Inside Masquerade NYC: notes from a violinist

Un, deux, trois, quatre, un, deux, trois, quatre.

The eight clicks before I begin to play I count in French, the language I grew up speaking.

Soon the room will fill. The first guests are directed to within a few feet of me. I don't look up. The click track is already there in my right ear. I listen past it.

The first measures are for the violin as much as for the audience. Wood, string, horsehair. The sound is still finding its shape. For a moment it feels unfamiliar, then suddenly not. The instrument begins to speak easily. The bow follows. Breath enters the phrase.

Within a minute I usually know what kind of audience it will be. Some groups arrive quietly, almost cautiously. Others speak over the music. Some seem impatient to move on. Others settle into stillness.

Still, I try to leave room for the unknown.

I walk among them with my eyes lowered. At times I pass close enough to feel someone's breath against my cheek. I rarely meet anyone's gaze. I know their presence without seeing their faces. The room becomes a field of attention. The music moves through it.

Sometimes people come too close. A shoulder against my left arm doesn't matter. The bow arm is another story. Someone steps into its path and the phrase changes. I turn slightly. A shorter bow stroke. An adjustment made without thinking.

All the while the click continues.

It never stops.

The audience doesn't hear it. They hear Phantom of the Opera. I hear Phantom and something else. A small mechanical pulse marking the distance traveled. Measure after measure. The strange task is not to fight it. The strange task is to forget it. To let it measure freedom and breath in the background.

Ten minutes pass.

Applause.

The violin and bow are warm now. They feel more "integrated", like gloves you wear.

This is the rhythm of life as a Masquerade NYC violinist.

Ten minutes of playing. Four minutes of waiting. Then another group enters...

I breathe. One sound surf at a time.

Again.

Then again.

Six times in all.