Category: violin

Auld Lang Syne

I had every intention of writing this yesterday, given the context. alas, life had other plans. Still, the second day of the new year isn’t bad.

I’m not sure if it comes across in my posts, mainly because I can’t remember what i’ve written especially after such a long time of having this blog, but i’ve known quite a bit of sadness and tragedy in my life. Grief and I are old friends and i’ve made any therapist i’ve spoken to cry with casual stories. i’m an open book, though I don’t talk about it all too much or too openly, tending to keep to my same hand full of stories in my moments of morbidity (of which there are many).

The new year always makes me feeling some sort of way that I have trouble articulating. i’ve taken to making a habit of journaling into the new year, partially as a way to help distract from the anxiety of change. (it’s just a new day, not that big of a deal. and yet.)

A few years ago I saw a video posted by John Green (of The Fault in Our Stars fame) to the youtube channel he has with his brother. He told a story of how the song Auld Lang Syne was sang during WWI by men in the trenches, but instead of the lyrics were used to, they sang, “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here”, a sort of acknowledgement that we may not understand why, but we’re all here, in this moment, together. It’s stuck with me since I first heard this 7 ish years ago, and I think of it every new year, even so much as making it a habit to journal the words as the clock strikes midnight on the first of January.

This past December, the darkness I am so familiar with decided to show me a new level of depth. Even amongst such lovely and wonderful moments, I found myself trudging through these mental trenches, wrestling with it all any time the world around me got still or quiet enough, seeking out any moment of distraction and holding on to it as long as I could, even though often it was fleeting. While the Nutcracker and holiday seasons filled my calendar, I had to cancel a month’s worth of violin lessons. I practiced when I could, though that wasn’t often, and when my first lesson back finally approached I found myself nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m nervous going in to most any meeting or lesson or session, no matter how much i’m looking forward to it, but this time I was nervous about what he may throw at me, if i’d be prepared, if i’d look like an idiot or have forgotten everything he’d taught me over these six months.

Fifteen minutes before our lesson was to start, he sent me a text with a link to sheet music. I opened the text and my face immediately broke into a smile as I saw the header of the page with the songs name and it was none other than Auld Lang Syne.

Excited, I immediately started trying to figure out the notes, reading music being something I struggle with. Once I found it, I played around with the song, trying to get it as smooth as I could. When we signed on to Zoom for our lesson, he starts speaking of the theory behind certain groups of notes and traditions and calling back to the circle of fifths he’d taught me a while back, quizzing me on different elements of it. about twenty minutes in he said, “I know you probably already figured out the song, but humor me. You’re talented, and you can just find the notes and play it, but I want to teach you what it is you’re doing without knowing you’re doing it so if you ever walk into an orchestra and are asked, you can answer.”

It made me laugh. He tells me how I have natural talent and how I shouldn’t be able to do what i’m doing yet in such a short amount of time, which sort of blows my mind because i’m not used to having a natural talent at anything and also because since my brain works this way, I can’t understand how anyone’s brain could work a different way. (and consequently, I struggle to understand the theory he’s teaching me, hence the emphasis on it.)

We got to the song, and I learned I got one of the notes incorrect in my sight reading. He corrected me then we played through it a few times. at the end he showed me a certain scale, and showed how with those scales you can play nearly any Christmas carol. it was so fun and rewarding.

I have found in my darkness, that the one thing that meets me every time, the thing that sits with me in it and helps hold my hand as I find my way back toward the light is music. Music transcends time and space and will outlive us all, carrying through generations to times we’ll never know. A song that encourages someone 100 years ago can be a song that encourages me now. The same can be said for poetry, at least to me personally, but there’s something special about music.

