Do You Play?

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     A wee Aspirer, clearing the door handle by mere centimeters, marches into my music room with an Alexander-the-Great measure of self-confidence and pride. Whipping her violin from its case, she announces that she has "already learned" an entire list of songs. Which, she graciously desires to know, would I have the pleasure of hearing first? As I frantically snatch the poor instrument away from imminent destruction in her whirling hands, laughter chokes me, and I am required to inform the maestro that, having never before taken a single music lesson, she does not, in fact, know how to play the violin.

     "Let's start at the beginning, ok? First you have to be introduced! Do you know what this part of your violin is called?" Thus begins the first of many lessons - sometimes months of lessons - before Aspirer will scratch out even her beginning tunes. Yet, for all there is to learn, for all the lack of music her practice holds in these opening weeks, you could bet your bottom dollar that she announces, with child-like importance, that she "plays the violin!"

You have begun, my dear, but let us work hard in the months to come. Only then will you truly play.

     As Aspirer twirls out to the car, Intermediate strolls into the room. Standing an inch or two above me - he has suddenly sprouted in these last months - he arranges his books upon the piano stand and maneuvers the bench to a precise distance from the instrument with a nonchalance that bespeaks several years' habit. Settled before the piano, he plays his assignments with a familiarity that often tempts him into carelessness, resulting in the occasional discordant fumble. Half his life he's played. He knows the instrument, the notes, the techniques, the challenges - in fact, he knows pretty much all there is to know about his instrument. He's here for accountability in applying his knowledge, but mistakes are insignificant when you know how to fix them, right? "Yeah, I play the piano," he will agree when asked, with a blasé shrug of the shoulders.

Oh Intermediate, you have learned so much. Can you not decide to diligently apply all you know to your music? Then you would really know what it means to play.

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     Finally, Advanced enters the room. With a cheerful smile and few words of greeting, she lovingly lifts her violin from its case. As she turns to face me, she looks carefully about to be sure no quick movement will knock her strings out of tune or scratch her tenderly-polished wood. Yes, she is careful now, when her instrument is as familiar to her as the back of her own well-practiced hands. Before we've even begun, she has several questions from her week of study: "What should this tempo be?" "Do I use such-and-such technique for this passage?" "Have you heard Joshua Bell's performance of this piece?"

     When she plays, her music dances like sunlight through the room. Her performance is as perfect as she knows how to make it, and my role has diminished to that of merely pointing out new ideas or interpretations of the music. "Do you play?" "Well, not very well - but I do take lessons," is her reply.

And yet, my dear Advanced, you are the one who knows - 
You know what it is to make music. 

When you play, it is not with the optimistic songs of Aspirer; she does not realize all she has to learn, and her music is unrecognizable to any who hear her. When you play, it is not with the confidence of knowledge held by Intermediate; to know is his intention, and to do is inconvenient. When you play, dear Advanced, your music touches others - because you sing to your fullest capacity, always striving for excellence, always mindful of all you have yet to learn. And that is how music is made.

Do you play?

Watch-It Wednesday: One of the Few

Crossover artists in the sphere of violin music rarely impress me. Usually, they either play very well as modern music-makers, OR very well as classical players - rarely do they accomplish both. David Garrett, though, is one of the few. He compromises no quality in his playing ~ tone and amazing precision are evident in whatever he performs. Prepare to be delighted with his rendition of "Carmen" ~ I certainly am!

Have a musical Wednesday!

I'm So Excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, in case you didn't get it from the title and extra exclamation marks, I'm pretty much ecstatic right now!! So ecstatic, in fact, that I had no other option but to blog and tell you "all about it"!!!!

"What," you may ask, "has happened to cause this great show of emotion?" Well, I'll tell you. Mark Moreland, as in, the Mark who who was General Manager and Shop Foreman of Schuback's Violin Shop for years and years -

The Mark who helped me and my parents pick out my perfect first violin - a sixteenth size - and second violin - an eighth size - and third violin - a quarter size - and fourth violin - a half size -

that Mark just opened his own violin shop two minutes up the road from me!!! We're talking less than a mile!! A violin maker and restorer, do you know how exciting it is as a violinist and a violin teacher to have a guy I can recommend who lives two minutes from me??

