From 5ish to 18ish, I loved my weekly violin lessons. I am so happy that my parents let me learn how to play young so everything sounded in tune and pretty later on. So grateful that my private instructors spoiled me with special opportunities. Not everyone gets to play the violin. Instuctors do not just let everyone be penciled in every week for years on end, my aunt wouldn’t have picked me as her special student to do privates with in NYC. Luckily the Cirmo’s loved me enough to put me in their schedule all the time and all those special oppurtunities happened. My aunt’s private students in NYC baisicailly all did the same things as me, except I never wanted to do NYSMA solos or play in all state, I just kind of picked my favorite songs to work on from ballets or plays, or dabbled in composing. I never really wanted in on all my aunts’ things down in NYC, she would actually come to Rochester a lot with students which I thought was funny. Privately playing things and working specifically with certain groups was sort of the way I was in that prime. I was more with the homeschooled musicians and did private things with them, our instructors would want all of us to meet eachother and be friends with collabs. I think my favorite thing ever was with a pianist friend, harpist friend, ballet dancer friend and me alone with a stage playing around recording their video auditions. I only did invitations in an uncompetitive way or played things well with private things. I wouldn’t really be competitive in music, but some people who actually did orchestra with their school district would never know who I was, because I did everything privately. I imagine that I would have felt like I did about school and club lacrosse with orchestra, if I had played with a district and in a private selection. It’s nice to have a group to do things like that with, where you’re all friends and there doesn’t really need to be a business side to playing together. One time my sister needed to hire a violinist for her event, and I was not home, and she was so disappointed the person she found did not sound like me when I play, it was really funny. My sister heard me in my bedroom practicing for years and thought everyone sounded nice playing the violin, and it was so funny she did not like the violinist she hired for her event, she missed me in my black concert dress playing things in tune. 🙊 Always dress for the role, it does not even need to be expensive just like nice looking. My sister was so upset the person she had to hire wasn’t wearing my special outfit with classical style pieces to play, it still makes me laugh. I used to make brackets around little sections and memorize them, count them out, play the entire sections together and then continue to group more and more sections, really spend a lot of time learning to do it correctly, then have my teacher tell me everything to fix for next time.
Playing a piece of music is sort of like running a marathon, your brain goes into a special form of focus which is really cool. My favorite thing to do later in life is sit on the edge of my bed, and play small parts of all my old favorite solos. It’s sort of like how some of my friends can pick up a guitar or saxophone and play something they enjoy, to unwind. Red wine, fireplaces and violins are always nice things to have. 🎻🍷😽
I think reading different cleffs of music, and mathematics are like knowing second languages like French or Latin. Love languages, language of music, body language. Everyone smiles in the same language! 😁
My biggest solo was Souvenir D'un Lieu Cher, god knows I could not have played it if this was my only violin. Maybe those pegs gave me patience, but like I think every violinist deserves a higher quality instrument with modern pegs to play important songs when there are events that matter. 😉 It was funny trying to salvage and play this instrument and then watch peers smashing more expensive instruments in music videos as if they were worthless, so many personalities… One violinist I came across told me that my instrument was firewood, and it made me sad, but at the same time this was almost a punishment to actually play difficult pieces with, my other violin is so much nicer. In a way it was sort of not okay to ask me to play this instrument, because it's not for intermediate or expert things that take hours and hours. So I had to like tell my aunt who gave it to me that I was not willing to use this to play my solos or in concert, and I was not ashamed, because if anyone could have given this violin an expert life I totally did, but after a while I suffered enough and could just use a nice one. There are times in life you deserve to have nice things, you can’t force someone to play a difficult piece on an instrument that’s not correct. My aunt would tell me she played it in NYC for her biggest events, but I do not believe her, because I know she totally had a nicer instrument for those events or she wouldn’t have gotten the part; she’s so bad. I would use my nicer one, then my aunt would come in town and say that my violin did not sound played, and I cannot believe she ever thought I would play on this instrument like it’s 1925 and I’m in the middle of nowhere… My instructor laughed uncontrollably when I brought it to class one time, we were dying laughing. A lot of companies actually give you an instrument to use for certain parts or special strings if you get in with an audition, so I imagine she never did more than practice on this thing! Schools lease instruments for you, companies give you theirs, you would only buy your own for personal pleasure, she never used this to play ever; liar liar pants on fire. It's like not okay I was expected to use this. Nevertheless, never tell someone their instrument is firewood, even Paganini could play on one string. 🎻 🔥
This is a violin that my parents thought was playable, but a little out of date in reality. My instructor always let me use a special violin for special times, but this one was special too. A little hard to actually play day in and out upon… Thank heavens for modern adjustments to insturments to make it easier for us hobby artists. I look for a lot of bow circles when I watch artists…
“Pasta Red
Who else can
swap all the wine bottle stickers?
Jump on the big bed.
He actually
does NOT have his money.
Or my stable job.
It does look nuts,
having tea is not acting.
We don’t act it out.
However I,
Do not want to live with him.
Not without a gate.
My education
and career path are stable
His finances suck.
Do they want their friends?
I do not like his circle.
We’re not together.
Regret to decline,
my worst nightmare, that restaurant.
I’ll just drink some wine. ”
Who does not like drinking wine, sparing no expense, playing violin solos alone in the house dancing around pilars with security footage as your videographer? Sometimes instead of going to an Italian restaurant I just light the fireplace, drink red wine, and play all my solos in the prettiest places of the home… Or I just go swimming. Both are nice options. One time I was all alone in the big house and in a towel after showering for an hour and someone wierd came to the door and it creeped me out, so I wanted to get a gait so random people couldn’t come to the front door while I’m alone thinking they can swim. The young man who took care of the pool thought no one was home and he could have a party, it was like a problem while I was alone in the home… No one else is really allowed to do things but me, I just don’t have a label for it. Sometimes you’re friends sometimes you’re lovers, lifelong relationships have too many labels for just one and it all just leads to drinking more fine wine whilst dancing around or going to the upper east side for coffee to play make believe gossip girl after not talking for months. There was a summer that I thought I would get engaged and run the NYC Marathon, but niether happened, and it is okay. Honestly, I thought we would get engaged and he would watch me run and it would be blissful like a dream. I really thought he wanted to watch all of my marathons and graduations. It could have been worse, they could have introduced one of their million girlfriends to my parents and broken my heart in a very immature way, there are ways to politely mutually seperate. Different times exist for different things to unfold. In reality, yeah I never anticipated not being engaged or not nonchalantly picking NYC as my marathon that year, it threw me through a loop and I really didn’t date for a while, because I felt like it would be too much to start over with someone else I would actually want to be with... What an embarassing let down that entire thing ended up being. Maybe I’ll be happier and run NYC next year without having anything but my legs moving with the time on my watch crossing my mind. I have a lot of really good individuals in my support system to watch all my marathons and graduations… I really don’t know if I have been running too long to do another marathon, which is why my coach told me NYC has the worst footing of all courses.