling. Right now, I don't believe your emotion. You look like a statue. Move with the music. Let it carry you."

"Paula..."

"I can't."

I was practically begging.

Move my body?

What did she think this was?

Dance class?

"Start playing," she instructed. She wasn't backing down an inch.

I obeyed, gingerly.

Paula was done wasting time.

She grabbed the scroll of my violin and gently pulled.

She was literally forcing me to move with the music.

My face turned bright red.

I felt embarrassed. Childish. Completely exposed.

Honestly?

I was furious.

But week after week, she kept working with me.

She would tug gently on my violin, guide my shoulders, demonstrate with her own body how to sway, bend my knees, breathe through a phrase, lift into a crescendo, soften into a resolution.

Eventually I stopped copying her movements. Instead, I started listening to my own body.

Somewhere along the way, the movement stopped feeling forced; slowly, it began to feel instinctive.

And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was making music instead of simply playing notes.

It changed everything.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school.

Our annual Pops Concert was one of Springfield's biggest events. Because the town was so small, it felt like everyone came. By then, my dad was no longer the band director. He had stepped into a new career that better supported our large family, and Mrs. Sandquist had taken over the program.

One day she called me into her office. Because I'd consistently earned top ratings on bassoon and maintained good grades in Speech, she told me I had earned a featured solo.

Naturally, I assumed she meant bassoon.

Instead she smiled.

"Mary," she said, "I know you made All-State Orchestra. Would you like to solo on violin instead?"

I swallowed hard.

Technically...

I could do it.

Paula had prepared me well enough that I had moved beyond Méditation and was now performing Monti's Czardas—a dazzling, dramatic showpiece.

It could be incredible.

It could also be terrifying.

I'd be standing alone on stage in front of my hometown, my classmates...

...and, perhaps most terrifying of all...

boys.

Still, I heard myself answer.

"Yes."

This would be the bravest thing I had ever done in my life.

My very first phone call was to Paula.

She was beyond excited.

From that day on, every lesson became preparation for that performance.

Then one afternoon she asked,

"Do you have a dress?"

I immediately pictured my tiny closet filled with hand-me-downs from my forty-plus cousins.

"No."

Without hesitation she disappeared upstairs.

A few minutes later she returned carrying one of her old concert gowns.

It was breathtaking. Black, with delicate white flowers wrapping around the fabric.

It fit me perfectly; like a glove, as if it were made for me.

I could barely find the words to thank her.

She simply smiled.

A few weeks later, when I stepped onto that stage, I wasn't just wearing Paula's dress.

I was wrapped in her belief in me. The fear that usually lived in my body simply disappeared.

I didn't just perform that night.

I glowed.

I floated.

I glided across the stage.

I interacted with the audience with my eyes and my smile.

I breathed, lifted, soared through the notes.

I poured every ounce of myself into that violin.

When the final note faded and the audience rose to their feet, I stood there crying.

Not because I had played perfectly.

But because, for the first time, I had stopped hiding.

That performance remains one of the defining moments of my life.

It didn't simply launch my violin career.

It shaped the teacher I would eventually become.

Because somewhere between learning dynamics, learning movement, and learning to trust my own emotions, I discovered something much bigger than violin technique.

For the first time in my life, I played as myself.

As Mary.

And once I found that freedom, there was no going back.

Paula and I after my Pops Concert performance at Springfield High School

One of my senior pictures. Naturally, I wanted it taken out in the prairie. :)