I love my violin. It has been in the family for many years, and the story of how I got it is interesting.
When my uncles were young, they took violin lessons, using a violin handed down from an older relative. It was a full size violin and they were quite small, at least to begin with, so not surprisingly, it was difficult for them to get a good sound. My youngest uncle kept the violin in his attic in Norway for years. Then, he went to a fair and saw a gypsy fortune teller.
"One of your three daughters will be a musician." My uncle recalled painfully enduring the tortured sounds of beginning violin, and realized that if the gypsy was right, he might be subjected to that ordeal again. How could he avoid it? Fortunately, his niece, who played piano somewhat obsessively (that would be me) was going to be visiting Norway for Christmas. He heaved a sigh of relief.
As far as I know, none of my cousins is particularly musical, so my uncle's ears would likely have been safe if he'd left the violin in the attic. However, I'm delighted he didn't. Having obtained the violin, I started taking lessons when I was 16. At first, my brother and I had an agreement: I would warn him when I was about to practice, and he would go into his room, shut the door, and turn on his music. Loudly. I would go into my room, shut my door, and work hard at making a sound that was pleasant to listen to. It was a delightful day when my brother stopped trying to drown me out!
I fell in love with the violin during those last 2 years of high school. I found the sound more appealing than that of the piano (though I enjoy piano as well), and no matter how good I get there is always room for improvement, even on easy pieces. There are so many variables fitting together that allow a greater range of expression than I am able to get out of the piano. Leaving my violin teacher, an Iraqi who had lived in Jordan for many years and played first chair viola in the orchestra, was one of the hardest parts of graduating from high school.
Fortunately, Caltech had a chamber music program. Delores Bing, our director, took students who were fairly evenly matched in ability, even including me with my mere two years of experience, and combined us into ensembles. Of course the standard Caltech course load didn't leave me much time to practice, but it was enjoyable to put pieces together and perform them, even if we were still partly sightreading by concert day. Practicing was a great break from thinking about complicated science and math.
However, after college graduation, I kind of set the violin aside. Part of it was that my right arm was shattered in a car accident not long after graduation, though I did go back to playing piano as soon as I could. That wasn't weight bearing, though, and it was a full 2 months before I was allowed to pick up anything (certainly including a bow) with my right hand. I got out of the habit of practicing, and my poor violin sat neglected, except a brief phase in 2010-12 when I accompanied hymns in church each Sunday. But it was slightly damaged shortly before we moved to New York. There, we joined a church where it seemed everyone in our small group had perfect pitch or a master's degree in violin performance, so my instrument went back into the closet.
Then, we moved to Hawaii. I still hadn't had the violin repaired, and the case was still gathering dust, when I decided to join the ladies' chorus at our church. The piece we started working on had a violin part, and the director wistfully observed that it was a pity no one in our church played. "I can play," I offered, having seen that the part wasn't utterly beyond my ability. It would be fun to get back into practice. After that first rehearsal, Mrs. D came up to me. "You need to teach my grandson violin."
Wait! Teach? She'd never even heard me play! I hadn't touched the instrument in several years! She sensed my reluctance. "I've been praying for 2 years that God would send a violin teacher to our side of the island. Would $100 a month be okay?"
Okay, being told that you are the answer to someone's prayer is pretty hard to resist. I told her I'd try, though I wasn't sure I'd be worth what she offered. I got my violin repaired* and started getting back in practice. I even started accompanying hymns in church again. Mrs. D's granddaughter came along to her brother's first lesson, and I found myself with two students. I really didn't know what I was doing, but they and I both learned a lot by trial and error. It turns out Mrs. D was right - there is no other violin teacher on our side of the island - and I gained a few more students. I took a course on how to teach violin through Coursera, and started to learn the Suzuki repertoire myself through various online options. I have now discovered teaching techniques that result in my students sounding fairly good (that is to say, not painful) from day one, which might lead to fewer violins in attics in their future.
At this point, practicing violin is one of my favorite parts of the day. I'm no professional; I've been working on the Suzuki Book 4 repertoire for months (though I take occasional breaks for other pieces I like; I'm enjoying the Accolay concerto right now). But on the violin, even scales are interesting. Music theory (which is all math, this geek feels compelled to note) is so important to understanding how to arrange the fingers for perfect intonation, and every time I play a harmonic, the physics of it makes me unreasonably happy. Plus, that sound... Dear friends, I have no intention of letting my violin sit untouched again.
*An extra bonus tidbit on my violin's origin: when I had my violin repaired, the luthier told me that it was built in Germany. I had had no way of knowing that, because unlike with most violins, there is no label on the inside. However, the older relative who handed down the violin to my uncles would have been school aged in the years shortly after World War II. Norway probably didn't have much of a violin making industry in the late 1940s, but no self-respecting Norwegian would buy any object labeled as having been made in Germany. Thus, I imagine a German luthier supporting him or herself in the bombed out aftermath of total devastation by supplying unlabeled violins to the international market. Another fascinating facet of my violin's history!
