The Gift of Patience

By JOANNA FRANKEL

I came to New York wide-eyed, as most do. My growth into myself did not know that it had a future then, as I stood transfixed—by noise, lights, and hot subways. Even though I had been taught since childhood that my goals are direct and humbling reflections of my everyday banalities, I still inaudibly thought that I could seize a revelation, decide on a path, and execute excellence in a very small collection of hours. I think it took me four years to realize otherwise. The problem that emerged was that I had no idea of my own definition of excellence. The idea sounded nice on the outside, but proved illusive in reality, like the rainbow of reflected light from a crystal that a little girl grasps at but never can hold in her hand.

Joanna Frankel

Whenever I saw my name on the roster for an orchestra concert, I went to every rehearsal and sat, listened, watched. Now I know that I felt too passive, uncomfortably passive, as if I had no control over any of the activities that were swirling around me, let alone my somewhat disgruntled fingers. I looked around and tried to absorb what everyone else was doing, thinking, feeling, but it seemed a lost cause. I could not tell what I was supposed to feel. And today, I might seem like I can hold my own in a violin section. I might seem like I am reasonably familiar with many symphonic challenges, like I would be able to pass back, through a tangle of violinists, new bowings or fingerings. But after four years at Juilliard I still cannot do everything perfectly in an orchestra rehearsal.

I remember 9 a.m. classes, my eyelids heavy, my legs propped on somebody who really couldn't stay awake and spent the lecture on the floor of Paul Hall. The microphone was dull and I struggled to make out the dense information that was being thrown at me from a stage lined with shiny organ pipes. I always knew that notes, any notes, meant less of a headache later, so I wrote everything down and moved on with my day. And I remember tedious hours in the listening lab, my back starting to pulse and my neck starting to strain. All of this, but I could not tell you that I got A's on every test, nor could I recite for you without mistake the opening melodies of Wozzeck.

It was something smaller. I felt it creep over me, slowing me down, easing my nerves. I started to see things, little things, like an endurance of people, when they came back, day after day, to school, to practice rooms, just because they wanted to feel better, be better. I saw relationships build because of respect rather than envy. I cannot remember composers' birth and death dates, the form of Ave Verum Corpus, or all of the variations of organum. But I have something else. I now allow myself time to learn. I remember that confidence is not always loud. I am no longer surprised when I feel tired, frustrated, disillusioned. In four years at Juilliard, I have been given a gift. I have been given patience. If you asked me, I could find for you all of the answers to any scholastic question. I could study a score and play very well in an orchestra. I could grow to understand and learn from those in a piano trio. I have now the ability to enjoy a fast pace and a slow one, an exciting time and a painful one, a compliment and a criticism. And although, tangibly, I might look the same as I did when I got here, I have graduated with a new strength. I have discovered a way to take the time to determine what I think is excellence.

Joanna Frankel, who earned a B.M. in violin from Juilliard this past May, is pursuing her master's degree at the School.