Scratching away at the old violin

Back in November I wrote about how I'd joined the Taylorsville-SLCC Symphony.  That was an enjoyable time for me, and it felt good to get back on stage during the Holiday Season.  But due to a schedule change I had to leave the orchestra again after our Christmas concert series.  My brief season with the Taylorsville-SLCC Symphony got me playing the violin again after my mission, but it wasn't enough to graduate me from "rusty" status without individual practice.

And, well . . . I haven't been doing that.  I probably have time to practice, but the violin isn't like the piano: it's not just sitting there open in the living room, with a bench handy for me to sit on.  I can sit down at the piano without even thinking about it (there are occasions when I'm so tired I don't even realize I've gone to the piano until I'm pressing keys), but the violin requires a little bit more effort to pull out of the closet and make sure the bow is tight and the strings are in tune.

But I'd like to start practicing regularly again, at least a little.  I had so much fun in the high school orchestra.  (By the way, it's been four years since high school.  Weird.)  I wasn't a virtuoso back then, or anything, but I felt comfortable with the violin.  I could pick it up and just play, and that made me happy.  And really, that's all I want out of the violin.  I'm not out to become first chair of the Utah Symphony; I just want to play without making a bunch of awkward squeaking noises.  Maybe I'll learn some hymn arrangements for church, or something.

This thought was inspired by a meeting with Joey, an old friend from the orchestra.  We get together fairly often, but today was the first time I can remember that we actually thought, Hey, why don't we play some violin?

So we did.  And (mainly due to my rustiness; Joey still practices a lot more than I do), one can imagine what that sounded like.  It didn't exactly turn out like this:





Actually, it was more like this:





I've learned, however, that things generally go okay with the music if I stay in the background. On this one, we even managed to get through the whole song!





In any case, we had fun, and that's what the orchestra was all about for me back in the day.  It was nice to play the violin with an old friend again, and indeed, pulling out my violin itself was like seeing another old friend.  It was the kind of experience that made me think.  I may talk more about my summer goals sometime, but practicing my violin more than just once in a long while is definitely on the list now.  I think that'll be good for me.