Article September 24, 2012 Issue

Music making and a beautiful lesson

Sarah Bell

The first portion of this article was originally published in the April 2012 French edition of The Christian Science Herald, Le Héraut de la Science Chrétienne. 

The summer before my junior year in high school, I went to a chamber music camp in New Hampshire to play viola in a string quartet and quintet. I had spent many weeks at home preparing and practicing the music before I left for the camp—but when I arrived, I found I wasn’t at the same level as the other musicians. This was my first real exposure to chamber music, and I was playing with many musicians who had more than five years of experience playing in chamber music ensembles. After our first few rehearsals, I felt discouraged, and it seemed like the rest of the camp experience was not going to go as I had hoped. 

One day, feeling frustrated after a rehearsal, I asked myself why I could not play in time with the others. Our ensemble coach had told me that I needed to think faster and anticipate notes before they arrived. As I thought about this, I decided to turn to prayer to resolve the situation. While reading the Christian Science Bible Lesson for that week, I found some passages on the topic of “action” in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Thinking about action was useful to me because what needed healing was the belief of a lack of action—of not being able to play quickly enough or respond to the cues given by the other musicians.

The definition of good in Science and Health gave me a new perspective on action. Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Good. God; Spirit; omnipotence; omniscience; omnipresence; omni-action” (p. 587). I realized that if all true action is good, then I could naturally express good in every action. There was no need to worry about being fast enough or skilled enough. I focused my thought on expressing only good and stopped worrying about the possibility of making mistakes. I affirmed that making music was a good and right action that I was participating in with the other musicians, and there was nothing that could prevent us from playing in harmony together. 