I’ve been drawn to music my whole life, lamenting the fact that I can’t sing, being so sad when I couldn’t dance and feeling somewhat unfulfilled in my pursuit of learning ballet since I knew I wasn’t a natural for it. Still, I gave my all to it, hoping that time and dedication would get me closer to the thing my heart longed for; giving soul to music through movement. I wanted to take everything I felt and somehow give it a tangibility. Then I had to give up dancing, all hope of it being cemented when I had my back surgery. I make do with what I can do and am grateful for every opportunity I do have, but still something feels incomplete.

Then came violin.

And I was so nervous to try, so nervous when everyone told me how difficult it is to learn, seeing the looks of doubt on their faces, hearing the uncertainty in their tone when I told them I bought the violin outright instead of renting it at first. Still, the same thing that drove me to step into that ballet studio the first time, so scared I was shaking, is the very thing that drove me to reach out about lessons.

Now we’re six months in, and I find when I pick up Beulah (my violin), everything feels right. Making music with her makes me feel like everything inside is able to be made tangible. Of course, i’m only six months in, and I have a long way to go, (i’m pretty sure i’ll never get vibrato down I swear) but even just muddling through the bits i’ve worked on so far feels like each note reaches into my darkness, takes a look around, and makes friends with it. It’s not that it’s taking a broom and clearing out the cobwebs, rather it’s coming in and sitting with the pain and grief and layers, getting to know it, welcoming its company.

Imagine if I never tried. If I stayed scared and didn’t lean into it. If I let the “what if?” of it all dictate everything. I’d never have known that this is something i’m a natural at. Never have known i’m a natural at anything. I would have gone the rest of time feeling nothing more than mediocre at anything i’ve done, and hoping that the feeble attempts would be worth enough to justify continuing to pursue them.

Instead, I feel when I pick up my violin that all my attempts are finally meaning something. This is what i’ve fought for, this is what i’ve been striving for, this is what ive hoped id find in every other moment.

I wish i could learn more, progress faster. I move forward in the hope I don’t suffer any sort of set back that makes me have to give this up to. I continue in the knowledge that if something happens to cause this to become a place of grief like the times before that i’ll look back and be so grateful I did it while I could.

Gold Star

Last week I got my first “gold star” after successfully perfecting (to my teacher’s liking) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It wasn’t actually gold, instead it was a star that my teacher drew in my book, It wasn’t any ordinary star, either, he drew a ballerina star, with “ballerina hands”, a tutu, and a bun. Absolutely delightful.

In yesterday’s lesson, he taught me the beginnings of understanding how to conduct an orchestra. I find these little details and nuances absolutely fascinating, wanting to know every little thing about this instrument I can manage. He told me his goal is to teach me everything he knows. Bring it.

We also started working on the next song in the book, Lightly Row, which I’m trying to be diligent about actually learning how to read the music rather than just memorizing which notes come when. That can work at these beginning stages, but as I progress it will only become a disadvantage. I guess I was doing well enough on this song, making it more difficult for myself by insisting on using the A string for the E note, rather than using an open E string, but I have been struggling with the A string E note and wanted to take this opportunity to work on it. Apparently, I was getting the E note perfectly, then struggling to get the C#, which usually is opposite for people. Learning and remembering the hand shape and placement for each string and set of notes is something I’m still working on, as is setting my thumb position to have my fingers be where I need them to be, the most difficult being that E note on the A string. Staring the song with it skews the hand shape, which is another reason I wanted to work on it — figuring out all the ins and outs here at the beginning so I have a better foundation to build upon.

From there, my teacher decided to throw me a curve ball. He told me to play the open G string, open D string, then B, A, B, A, B on the A string, back to D, then G. Then he transcribed Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G for the cello to the violin and had me muddle through it. He showed me what it’s supposed to sound like when you get it down perfectly, which of course I don’t have the timing or inflection yet, but when he handed me back Beulah (my violin) I was able to at least hit each of the notes properly and from there can build to the proper inflection. It blew his mind. He commented to the fact that if I see him do it, I’m able to copy it really well. I’ve always assumed I was a visual learner, as I took to American Sign Language really well (and had circumstances allowed, would have been a deaf interpreter) even using the language to study for tests as I was better able to remember the signs and interpret them than I was to remember words on a page. Having that translate to violin certainly is interesting.

