Chapter II: First strokes...

So how does one get started playing the violin after a 40 yr break? Well, first one confesses that this HAS happened once before. When my son was about 12 he had played violin for about 4 years. In order to encourage him I enrolled him with a wonderful (least I thought so) violin teacher from England and dutifully drove him to lessons every week. Well, his interest was starting to flag (hey, déjà vu) so I pulled out my violin and we both took lessons from the wonderful teacher. At first this was rather cool – but he continued to loose interest and after about 2 months of us sharing teacher he eventually quit (I didn’t put up much of a fight). I then had to decide whether to continue myself. After an initial fascination I found the going hard and eventually hit a brick wall in progress. I mention this because first, it did at least mean that I had a little resurgence in playing about half way through my hiatus. This may have been beneficial to stir up my technical abilities but it was decidedly detrimental with respect to confidence. I suppose I was at about 75% of my childhood abilities but realized that I could not advance beyond that. Importantly, I rationalized this as (predictably) being unable to learn as an adult. The violins were put away and forgotten. Well, at least as instruments. They remained an important part of me as a person. While I occasionally got wistful thoughts on the rare occasions when they would reappear in the basement I had no delusions about being able to play again. This is one reason why it was so important to trade my violin in when I tried again another 15 years later.

So what to do now?? How was I going to avoid the fate that I had fallen into with the aborted return? First, to be honest, I actually didn’t think about that at all. Last time I started for a noble, but wrong reason (for me): to encourage my son. Playing was about him, not about me: I had not ‘bought in’. This time I felt a need, even a passion. It was different. The first thing I did was to just play from memory – or rather from feel. I think the first thing I played was Brahms lullaby. The tune is beautiful and entirely within one octave. I remembered that I had played it in D and based on that (and a lot of trial and error) I figured out the fingering. Victory! Out of tune, tone worse than a backfiring taxi, but definitely Brahms Lullaby (its very fortunate that Brahms would never hear this!). I then spent a lot of time just playing any notes that came into my head and, to my delight, these included songs. For some bizarre reason these were often Scottish Highland songs or popular English folk music – and sometimes they were the mood of those but nothing in particular. Other times it was just notes, nice notes and random notes. Playing, making sounds on Dudie, was truly heaven.

I don’t remember how long that stage lasted but pretty soon I was ready for Music. But what music? Well, perhaps equally amazing, I still had my music book from when I started plus some pieces from the aborted learning attempt. The latter was too much of a stretch so I dug out ‘A Tune a Day’ Book I. Words can not capture the feeling of playing my childhood starter book half a century after I had first seen it. Oddly, I was not intimidated at all – one might expect that since the fact that it was a challenge had to mean I had reverted virtually to my violin cradle. Fortunately, whoever compiled it had included themes from some very sophisticated music. Bach, Mozart, Handel – they were all there together with timeless themes [add]. Thus, working through this book was not a telescope to a daunting project but a toe hold on a Prospect.

Its interesting to try to figure out why, when I realized that I had reverted to age 7 or so (playing wise) I was NOT deterred in the slightest. But we will return to this theme anon….