When my uncles were young, they took violin lessons, using a violin handed down from an older relative. It was a full size violin and they were quite small, at least to begin with, so not surprisingly, it was difficult for them to get a good sound. My youngest uncle kept the violin in his attic in Norway for years. Then, he went to a fair and saw a gypsy fortune teller.
"One of your three daughters will be a musician." My uncle recalled painfully enduring the tortured sounds of beginning violin, and realized that if the gypsy was right, he might be subjected to that ordeal again. How could he avoid it? Fortunately, his niece, who played piano somewhat obsessively (that would be me) was going to be visiting Norway for Christmas. He heaved a sigh of relief.
As far as I know, none of my cousins is particularly musical, so my uncle's ears would likely have been safe if he'd left the violin in the attic. However, I'm delighted he didn't. Having obtained the violin, I started taking lessons when I was 16. At first, my brother and I had an agreement: I would warn him when I was about to practice, and he would go into his room, shut the door, and turn on his music. Loudly. I would go into my room, shut my door, and work hard at making a sound that was pleasant to listen to. It was a delightful day when my brother stopped trying to drown me out!
I fell in love with the violin during those last 2 years of high school. I found the sound more appealing than that of the piano (though I enjoy piano as well), and no matter how good I get there is always room for improvement, even on easy pieces. There are so many variables fitting together that allow a greater range of expression than I am able to get out of the piano. Leaving my violin teacher, an Iraqi who had lived in Jordan for many years and played first chair viola in the orchestra, was one of the hardest parts of graduating from high school.
Fortunately, Caltech had a chamber music program. Delores Bing, our director, took students who were fairly evenly matched in ability, even including me with my mere two years of experience, and combined us into ensembles. Of course the standard Caltech course load didn't leave me much time to practice, but it was enjoyable to put pieces together and perform them, even if we were still partly sightreading by concert day. Practicing was a great break from thinking about complicated science and math.
However, after college graduation, I kind of set the violin aside. Part of it was that my right arm was shattered in a car accident not long after graduation, though I did go back to playing piano as soon as I could. That wasn't weight bearing, though, and it was a full 2 months before I was allowed to pick up anything (certainly including a bow) with my right hand. I got out of the habit of practicing, and my poor violin sat neglected, except a brief phase in 2010-12 when I accompanied hymns in church each Sunday. But it was slightly damaged shortly before we moved to New York. There, we joined a church where it seemed everyone in our small group had perfect pitch or a master's degree in violin performance, so my instrument went back into the closet.
Then, we moved to Hawaii. I still hadn't had the violin repaired, and the case was still gathering dust, when I decided to join the ladies' chorus at our church. The piece we started working on had a violin part, and the director wistfully observed that it was a pity no one in our church played. "I can play," I offered, having seen that the part wasn't utterly beyond my ability. It would be fun to get back into practice. After that first rehearsal, Mrs. D came up to me. "You need to teach my grandson violin."
Wait! Teach? She'd never even heard me play! I hadn't touched the instrument in several years! She sensed my reluctance. "I've been praying for 2 years that God would send a violin teacher to our side of the island. Would $100 a month be okay?"
Okay, being told that you are the answer to someone's prayer is pretty hard to resist. I told her I'd try, though I wasn't sure I'd be worth what she offered. I got my violin repaired* and started getting back in practice. I even started accompanying hymns in church again. Mrs. D's granddaughter came along to her brother's first lesson, and I found myself with two students. I really didn't know what I was doing, but they and I both learned a lot by trial and error. It turns out Mrs. D was right - there is no other violin teacher on our side of the island - and I gained a few more students. I took a course on how to teach violin through Coursera, and started to learn the Suzuki repertoire myself through various online options. I have now discovered teaching techniques that result in my students sounding fairly good (that is to say, not painful) from day one, which might lead to fewer violins in attics in their future.
At this point, practicing violin is one of my favorite parts of the day. I'm no professional; I've been working on the Suzuki Book 4 repertoire for months (though I take occasional breaks for other pieces I like; I'm enjoying the Accolay concerto right now). But on the violin, even scales are interesting. Music theory (which is all math, this geek feels compelled to note) is so important to understanding how to arrange the fingers for perfect intonation, and every time I play a harmonic, the physics of it makes me unreasonably happy. Plus, that sound... Dear friends, I have no intention of letting my violin sit untouched again.
*An extra bonus tidbit on my violin's origin: when I had my violin repaired, the luthier told me that it was built in Germany. I had had no way of knowing that, because unlike with most violins, there is no label on the inside. However, the older relative who handed down the violin to my uncles would have been school aged in the years shortly after World War II. Norway probably didn't have much of a violin making industry in the late 1940s, but no self-respecting Norwegian would buy any object labeled as having been made in Germany. Thus, I imagine a German luthier supporting him or herself in the bombed out aftermath of total devastation by supplying unlabeled violins to the international market. Another fascinating facet of my violin's history!
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