Sax and Violins

Flash forward 30 years.

My children showed interests in musical instruments; for my daughter it was the piano when she was very young, then later the sax, my son wanted to learn the drums. I did all I could to give them the opportunity to learn and experience what had interested them. I wanted to ensure that they had the opportunities that I did not as a child.

I’ve been listening to violin music for many years, I still have the bug. One day I decided to buy a violin and start learning to play. I was approaching 40 and felt that it was about time. A few months after I bought the violin, one of the community colleges offered an introductory violin class. I immediately signed up.

The class was fun, hard work, but fun! I signed up for private lessons after the class had ended. Unfortunately I had several conflicts with available lesson times and my work, but I continued on. I learned to play in first and in third position. And what I was doing was actually beginning to sound like music; my dog would actually come and lay down next to me while I played. Then a series of medical issues put a stop to my violin playing. RA and spinal issues made it impossible to play.

Music in School

Music has always been important to me. When I was in grade school, 3rd grade, I became entranced by the viola. It all happened during a school assembly. The school was offering music lessons to interested students, the assembly was to introduce the students to the instruments that would be taught, and the viola caught my ear.

I’d always loved the violin, possibly due to my love of Sherlock Holmes. I’d seen every movie and read every book and story (at least all those written by Doyle). Holmes played the violin. The viola was like the violin, except it played a bit lower and to me had a wonderful sound.

After school that day, I rushed home to let my parents know about the music lessons, and the viola. I was assured that they would look into this for me, and actually attended the meeting for the parents on the music lessons. I was so excited, my mind was aflame with visions of me playing the viola, it was the most excited I’d ever been.

That night my mother told me that they had signed me up for music lessons, and that I have to really practice every day for at least 1 hour, and that I should do it quietly. From what I can remember of this, I was nodding so quickly that my chin was bouncing off my chest. This was one of my happiest childhood memories. That night in my dreams, I was Sherlock Holmes, solving mysteries, and playing the viola.

On Saturday I was taken to the music shop, we were going to pick up my instrument. As we walked, I could swear I was bouncing, I was that excited. My mother went to the counter and asked for some strange looking thing. It was shaped like a wedge and had a flat surface about 6” X 6” angled at 45 degrees. This surface had a dull red rubber circle glued to it. My mother got this and a pair of drum sticks.

It turns out economics had reared its ugly head. When my parents went to the meeting at the school, they learned what it would cost to rent a viola; then they learned that drum lessons used what was called a “drum pad”, an angled piece of wood with a red-rubber circle glued to it, and a pair of drum sticks, a total investment of less than $5. To my parents, music lessons was music lessons, so they signed me up for drum lessons.

I held back the tears, I was 8 years old, almost a man, and men don’t cry. For the rest of the year I practiced my drum rolls, when the meeting came up for music lessons for the following year, I did not tell my parents.