This I Believe (draft)

I don't like to post a draft, but here's my draft.

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A few years ago, I went to a music workshop in Pittsburgh. The students were mostly Pittsburghers and kids like me, from small Pennsylvania towns, so there was a lot of common ground to work with, and everyone felt included, with the exception of one guy, Adam Wu, from China. I don’t think Adam was his given name, but that’s what he told us to call him.

Adam barely spoke English, so he had a lot of trouble communicating with everyone, which was especially hard since the workshop only had about 30 kids in it and everyone knew everyone relatively quickly. No one spoke Mandarin, either, so there was an almost impenetrable language barrier around Adam at all times, and a tangible air of frustration surrounding him as a result.

We were all there to learn more about music theory and improve our playing with professionals. Sometimes we would play as a group to learn rehearsal skills, and other times we would play alone for each other to help get rid of the nerves of solo playing.

Adam played the cello, and I’ll never forget the first time we heard him play solo; he played the prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 like it was the easiest thing he’d done in his life.

In that moment we were all taken somewhere else by his bow and his string, to somewhere without words where language dissolved and was forgotten. It didn’t matter that Adam was from China and we were all from within a 100-mile radius of that music room, and it didn’t matter that none of us knew a word of Mandarin. For those two minutes Adam was speaking Bach, articulating arpeggios in the rich voice of the cello, and we were all understanding perfectly.

I never did find out why Adam decided to come to a music workshop in Pittsburgh, but I will be forever grateful that he was there with his compassionate music. Adam’s music is the reason why I believe instrumental music is the universal language; it is the language of emotion, of the soul, transcending the muddle of words. Where Adam could not speak to us in English, he could speak to us through his cello, and through it, he told us all that we needed to know.