Letters From the Practice Rooms: The Value of Indirect Communication
February 26, 2024
Writer: Emily Becker
Editor: Lily Miro
As a music major, I spend countless hours a day in the practice rooms learning new songs, struggling with piano, or attempting to conduct pieces I can’t even begin to understand. In almost every room, little notes are etched into the walls in pencil, ranging from funny jokes to polls of favorite albums to kind-hearted messages. I often think about these notes. Who wrote them? How long have they been there? How many years has it been of different people reading these same notes? I ponder about the possibility that someone who now works on Broadway or plays in the New York Philharmonic could have once read these same notes. How many different lifetimes and different stories have passed through these notes?
So much more communication happens from indirect mediums than we realize. Communal murals act as time capsules to showcase messages from a time prior while also embodying the present through new people reading these messages every day. The New Year’s Eve Wishing Wall in Manhattan is a prime example of this; anyone can go and write a goal or dream they have for the new year on a piece of confetti. At midnight, the papers flutter down to all standing in the streets below. Someone could pick up a random piece of paper that manifests getting their dream job, for example, and that person who picks it up might be really unhappy with their current job and take it as a sign to start applying to other ones. Communication exists even when it’s not intentional. While it’s now illegal, the Love Lock Bridge in Paris also exhibited this idea. Couples would write their names and anniversary dates on a lock and attach it to the bridge, throwing the key in the Seine River below. Maybe you see your grandparents’ names on one of the locks or one that shares the same anniversary date as you and your partner. We can take any of these as signs for whatever we might need at that moment, and someone else down the road can take it as a sign as well for a completely different reason. While this isn’t its intended purpose, communication, especially indirect, doesn’t just end the minute it sits idle.
One of the most prominent forms of indirect communication in my life has been these notes etched into the practice room walls. There is an overwhelming number that says phrases such as “You are a talented and competent musician” or “Don’t doubt your abilities”. Numerous have little side notes pointing to them, saying “This is so nice” or “Thank you I needed this”. It is such an important reminder to know that while you’re sitting there and can’t get your fingers to move right on the piano or the note you’re trying to hit just keeps coming out wrong, someone else has sat in that spot thinking the same thing, but they got through it and wrote that message, and someone else read it and was impacted by it. Knowing that others are connected to you — through both shared experiences and messages written on a wall— reminds me that people are connected whether we know it or not. Communication, especially indirect communication, helps create this connection. Wherever you find indirect communication in your life, remember that it has the power to connect you with so many people and experiences you might never have the chance to meet; it can tell us so much if we let it.
So, to whoever is in need of an indirect message today, here is mine to you: you are capable, you are worthy, and most importantly you are enough.