He explained that if I sing the notes to myself, do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do, that I’ll have better success in finding the note on the violin, knowing what it’s supposed to sound like. “Good singers make good violinists, and you’re a good singer.” This blew my mind. I’m definitely not the singer in the family, my sister has always had a natural talent for that. I remember being told I wasn’t a good singer, even having friends laugh at me when I would go flat and have no clue that I had. I became extremely embarrassed to even try, having no clue what I was supposed to sound like or afraid I’d go flat and not know it again. However, I was able to run a sound board by ear with no training, so there was a spark of hope that maybe I just needed to be shown or have things explained to me. I’ve been too timid to seek this out yet, though my violin instructor also teaches voice, so we’re sort of addressing it inadvertently. Having him say, so nonchalantly, “you’re a good singer” healed something in me.

I’m already still shocked, and sort of expecting that surely any day now he’s gonna take it back, being told I’m a natural at violin. I’ve watched shows and movies and seen the protagonist be naturally good at something and all these doors casually open for her and always thought that was completely unrealistic. However, now I find myself in a situation where it actually is real and it just still seems so fake to me. There’s no way that I have found something I’m actually a natural at. There’s no way.

Even so, this doesn’t mean I have an excuse not to work hard.

Of course, I’ll have less time to work on violin as much as I want with Nutcracker season starting up, but any little bit I can do is better than nothing through this season, and will fuel the fire of the love I have for this instrument. Progress is progress, no matter how small, and I’m grateful to have found this creative endeavor and am hoping I’m able to continue in it for years to come.

Highs and lows.

In light of keeping things real here, today was a rough day. I’ve been having some health stuff going on that’s making me nervous, seeing new doctors, could be nothing or could be big somethings and all of this is veiled in a healthy dose of past medical trauma (literally someone did a magazine write up on one of my “horror stories” a couple years back) which just sets me on edge.

With violin, i’ve had a bit of an underlying fear that i’d eventually get to a point where something doesn’t quite click and I form a mental block I can’t get past like I did with math in fourth grade. I have a brain for math, but there’s a few things that had a disconnect that I couldn’t quite communicate well enough to find a way past. (Queue the stereotype of “some of yall didn’t have your dad yelling, “WHATS SEVEN TIMES EIGHT” at the kitchen table while helping you with your math homework and it show” in all its glory, multiply it by most math teachers, it’s a good time.) So far, though, we’ve been able to work through any little hiccups we have come across and i’ve been able to carry on in my learning of this beautiful instrument. Today we got down to more theory nitty-gritty and approached another disconnect.

At first I felt it — that knot in your throat and the weight in your chest where you can feel panic on the brink. If i’m not careful, it’ll make my brain completely shut down, which is where I find I struggle to explain any disconnect in a way that helps us find a way past it. But today I was determined to not let it get the best of me. I was able to recognize it was there, take a moment to gather my thoughts in how to express what my brain was processing and where I wasn’t connecting the dots, and David was able to perfectly interpret everything into something I could understand.

Crisis averted.

What’s more, the knowledge that came out of it on the other side is what I feel to be a huge step in my growth as a violinist. Big things that are essentially stepping stones in your progress with this instrument were laid today and the possibilities from here were opened up for me like a dog going through a door that was opened and running full pelt through a meadow of wildflowers to its hearts content.

We worked more on the Interstellar main theme that we have been playing around with since the beginning, but now we’ve gone to the next step where things get faster and include more strings. It’s a huge challenge, one that is definitely above my current skill set, but one that I feel I can begin attempting. I told David, “once I get this i’m going to feel like such a badass” and I know it to be fact.

