violinist ovenbird I agreed to play this violin part. He wrote it with me in mind. But when it comes down to it I struggle with every line. I can’t get the timing right. None of the places the violin comes in feel intuitive. The melody doesn’t make sense to my brain. I can’t play the arpeggios fast enough. I have to use unusual fingerings that keep throwing me off. And it’s hard to concentrate because a voice in my head is screaming “YOU SUCK!” over and over again until I feel like I might actually cry. And he keeps trying to count me in, but all the notes start and end in weird places and I shouldn’t have quit taking violin lessons because maybe then I’d actually be good at this, and he should have found some other violinist to do this, and if you ignore my shitty timing the tone isn’t great either, and I need to be able to FEEL the music to play it but I don’t feel anything but frustration and anger, and I can hear my mother in my head telling an eight year old version of me to play it again, again, again, again, AGAIN. I began asking to play the violin when I was three. My parents had no idea how I even knew what a violin was. But I did. I knew perfectly and I wanted to hold that instrument in my hands and draw the bow across its strings and make it sing. They thought my practicing would sound unbearably awful, so they tried to put me off but I wouldn’t be deterred. I begged. At the age of five they bought me a half sized violin and put me in lessons. I clawed my way through the Suzuki method, scratching out Go Tell Aunt Rhody and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I was forced to compete in the Kiwanis Festival, which made me want to throw up. But I stuck with it. Even though I hated most of the repertoire and didn’t enjoy practicing. I kept telling my teacher I wanted to play Irish fiddle tunes. I asked every week. Every week he told me it would “ruin my technique” and made me play Paganini caprices instead. Finally he relented and gave me sheet music for a single fiddle tune. I can still remember it because I must have played it thousands of times. My teacher never gave me another fiddle tune. He didn’t care that I loved it. He was there to make me a classical violinist. Eventually my joy died completely and I quit. I was thirteen. I’m angry about what was taken from me. I still love the violin but when I try to play I quickly become overwhelmed. I feel the ability I could have had humming in my wrists. I feel my fingers striving to make things happen that they aren’t capable of. So much was stolen because adults didn’t care about what I loved, they cared about their own reputations and my ability to win meaningless certificates at competitions. Now, struggling to learn this part that he wants me so badly to play, everything surfaces in a tight knot of regret and self-loathing. I fail a dozen times in a row to come in at the right time, and a rage simmers in my chest. Sometimes I play slow O’Carolan airs alone in my living room. In those moments something like a memory rises but it’s not a vision of anything real. It’s a vision of what might have been if my heart had mattered more than my technique. 260205 what's it to you? who go blather from