go tell Aunt Rhody

I suppose only those who have studied the violin using the Suzuki books would really recognize that obscure reference in the title of my post, but oh well. Maybe I'll catch some of you nostalgiac violinists, like me...

Watching Music of the Heart on StarzTicket last night (wouldn't have been what I would have selected from a video store, but it was available there, and I wanted something light that I could watch while knitting) made me want to pick up the violin again, which tends to happen when I see someone really good playing - it's both the naturalness of it (I can still pretty accurately air-violin most of the songs I learned from 2nd through 8th grade) and the gorgeousness of the sound - I wish I could create that same music, and please people the way it pleases me (hence also why I've always wanted to play the piano). However, after the wave of nostalgia passed over me, I realized that, for me, it's more about listening to & enjoying other people's music than it is about creating my own. Perhaps part of the reason I never continued my violin education was because I could never enjoy the music that I was making as much as I could just listening to the rest of the orchestra around me. Maybe that's attributed to a lack of enough skill, I don't know. Either way, I have resigned myself pretty much to the fact that I will never be a music-maker (thought I'll always be a dreamer of dreams - if you catch that reference, I'm impressed!). And I don't mind. Music produced by other people moves me in amazing ways. I appreciate it, and I live because of it (at least partly). And that's what is important to me. I'm okay with that.

I do really appreciate that I had the opportunity to learn to read music and play an instrument like I did. Of course while I was mired in lessons and practice, I wasn't so happy with it (I never had the natural talent that some people had, or at least I never thought I did - my violin teachers always wanted to place me in the higher-level groups, but I never practiced enough, I admit now with regret). Reading music seems almost as natural as reading printed words to me, and I realize that, for a lot of people, that's not the case.

I guess I have my older sisters (who I always wanted to emulate) and my parents (who gave us the opportunity to learn an instrument in the first place) to thank. Thank you. xoxo

Currently Reading:

TITLE: Evasion
AUTHOR: