The art of interpretation.

 
Welcome to the musings of Richard Wyce; musician, artist, teacher and writer.

I have an official website for professional content. (https://richardwyce.com)

So this blog is a more personal approach with more general content about life, the arts, and how we can all find ways to achieve more.

Achieving a balanced life.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think is how lucky I am. Although I am not rich financially I am so rich in every other sense, with my wonderful partner in life and a beautiful family. (Two daughters and three amazing grandchildren).

The next thing I think about is what I will be doing with the day. I have been a musician for almost my whole life, so I know that part of the day will be dedicated to playing/practising the cello. Then I have to decide how will spend the rest of the day, maybe reading, writing, painting, studying music or just relaxing with other activities; (photography, swimming, shopping, visiting with friends etc.) As you may gather, I am presently retired, except for the odd concert here and there and occasionally some teaching.

In my earlier life I was such an angry young man. Seeing the way other human beings were behaving always seemed to infuriate me, but then again, I was born angry: When I finally burst out of my mother’s womb I was angry; so much so that the nurses all called me Beethoven, which is ironic, considering I became a musician.

I had a difficult childhood as my parents were both alcoholic, but my father was also an intellectual and a writer. This meant that he was interested in making sure my sister, brother and I were educated. That being said, he recognized my interest in music and made sure that I went to a school that had an internationally known boys choir and a great music director.

So to compensate for a very dysfunctional home life, I had this amazing musical life at school. 

However, my school life was still fraught with hardship despite the wonderful music; it was an all boys school with two thousand mostly working class boys. It was also the beginning of the ‘skinhead’ era and there were many in my school. I was one of only two Jewish boys in the school and so, of course, I got bullied by the skinheads and there weren’t many days that went by without my being hit at least a few times. I was also constantly teased about my long nose.

Not surprising I was still angry with the world by the time I left school.

Because I suffered so much disruption at home and at school, my learning experience was also disrupted as I was unable to obtain a grant to be able to continue my music studies. However, I was fortunate enough to get a contract with the London Festival Ballet Orchestra not long after I left school, and so started my lifelong career as a musician.

With a terrible example from my father, I was not aware of just how much work is required to be a successful classical musician and was never really made aware of this by anyone, so I was very naive. Consequently I practised every day, but not nearly as much as I should have, making life much harder than it should have been. Had I practised several hours per day instead of only one or two, I am sure I would have progressed much faster. However, I had already managed to establish myself to a certain extent due to my beginnings with the ballet orchestra, and I achieved a modicum of success in the UK before I finally emigrated to Canada at the end of 1975.

As I mentioned previously, I have always been interested by all the arts and I actually started to get involved with painting and drawing when I was very young. In fact we had an artist neighbour that taught me a little about oil painting when I was only seven or eight years old.

Some of my paintings:

I had married a French-Canadian woman from Quebec City, and so that’s where my life in Canada started. This was probably the hardest period of my life as my French was not bad, but I was totally unprepared for the slang French in Quebec, and it took me quite a while before I could even understand anyone there.

I did succeed in picking up some work with Orchestre de Chambre de Radio Canada and the Quebec Symphony but living in Quebec was an enormous struggle for most of the five years I lived there.

After I had acquired a contract with a young professional training orchestra, I finally moved with my wife and now two children, to Montreal, and I have stayed here ever since.

Of all the arts, I believe being a professional classical musician is the hardest with probably the least financial reward for the amount of work required. None of the other arts requires constant study in the same way that classical music does. Not to mention the many thousands of hours we put into practising.

That being said; being a classical musician is one of the most spiritually rewarding careers you can choose, and  music and my cello have been my constant companions throughout all the hardships I went through in my journey through life.

So to summarize and to get to the point: if you want to achieve balance in your life, find your passion and dedicate yourself to it and to your family and friends.

This is super important. Whatever you do in life, if you do not find the time to relax with activities you enjoy and spending time with family and friends, you will never achieve a good balance in your life.

 I hope this advice helps. Peace and happiness to you all.