Recorder soothes virussavaged mind

Last month, I wrote about a mystery recorder player I overheard by my neighborhood pond. She remains at large. Afterward, several recorder experts got in touch — all encouraging me to learn even more about their beloved instrument, whether checking out albums of quartets or playing from a primer.

To be honest, I might not have investigated further if I hadn’t chanced upon my childhood recorder while pacing around, mulling over my novel.

As precious and limited as the time for my work has been during the pandemic, it’s hard to sit still. The lure of online doomscrolling is powerful, fed by the omnipresent feeling I’ve left a fire unattended.

I searched online for songs that included fingerings for the recorder. Though I can read sheet music — thanks to my years of studying the flute while growing up — I wasn’t sure if I would have the time or energy to pick up new fingering. Then I found instructions for Celine Dion’s ballad “My Heart Will Go On,” from the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic.”

I started to piece together the melody, messing up again and again, but returned to it periodically over the next couple of days, a few minutes here and there. After staring at the screen for too long with work, it felt good to blow into the recorder.

I could have easily performed it on the flute; I don’t play often, but I still remember how. However, it didn’t have the same novelty as learning on an unfamiliar instrument. And unlike the flute, I didn’t have to assemble three parts. I could keep the recorder within arm’s reach of my bed or my desk.

Even as my fingers fumbled, I felt excited to learn something new, at a time when a certain monotony has set in. Beans — again? A walk around the block — again?

At last I could have been standing at the prow of a ship, arms spread wide, my face turned to the wind. “Near, far, wherever you are/ I believe that the heart does go on/ Once more you open the door/ And you’re here in my heart/ And my heart will go on and on.”

I highly recommend that you pick up or renew a hobby you can practice in stolen moments, that you may never ever be any good at, but nonetheless helps you enter the flow state, fully immersed in the activity at hand.

I aim for that when I’m writing, too. However, the recorder has nothing to do with my identity and livelihood; if I fumble, there’s little consequence. When I finally succeed in mastering a difficult fingering on the instrument, I feel a satisfaction that has seemed distant these days.

As I noodled around on the recorder, wondering what song I could tackle next, I remembered an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in which Captain Picard falls under the sway of an alien probe. He experiences decades of life with a family on a dying planet even as only minutes pass aboard the ship. To pass the time, he plays a flute that looks much like a recorder.

“The Inner Light,” which aired in 1992, was one of the mostlauded and popular episodes of the series, winning a Hugo Award. A brass prop flute from the show sold for $48,000 at auction.

I found a fan transcription of the song online, but since it didn’t include fingerings, I painstakingly looked back and forth between a chart and the sheet music until I started picking it up. My hideous attempts at the tricky high notes made me glance out the window to make sure no one was walking by on the street.

The halting notes I played bore no resemblance to the melody — until all at once it did. Music emerged from repetition, practice and perseverance.

It’s a reminder I’ve never needed more.

The recorder has nothing to do with my identity and livelihood; if I fumble, there’s little consequence. When I finally succeed, I feel a satisfaction that has seemed distant these days.