Catgut Strings and the Music of Life

                                                          Photo by Jie Wang on Unsplash

The feel of the smooth, cold, black wood in the crook of my neck. The smell of pine; amber clear rosin encased in a block of wood. Fingers comfortably resting in the ‘frog’. White horse hair, the stick growing taut as screw increases tension. I lift the violin again, cheek in place, fingers on board, my back straight against the back of the wooden chair that every public school student is familiar with.

I played violin for seven years beginning in junior high. I was third string. This due largely to grace and that there weren’t enough violin players in orchestra. The principal violinist was a musician. He could arrange music in his head. Saying things like, “What if we played it half an octave down in the lower staff?” I was out of place. I played by rote. I learned where my fingers fit on the violin according to the stave. Half an hour every day after school I practiced. I learned to listen. I learned to play. Always by rote; mechanical.

Rimsky-Korsakovs’ Scheherazade, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; Miss Craig had us play current and classical music. Each section playing its own part. For it to work everyone had to play well together. Erik the first violin, Nancy the second violin and I had to sound perfect together. So too the percussion section, the woodwinds, all of us together. I felt out of place. Til bow landed on string.

The instrument becomes part of you. Calloused fingers fit catgut strings. A position that once felt awkward now flows. The novice can make beautiful noise. The true maestro makes melody come alive. The instrument is part of you. You are part of the whole.

The violin case remains closed somewhere in storage. Tempted to pick it up again. Do I miss sculpted beauty held perfectly close? So much I don’t remember. Is it the oneness I miss? 

Daily life is all kind of hit and miss. I feel out of place. Most days I miss the mark. Anxiety climbs out of bed with me. Feeling like I cannot do it. Until that horsehair bow hits the string.