Safe to say i’m riding a violin high — one I am extremely grateful to be able to experience, especially with so many challenges in life currently. Violin has given me something even ballet wasn’t fully able to offer. Ballet filled so many holes I had in my life, and effectively losing that was a huge blow, but violin is giving me the fulfillment I have so deeply craved and then some as it’s a whole other world experiencing something to which you are naturally inclined. It’s a beautiful thing when what you’re good at and what you love doing collide, and i’m going to chase this high for the rest of my life.

Emilee and the Davettes

i’ve been meaning to post an update here for a bit, but have been a smidge nervous about it. Which, is ridiculous, I know.

I guess with most of my experience coming from beginning ballet, where my heart was in it but I had to work very hard for any single bit of progress and fight to keep it, coming into violin has been one where I apparently have natural ability.

And, putting it bluntly, that feels fake.

Surely I really don’t and we just haven’t exposed how terrible I actually am, right?

It feels as though writing too many blog posts about how wonderful this experience is and the progress I’m making, and all the lovely compliments my teacher gives me (hi, David!) will somehow jinx me and i’ll find out I was a fraud all along.

Yet, here I am, lesson…five? I think? maybe six. And i’m learning vibrato, successfully achieved it, and each time David brings me something to challenge me, I somehow rise to it and give a decent effort to it.

I keep expecting me to hit a point where I have to remind myself why I want this, that I actually love it, and that all the hard work will eventually pay off. With ballet, that was basically immediate. I struggled so much, went home and found tutors and any scrap of instruction online that could be found and muddled my way through, supported by the encouragement of my teacher and peers and sheer stubborn determination. I was never great. I would say I was mediocre, at best, but my heart was in it. And when that was taken from me with all my health stuff, the loss had an added layer since it was something I fought so hard for.

Now, i’m beginning, again, something i’d always wanted to try from childhood. The lesson started with David calling me…a word neither of us could remember by the end of the lesson. He’s going to try and look it up—adept? Accomplished? an a word basically calling me a natural. (the word was adept!) Instinct is that there’s no way he’s saying these things about me, but then when he explained what this old book he dug up told him to do in regards to students like me, it made complete sense, and by the end of the lesson he was telling me how he can see such a difference just between last lesson to this one.

I told him how I had access to my friend, Angel’s, piano, and how finding the notes on there helped me translate it to violin. I’ve never had a piano lesson. my friends took piano growing up and showed me some basics like where C is, otherwise I used what David had shown me with violin to figure out where the notes are and help me process the progression for the song we’re working on. Then, I noticed the first note sounded like the first note from Hedwig’s Theme, so I picked it out as best I could by ear, getting all but the last two notes or so of the first phrase. Apparently that’s not normal.

My dad came by the studio today to help me figure out how to get our office phone moved over since we switched which room my office is in, and after I persuaded him to pick up the guitar and play what I was learning. He obliged, and David watched as dad picked out the notes by ear of what I was playing to find it and play with me. He said, “I see where you get it from!” to which my dad quickly said, “nah, she gets it from her grandmother, my mother”. so I guess imposter syndrome runs in the family as well, haha!

it was really special having my dad play with me, even for such a small amount of time. He’s been supportive with me learning violin, even if he may have had his doubts not necessarily in me but knowing how difficult the instrument is and hoping I wouldn’t be disappointed. I think it’s a fair reaction, and one i’ve been met with from many people when I told them I was going to start learning. My dad has been supportive of my ballet, as well, coming to any show even though it’s not something he has any sort of interest in beyond the fact i’m interested in it. I really appreciate it.

I’m excited to keep practicing on the tasks David has given me. It’s most fun when we’re working together, especially because he can call me out in real time on the small things i’m not doing properly that are messing me up, so i’m able to fix them right away. I have yet to leave a violin lesson where I felt anything but on top of the world. I’m so glad I was brave enough to begin this adventure, and I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

David and I joked about getting my nephew to play cello and my sister piano so we could form a band, which he suggested we name Emilee and the Davettes.

Perfection!

stay tuned for an update if David and I remember the word.

Dad and me, while he and David were figuring out the notes on guitar.