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CC: Just to kind of clarify, so you were at the University of Washington taking private lessons?

MM: Yeah.

CC: So he was a professor at the university.

MM: Right. So I had to take the bus, which was an hour's ride from Rainier Valley to the university at that time. And I had my landmarks so once I got off the bus, I would know which way to go. And I had to see the flagpole and walk down the quad to the music building. So that was fine, I mean, I wasn't scared or anything. I'm thinking that my mom might have been scared and my dad might have been worried. But then after the first few times, you know, that you can do it. And it was a great time because I remember on the bus, I saw all sorts of things, and I could do my homework a little bit on the bus, but it was not bad. And Mr. Sokol was like a second dad to me. He saw me grow up, because I was eleven when I started taking from him, or ten, I don't remember. Anyway, I was either ten or eleven. And he and my mom thought I was going to be a soloist, because I was playing solos then and doing really pretty well. Everybody in the school district knew who I was because of my violin playing. I mean, people in other schools, because the instrumental music teachers talk about their students. So I knew that they knew me, and it was really interesting because one of the reasons why I decided I didn't want to do this solo thing, I had this really terrible experience and I never told my parents, I never told Mr. Sokol until he was ninety-five and was going to die and I thought he ought to really know what happened, why I decided I didn't want to be a soloist. So do you want to hear this?

CC: Yes.

MM: So I was in junior high school, I was in seventh grade, I think, and I had to go play for a ladies' club or something, and there were a bunch of other kids from the school that also went to do it. But I was doing this solo, and I was the only one in the middle of the room, and my pianist was way down there. And before I went, the day before, I had a substitute teacher in music. I won't give you his name, he's really terrible and I blame him for everything. No, not everything. But he said, he asked me if I got nervous and I said, well, yeah, I got a little bit nervous before I would play. But he said, "Well, if you get nervous, don't think about the music, think about ice cream or what you're going to have for breakfast or something." And I thought, well, that's interesting. So guess what? I'm up there playing and I'm thinking about everything but the music, and suddenly my mind comes back to the music and I don't know where I am because I haven't been thinking about the music. I was playing by muscle memory. I played that piece so many times, I could play it, my muscles knew what to do. Okay, so I'm so embarrassed, and I'm eleven years old. I can't talk to my pianist who's way down there. Well, if I were older, I would know enough to go over there and say, "Sorry, I forgot this, let's just start here." So I didn't know what to do, I was just shaking so badly and I wanted to hide under the stage. And my hands were shaking really badly, and I didn't know that my hands could shake so badly. And afterwards, nobody told me how great I was, except one person said, "Wow, you had a really great vibrato." And I'm thinking, that was no vibrato, that was my hand shaking, it was out of control vibrato. So then when I knew that I could have a lapse of memory and not know where I was and I would have to stop, that's no way to be a soloist, and I was not going to go through this again. And after that, every time I played a solo, my hands would shake, both hands. Well, no, just this hand. This arm was still pretty good.

So that was when I decided that I wasn't going to be a soloist. I didn't tell Mr. Sokol, I didn't tell my parents, which I should have. My teacher was there, she didn't come and comfort me and she didn't tell me that it was okay, that this sort of thing happens. Made me a better teacher, actually, because I know things that can happen. So it was then that I decided not to be a soloist. So then when I was sixteen and Mr. Sokol said to my mom, "I don't think she's going to be a soloist," because I hadn't played with a major symphony by then, not even the Seattle Symphony. Although by then I had played for Mr. Katins, who was the conductor. And he had a great memory. He always remembered who I was even as I grew up, but never played in the symphony. So that was going through my school years, and I went and played in all the northwest orchestras.

And I had great friends from playing in music, that's where most of my friends were, from that, and they were mostly white. So that kind of skewed my relationship with my Japanese friends, but I still had Frannie as my friend, and my cousin, Kinu, we were still friends. So it's not like I rejected all Japanese because they were Japanese, it's just that I didn't feel comfortable with them. Because we didn't talk about music. I wanted to talk about music and play music. I played music oftentimes, my Saturdays were taken up by playing music. So that was basically it until I got married. I mean, basically that's all I did, just played music. And it was so much fun, and there's so much to do with music. And I always tell Jim, my son, "People can pass on money as legacy, but you know, I heard that legacy can be something else, that can be music." And he agreed. I passed on the love of classical music to him, so I'm really proud of that, that he understands that. Doesn't make a ton of money, but oh well, he's enjoying his life, so that's really good.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.