But I Don’t Like to Write!

By Jingxuan Zhang

Since this is my first blog post upon the esteemed pages of the Green Room Blog, I thought it fitting to write about, well, writing. I hated it. There you go, the end… except not really: That was just a hook. I learned that particular technique in an SAT class, in addition to discovering my love for writing – who said love cannot be cultivated?

Jingxuan Zhang
Show 199: El Paso, Texas

To know Jing the writer, it is of utmost importance to know Jing the musician. My parents asked what instrument I wanted to play when I was five with the accordion in mind, in order to speed along the development of my intellect. To their financial despair, I stubbornly insisted on one of the two instruments I knew, “Piano!” So buy one they did, and thus started the lessons. I have come a long way from my first teacher in China who slapped my hand every time she found its position distasteful to my current professor at Juilliard. But no one wants to hear about such steadfast love. Where’s the Hollywood drama? In my case, maybe Bollywood would be more appropriate.

Compared to my deep obsession with music, my relationship with writing was like a lukewarm arranged marriage. It all started in ninth grade, when the SATs loomed overhead for all students diligent, Asian, or otherwise. For a Chinese student like me, one can safely assume that the parents would meddle copiously in the SATs. As a burgeoning pianist who studied with a much sought-after professor at Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University’s precollege program, I did not even consider an academic career path. That was particularly difficult when fantastic visions of performing in Carnegie Hall thrashing about like Lang Lang played through one’s thoughts like a film reel. My parents, though, were more realistic, for they knew that the combination of skill and serendipity necessary for breakthrough is too risky without a backup, which defaulted to academics excellence. Do not think for one single moment that I was a slouch in high school. To list all my accomplishments would be impossibly futile; however, a quick synopsis is manageable: I graduated sixteenth in a class of over a thousand students, a record that can almost guarantee placement in any college I wanted when combined with the slew of honors under my belt as a musician.

My dear parents just wanted to secure my place at the top, so when they heard from an acquaintance at the end of ninth grade that a certain Dr. Zhang who taught a weekly SAT class helped his daughter get into Duke University, they suffered through oceans of fire and various other hardships to get me signed up. I was not too pleased with the arrangement, since the weekend classes took precious time away from the keyboard. Furthermore, this awkward ménage a trois I caught myself in between music and writing was not exactly morally upright.

As expected, Dr. Zhang loved me. I was almost legendary in the Asian community, with my accolades disseminated like wildfire among parents as the paragon of excellence. But that did not stop him from abhorring my writing. I still remember his utter condemnation, “This is childish.” I could not say I was particularly distraught, as I did not care much about writing, but that he found in me some imperfection irked me to no end. Dr. Zhang was no fool. He knew I did not care about writing; however, he also knew my weakness: music. Under his guidance, I insidiously began to realize the parallels between the arts of writing and music. The correlation was so blatant that it shamed me to not have noticed earlier. Words and sentences are like the notes and phrases of music. The theme of an essay is like the harmonies that holds the music together. Finally, the same meticulous attention to detail a writer must practice, all the while without losing sight of the “whole picture,” ignited my love for this art.

I was exposed to From the Top when I played on Show 199 in El Paso, Texas, as a Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist the summer after ninth grade. Ironically, fate has brought things full circle. Having discovered this show and writing concurrently, with love and hate respectively, I am now honored to unite them as the new Summer Contributor to the Green Room. Ultimately, I have derived an important life lesson from this journey: a relationship with both music and writing is not necessarily a ménage a trois.