Some months ago, I was at the shop of Yo-Yo Ma’s luthier for a cello tune-up. That day I learnt more about the instrument than I had in a lifetime of deliberate listening and studying.
I also got to experience true mastery: what it feels like, what it looks like, what it sounds like.
The shop is located on a major shopping street, but occupies the top floor of the building. There is little indication at the street-level entrance that there is anything noteworthy on the upper stories. It’s not just borderline impossible to get an appointment with the Master. The shop’s location works to deter being visited by the uninitiated, but still signals class and means aplenty.
Stepping in from the unpresuming concrete stairwell, you are transported into a 19th century house-museum. Everything from carpet to ceiling is cozy, soft and mellow. Instruments, tools & pictures are exhibited on the walls and in special vitrines. Most of the pictures show some manner of a cruel joke. My favorite is a boy bent over a basin and soaping up a violin with a washcloth. The drawing is pithily titled “Keep your instruments clean.” or something to that effect.
The entry hall is somehow bustling with people and the dedicated receptionist is busy, but that’s for regular customers. Someone else meets us and leads us into a cozy room deep inside, where we wait for the Master luthier. I assume the business makes most of its revenue from selling instruments. The six- and seven-figure kind. As far as I’m concerned, everything is extremely well-organized, yet unpresuming. A well-oiled machine – oiled, not perfumed.
The tune-up takes less than 10 minutes and the cello is unrecognizable. Now it just makes sense when played. The other half-hour of the sit-down is filled with a very understandable – and altogether unsolicited – explanation of what just happened. The Master lays out both the technical tricks to it and the physics involved. He talks about the knobs and the tweaks, the resonance of the wood at different humidities and temperatures, even the bow. He sometimes almost speaks in equations, and you still understand everything. I have a hard time not laughing out loud while he is talking or asking questions just because everything he says is so clear and makes so much sense.
That conversation – mostly wistening on my part – was eye-opening. Not so much because of all the delicious things I learnt about one of my favorite musical instruments. Every moment of the interaction, from the instant we first shook hands, I was aware of – and enjoying – the fact that I was dealing with a true Master. Not because of reputation or credentialing, but because of the Master’s demeanor and his command (and love) of the subject matter. It felt like flying. I don’t know if you’ve ever practiced lucid dreaming and flying adream, but this felt very much like it.
That encounter taught me a few things about how you can spot a true Master regardless of the field of expertise. First, a true Master doesn’t care what you think. All those pictures of plebs destroying instruments? Well, a Master takes that as a fact of life. It happens.
Second, a true Master doesn’t need to show off in any other way than his practical mastery itself. He abides in what he does. The only reverence implied and observed was the Master’s own reverence towards the instrument (a rather expensive and fragile cello, which had been essentially out of tune for at least six months, but still used as principal at a major orchestra).
Third, the Master explained everything he did without prompting. He elaborated on why he asked every question which he asked. (There were ZERO excessive questions and pleasantries.) He requested permission before playing the instrument (he did NOT ask permission before tuning it). If you knew nothing about classical instruments, let alone cello, you would have felt more comfortable during this brief impression than in your mother’s womb.
And all along, in every word and in every gesture, you were aware of one thing. That he knew his stature and his craft, and he did not take himself too seriously.
PS: Grit is the tell for Mastery potential. You can catch Meta Weiss with the Southern Cross Soloists on Feb 25 at QPAC in Brisbane. She’s also performing at the Montreal Musical Chairs Festival March 15, and then playing the Beethoven Triple Concerto on March 25 with the Melbourne Youth Orchestra.