Mama saw a sign up a few days ago that said simply "Violin Maker," and told me about it, knowing I would want to stop by and "scout out the place." Then, this evening, on our way home from the store, I asked her to show me, and she obligingly pulled into the gravel parking lot. There was Mark, taking out the recycling, and he meandered up to us as we turned around. Down went mama's window, and in a few minutes he was telling us all about his shop, his experience, etc. As he went back to his shop to get a few flyers and business cards for me, mama looked straight ahead and kept saying, "Mark...Mark...." as though she was trying to figure something out.

"What's up mama?" I asked.

"O - nothing. I'll tell you later."

"Do you think he's the guy who used to work at Schuback's?"

"Yes! That's exactly what I was wondering!"

After Mark came back out, he mentioned the work he had done at Schuback's. Mama and I were thrilled!!!

Hooray! Hooray! Do you know how cool this is? Do you understand? Or will you chalk it up to simply another weird, violin-teacher quirk?

The Adventures of Three Violins

Once upon a time, there lived three violins. They were good, sweet instruments, who delighted in singing for the Lord and teaching other little violins to do the same. But these violins were not content to simply instruct from their own - sometimes limited - amount of knowledge, oh no! They wanted to be the best teachers they could be! So one year, they packed their bags and flew (what an experience! To fly!) to the mountain-edged city of Salt Lake, to learn how to better teach their own sweet little violins back home.

Ten enlightening, mind-spinning, exciting days later, they returned home. Overflowing with new ideas, theories, and techniques, they dove into the next year of teaching with renewed enthusiasm and energy. But always, in the back of their mind, they longed to return and learn yet more from the wonderful older violins at the Suzuki Institute.
A year slipped by, then another, and once again, the three violins found themselves in the brown-but-beautiful state of Utah.

They had returned.

As they basked in the warm sunshine (the violins' girls even got sunburned!), experimented with new techniques for good tone, and watched with grins as their bows and girls did multiple, silly-looking exercises together, they marvelled at all the wonderful things to be seen and heard at Suzuki Camp!

What a crazy, information-packed three days we've had! But in case it wasn't clear from the violin's perspective, I should explain. I'm sitting here on a comfy red sofa with Lauren and Mikaela, in our air-conditioned hotel "suite", just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. We are here to attend Teacher Training for Suzuki Books 2 & 3, but at the moment we are searching for cute lunch and shopping stops to drop by tomorrow (our one day off). We have just had two and a half days of classes, and were I to go home today, there are already so many things I would change in my personal playing and teaching methods - it's great!


Ordering Burgers and Fries Online



We got in Wednesday evening, late. Quite late. In fact, by the time we got to our room, we were hard-pressed to find a restaurant that was still open to satisfy our crying stomachs. Finally, we discovered that "Five Guys, Burger and Fries" (which we had never been to) allowed online orders, and by the skin of our teeth we ordered some dinner and picked it up 15 minutes before they closed. Wheh!

 Thursday we didn't have to be at the Institute until 3, so we slept in, began our Bible study on the Holy Spirit (more on that later) and went grocery shopping for the week. We discovered last year that, if we have a plan for meals, we save tons of money! And yet... this looks like quite a heap of food for three girls, dontcha think?

But we have quite the sophisticated menu, of course. Thursday we had the "European" dinner - brie cheese (yum!), sausage (yum!), french bread (yum!) grapes (yum!) and sparkling juice...yum. Yesterday we made chicken Alfredo, tonight it was tacos and sweet potato fries... For some inexplicable reason, food takes up quite a bit of our time here...as evidenced by the fact that we've spent the last 2.5 hours looking for a place to have lunch tomorrow. *ahem* You'd think we were boys, for all the emphasis we place on this subject! :p

Of course, food is not all we're doing. So far, we've had fourteen hours of classroom time (we've worked all the way through Book 2), a few hours of soaking up the sun on lunch break (we're talking in the 70s...have you ever wanted to just hug the sun?), a few hours of Bible study, gone shopping at Forever 21, and talked with some great Christian girls (how cool is that? Last time we came, we did not meet a single Christian!). I will have to save tonight's experience for later ('cause I am tired), but it involved...chocolate, hysterical laughs, sparklers, divers, and...safari themes. There now, aren't you curious?

But tomorrow, our one day off, we will do our study time and then head off to Salt Lake City for a day on the town! We plan to hit a Bible exhibit to see pages of the Gutenberg Bible, find a cute lunch spot (if we can), and spend some time with our favorite haunt of two years ago, Gateway.

Ta-ta, and goodnight!