Man, my school visits each month provide a lot of great fodder for these newsletters!
2 weeks ago a question came up a number of times with the kids: “How long have you been playing?” This particular wording can be a bit awkward depending on who it’s directed toward, because they might as well be asking “how old are you minus a few years?” We’ve found that redirecting by telling them what age we started seems to suffice.
1st Violin: “Well my mom taught middle-school strings so she started me when I was really young. I was 3 years old.”
2nd Violin: “I was 6.”
Viola: “I was 4”
Cello: “I was also 6.”
Bass: “I was 9.”
I think this question comes up so much because it’s pretty low-hanging fruit as far as Q&A’s go, but I also imagine the asker is testing the water a bit to see how their story overlaps with ours. As the player who started latest in life in my group, I always try to always mention that you can start at any age. The same goes for adults. Just because you’re 5 years or 50 years past the time that our violinist started, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a fulfilling time learning today. Also, the older you get, the better you are at focusing on lessons, so you have that going for you.
We had a few more fun/funny things happen in the Q&A’s. A few kids at different schools asked how long we’ve known each other. In our quintet, I’m the newest member of the symphony (as of 2 years plus a couple months ago) so that’s that short answer. But our cellist and 2nd violinist wryly smile and say that they’ve known each other for a long time because they're married. That always gets a lot of oooooo’s.
One kid asked how expensive our instruments are, and our Violist, tactfully explained about how instruments are really old and made by hand, before finally relenting that her’s cost more than her car. We left it at that and moved on to the next question which was: “What kind of car do you drive?”
EXTRAS
Fiddles on fire! Our soloist this week at the symphony was Tessa Lark. As she explained, the only difference between her 1600’s violin, and a fiddle is that one has strings and the other has strangs. After a thrilling performance of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, she came back on stage for a 15 minute encore of fiddle tunes. Here’s one of the ones she played!
But what even is a fiddle? I’ll just leave this here. It really doesn’t get better than Michael Cleveland. (Also if you want a chuckle I would recommend reading the comments on this YouTube video.)
One more (because I’m now neck deep in a YouTube rabbit hole). This is some amazing folk/classical crossover with Tessa Lark and bassist Edgar Meyer.
In your next newsletter, could you clarify Drake’s takedown lyrics? 🥴