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It was amazing to me to watch Dad pick up the violin that Hawk had fixed (a small repair on the bridge) for him. You have to understand, I have NEVER seen my father play a violin, so I expected nothing, cat screeches.
He picked it up, ran through a scale, then launched into a tune, and it looked so easy and sounded so good that I thought, "Why do people say violin is hard? It must not be so hard if you have one that just sounds good, like this one." Of course Dad tired very quickly, so then Hawk picked it up and assayed a few notes... and they didn't sound anywhere near as good. Which surprised me because Hawk is a musician (and has in the past made as much money off playing as if it were a regular job, so I guess you could say he's a professional) and his current instrument, the bass, is like an enormous violin. I had to pick the thing up and see if I could make some nice sounding notes, and some of them did sound nice. As long as I could keep the right tension with the bow. And I could easily see that Hawk was right, he'd notched the D string's place in the bridge just a tiny bit too deep. I've never been able to play any instrument, but I almost wonder if I couldn't kind of DO this. It seems more intuitive than I expected, although my fingers felt too big. I mean, I know I couldn't ever be good, because I'm far too old. My father was taught when he was quite young, by his grandfather who was good enough that he went to the Boston Conservatory. I think Dad has a kind of muscle memory that seemed to be kicking in on some level quite below consciousness, because when Hawk tried to draw him out about something he had done with the instrument Dad seemed quite unable to remember anything he had just done.
I asked him why I had never seen him play violin before and he said it was just that he never had one to play. This confuses me, because obviously this violin, which was his grandfather's, must have been somewhere, but I guess he didn't know quite where. At some point when people were cleaning out his parents house after they had both passed on it was discovered, in quite bad shape, and Dad's wife took it and got it fixed, which was NOT cheap. But the whole story makes me wonder why on earth his parents didn't make sure he had it, if he'd been taught how to play it and it was still around. I wonder if it was just that his father didn't want to give it to him? There was some kind of animosity between my Dad and his father.
He picked it up, ran through a scale, then launched into a tune, and it looked so easy and sounded so good that I thought, "Why do people say violin is hard? It must not be so hard if you have one that just sounds good, like this one." Of course Dad tired very quickly, so then Hawk picked it up and assayed a few notes... and they didn't sound anywhere near as good. Which surprised me because Hawk is a musician (and has in the past made as much money off playing as if it were a regular job, so I guess you could say he's a professional) and his current instrument, the bass, is like an enormous violin. I had to pick the thing up and see if I could make some nice sounding notes, and some of them did sound nice. As long as I could keep the right tension with the bow. And I could easily see that Hawk was right, he'd notched the D string's place in the bridge just a tiny bit too deep. I've never been able to play any instrument, but I almost wonder if I couldn't kind of DO this. It seems more intuitive than I expected, although my fingers felt too big. I mean, I know I couldn't ever be good, because I'm far too old. My father was taught when he was quite young, by his grandfather who was good enough that he went to the Boston Conservatory. I think Dad has a kind of muscle memory that seemed to be kicking in on some level quite below consciousness, because when Hawk tried to draw him out about something he had done with the instrument Dad seemed quite unable to remember anything he had just done.
I asked him why I had never seen him play violin before and he said it was just that he never had one to play. This confuses me, because obviously this violin, which was his grandfather's, must have been somewhere, but I guess he didn't know quite where. At some point when people were cleaning out his parents house after they had both passed on it was discovered, in quite bad shape, and Dad's wife took it and got it fixed, which was NOT cheap. But the whole story makes me wonder why on earth his parents didn't make sure he had it, if he'd been taught how to play it and it was still around. I wonder if it was just that his father didn't want to give it to him? There was some kind of animosity between my Dad and his father.
