At first, I failed to recognise the significance of the deterioration in my violin technique.
I was preoccupied by other concerns – the crushing exhaustion that I would describe to my doctors as “not normal tiredness”, the unexplained falls from my bike. I did not draw any connection between these issues and my out-of-tune violin playing. Only when the right side of my body detached itself from my central nervous system to the point where I could no longer pick up a pen or walk without a stick to support myself did the words this feels neurological cross my mind.
By the time the neurologist told me the MRI results, I had self-diagnosed with everything from a brain tumour to stress. The official diagnosis of remitting-relapsing multiple sclerosis was almost a relief. My then eight-year-old daughter was not about to be orphaned. There were disease modifying therapies which would hopefully reduce the number and severity of the attacks.
Eventually the disease went into remission and my body returned to close to its previous condition. I was able to put aside the walking stick (at least between relapses) and resume typing my long overdue PhD thesis. But my balance and my fine motor skills had been permanently eroded. I never rode my bike again. My violin languished in its case.
Violin had never been my main occupation, but I could not imagine a life in which there were no more impromptu jam sessions with friends, family and sometimes total strangers. No more playing catchy tunes to entertain young children. No more scraping out a Vivaldi concerto or Handel sonata when I needed to boost my mood. I consoled myself with the knowledge that as much as I loved the instrument I had been playing since I was seven years old, I had only ever been a very ordinary violinist. All the same, the loss still stung.
As a low-income single mother, I used to busk outside the local shops as my daughter twirled around to the music. Adalya had demanded a violin of her own as soon as she was old enough to hold it and I had looked forward to the day when we would play the Bach double violin concerto together. My friend Althea and I had performed this concerto together in high school, but post-multiple sclerosis, I struggled to play even the easy Mozart duets I had learned in primary school. I had to content myself with watching Adalya’s violin playing from the sidelines.
I took a long time to accept that my own violin competency was gone for ever. When I eventually passed my violin on to my daughter, I bought a cheap instrument for myself, ready to play once my fine motor skills miraculously returned. One day, I told myself, I will play the Bach double with my daughter, even if it’s just once, even if Bach turns in his grave at my discordant double stops.
At the rehabilitation clinic, the occupational therapist asked us to list the activities that multiple sclerosis was preventing us from doing so that he could help us find a way to resume them. “Field research in Pakistan” was at the top of my list, but the OT chose to ignore that particular ambition in favour of “playing the Bach double with my daughter” and “riding my bike”. There were plenty of alternatives to explore, he told me. How about a tricycle instead of a bike? And why not a guitar instead of a violin?
I tried to follow the OT’s advice with a guitar that I rescued from the hard rubbish. A badly played guitar sounds less excruciating than a badly played violin, but it soon became frustrating rather than fun. The frets helped me to stay in tune but my fingers still fumbled the instructions from my brain. In the end, I gave the guitar away to a friend rather than stowing it away alongside the violin.
Tabla. I cannot trace exactly where this thought came from, 20 years after the multiple sclerosis diagnosis. I had seen tabla players during childhood visits to India and have vivid memories of a performance by tabla legend Ustad Zakir Hussein during one of his tours of Australia. I had even bought myself a dholak – another type of south Asian drum – during my Pakistan travels. I had once planned to engage more deeply with south Asian music by learning a stringed instrument like the sarod or sitar, but the tabla, a pair of traditional hand drums, now seemed like a more feasible proposition. While it is just as difficult to become a competent tabla player as it is to become a competent violinist, tabla is a far more forgiving instrument for those with reduced manual dexterity.
The Afghan owner of the shop where I had bought my dholak was a fine musician who had fled to Pakistan rather than submit to the Taliban’s prohibition on music. Yet he told me that he would never allow his daughters to sully their reputations by learning any kind of instrument. Elsewhere in south Asia, female tabla players are now far more accepted than they were back in the 1970s, when it was considered simply too physically demanding for girls. Multiple sclerosis seems like a minor obstacle compared with what other musicians had to overcome.
And so for the past 18 months, I have been taking lessons. I am learning the correct finger positioning for the strokes, how to recite the bols, or notes, how to play simple compositions. Playing music – even on an unfamiliar instrument – feels like a homecoming. When I pick up a violin, I am painfully aware of how far backwards I have slipped. On tabla, I can take pleasure in my slow but steady improvement.
I will never play the Bach double with my daughter. But that does not have to mean that we will never make music together again. Violin and tabla can be a very beautiful combination.
