My friend Fourth Breakfast made a comment recently about never knowing I played the violin. I'm positive she forgot. I think we crossed that path once before when reviewing the odd similarities in our lives....but nonetheless, here's an answer for her and others who might (or might not) have been interested.



So the story about the violin. Recently, Andrew started playing violin at school. It's offered at our local elementary school starting in 3rd grade. First thing you need in order to play the violin is, well, a violin. A friend suggested I just get one off eBay. I disagreed with that. Having played violin myself for well over 15 years, you don't just buy a violin like an iPod. You have to audition it. They don't let you do that on eBay....

I happened upon a local violin store. Gailes Violin Shop in College Park which isn't too far from us. The moment I walked in I knew this was the right store. Violin shops, in my opinion, have a certain atmosphere, including smell. It smelled like a violin shop. Some nice mixture of rosin, wood, along with sounds of instruments being played in a wonderfully silent environment. I spent a fun hour trying out the quarter-sized violins before selecting one for Andrew.

The experience made me decide to dust my old violin off and get it back into playing shape.

I have faithfully carried my violin in its case around, by hand, for 18 years. It has always moved in the back seat or trunk of the car. So it actually was in pretty good shape. I needed a bow rehair, new strings, and a little adjustment to the bridge. Otherwise, the violin was amazingly just as I left it when I closed the case 18 years ago. Opening the case and getting the instrument tuned up was quite like rediscovering an old friend.

Getting the violin to the violin store was how I discovered it fit in the boot of the Mini, by the way. It happened to be the car with gas in it that day.

Andrew and I are now practicing together, with my hopes that not only will Andrew keep up with the violin, but that I'll get enough rust out of the fingers to actually join an ensemble or some other local group. I have discovered, though, that my double-jointed pinky fingers haven't gotten any better with age...

Tags: Andrew