Today was my very first violin lesson
I’d been tempted before to watch youtube videos about learning violin, or other such introductions, but always felt a little funny doing that. I felt like I needed something more hands on—needed someone to teach me in person and tell me if i’m doing something wrong rather than guess. I felt the same about ballet when I began. I could have figured out stuff on my own, but I didn’t want bad habits. I wanted to be taught proper from the start; same with violin.
I got permission to use the studio space, since David, my teacher, usually does private lessons in the homes of his students or rents studio space from a local music shop, and I live out in the sticks. It was a bit surreal, and i’d say encouraging, to be starting this thing in the building where the other thing I once began lead me. It was comforting to be surrounded by tutus and pointe shoes, putting rosin onto a bow instead of a shoe.
David walked me through the very beginner basics of the instrument. He showed me the bow, walked me through all the different parts, and gave me homework to memorize the names of all the different parts. He did the same for the violin itself, explaining the subtle differences between a violin and a viola, giving little tips here and there. He showed me how to properly store my bow, as well as how to tighten it to play. He then showed me how to apply rosin to the bow strings, and then how to hold the bow. I learned how to tune the violin, how to properly place the violin, how to hold my hands on both the violin and bow—all the fundamentals.
I was eating up every second of it, finding all of it extremely fascinating. I looked at how he described how to hold his thumb for this, how to set his pinkie for that. He was very good at breaking it down to the finest detail, which is exactly my cup of tea.
The first thing he had me do myself was to scrape up the new rosin. It has a bit of film on it when it’s brand new, and to get it to apply properly, you want to scruff it up a bit. He showed me, then handed it over for me to do. No sooner he did, he looks over and says, “oh, you’re doing really well with that”, a little surprised at how quickly and efficiently I was doing it, asking me to show him how I was holding the scissors to do it that way. I laughed a bit.
When he showed me how to tighten my bow for playing and loosen it for storage, he had me do it myself without help or suggestions. I got it right first try. I can’t lie, it felt good to impress him on something brand new to me.
Next came holding the bow. He told me how he explains it to his kids as your hand being a cajun chicken (hilarious) and where to place the fingers, starting with the thumb. I placed my thumb and he said, “oh. You got that right first try. Like, that’s perfect, okay, keep going.” and I placed the rest of my fingers to which he said, “perfect” and then we carried on.
Next he walked me through the optical illusion of the angle of the violin in relation to your body. He explained that the violin needs to tip “like the Titanic” which i’ll for sure never forget. He showed how to place my left hand, and how to place my violin and my chin in relation to the violin. He handed it to me to try, telling me not to have too much tension in my left hand (i’m super good at being tense, yall), and then said “now if you can let go and the violin stays, you know you’ve done it right, but it’s tricky and no one gets it first try. I placed the violin, and let go.
It stayed. His jaw dropped a little.
At this point, i’m thinking, “surely these things aren’t that difficult, right? Surely he’s just being kind. Surely, if someone pays attention, they can get all this first try.”
We carry on. he shows me the wrist movement needed in the right hand, guides me through a few exercises to work on for the movement, and is shocked at how naturally my wrist moves in the way it’s supposed to. I’d like to thank Ehlers Danlos Syndrome for this, as the hyper mobility definitely comes in handy for my wrist dexterity.
Then he says, “well, want to learn your first song? This is where the dying cats comes in, so don’t get discouraged if it sounds a bit off at first. I’m just giving this to you to see if I can stump you since I haven’t so far.” He shows me how to hold my left hand, which apparently its natural shape is exactly where it needs to be for this sort of movement.
The first song is simple. It just had the strings open, and you basically attempt to draw the bow across one string at a time in a syncopated movement. bum-bum-bum-bum-buuum-buuum. He shows me, then hands me back the violin and I try it out with the A string.
bum-bum-bum-bum-buuum-buuum.
He doesn’t say anything, and for a moment i’m worried I completely messed it up and he’s trying to figure out how to nicely correct my mistake because it’s probably a really weird way of messing things up. That’s what usually happens. I’m really good at doing things wrong in ways that stump instructors (and typically it’s due to thinking backwards when processing information).
When David does speak, he says, “wow, okay, so, that was great. Um, I need to find a way to stump you. Okay, I’m gonna go get my guitar out of the guitar. feel free to try that with all the strings while i’m gone.”
So, I do. I do the D string, then G, then try the E. Then I go back to A, trying to get the syncopation correct. When he walks back in he says, “I thought I was listening to a recording of the violin, listening to that.”
At this point, it feels super fake. Surely everyone, at least adults, can take to it like this. Right? Although, anyone who knows about violin that i’ve told i’m going to learn violin has told me it’s one of the hardest instruments to learn. Even the music degree guy at the shop told me he had quite a bit of time in the dying cat phase. Where are the cats?
David comes back in, and he sits with his guitar and plays while I play each string. then has me go out of order, picking whatever string I want without telling him, and holding out the last note for a 4 count and making it last to the end of the bow. I do that. Then he shows me some finger placements for the string. he sort of says which note is which, but walks me through it. “Surely this will stump you and if it doesn’t I quit. I’ll throw my hands up and just be shocked.”
I try it, and the first time he cues me a bit to which way I need to adjust my finger placement to get the note exactly correct. Lots of “a smidge, there. perfect”’s were said. He had me do it again, this time the only cue being the lead in with the guitar, to see if I could find it on my own. I got three of the four right, and the fourth one I knew it wasn’t right but just need to work on which way to adjust it to fix it. (That darn pinkie is difficult to reach sometimes!)
Overall, he was delighted. He told me to work on that movement so I can do each string, without pausing, and faster by next week.
To current Emilee, that seems like a pipe dream. But I feel with practice, I might actually be able to do okay.
David said he’d never done a two hour lesson with someone. He’ll go over, but never this long, but he kept wanting to see what else I could do. He said, “this is the equivalent of having a 6’6” person walk in the first day of basketball practice”, and at one point asked if someone was playing a prank on him. “There’s no way you’ve never held a bow before”.
I’ve never been a natural at something before. everything i’ve done has taken hard work—not just to learn whatever it was, but to prove I belonged there. I’ve gone my whole life having to work so much harder just to be mediocre when everyone else was good at the off. The only exception perhaps being theater at my private school. That was a very tiny school, I often got the leads in Christmas plays, and also I had all the confidence of a person who didn’t yet know what it meant to not be confident in something.
It almost feels fake. Only at that last bit did I start to show a smidge of struggle and by that point my arms were tired and I was taking in so much new information, the fundamentals were tweaking a bit. I just haven’t had the time and practice to get the muscle memory. He even asked if I wanted to learn more difficult things yet but I told him I wanted to work on the simpler first so I can get the motion down first and be confident in what i’m doing.
I’m over the moon.
My right shoulder had a lot of opinions about what I was doing, so that’s something i’m going to have to watch. It hasn’t bothered me too much in recent days, which is nice, but this will be a lot of aggravation on it so I want to be as wise with it as possible.
I want nothing more than to practice right now, but I don’t want to over do it first day. I was already pretty run down going into today, then a two hour lesson learning a new thing —it’s a toll on my body. But i’m so thrilled, and look forward to picking up Beulah tomorrow and seeing what I can manage on my own, and how much i’m able to work up to for next week.
Stay tuned!
Another Night at the Barre 