Back when I played the piano, I did quite passably but also with the knowledge that I really ought to practice more. I didn’t have the zeal* to be consistent. Once I was out of primary school and I could stop the miseries of clarinet, encounters with other instruments were rare. I remember once we were at a distant relatives house and there, in a corner, was a guitar. A guitar it was made clear I was not to touch under any circumstance. It was agony to be unable to pluck the strings. Eventually, I think I sat and stared at it long enough for the adults to take pity on me. I took it into my arms as I would a baby.
I plucked the strings and all I got out of it was a disharmonious da-dunk. Almost the sound of throwing a heavy rock into a deep pool of water.
“It’s out of tune,” I was told. “That’s why it sounds like that.”
For me, at the time, that meant it was as good as broken.
***
This story needs some back story, which you must read in reverse because it’s coming from Twitter:
And, later, this:
The celebrations were premature. One week later my teacher and I both knew the violin needed a touch that was beyond her band-aiding. I was told to take it to Auburn, where, as it turns out, amid the traffic and chic shops there are a few violin shops tucked away. To get there, I got lost in the back streets of Hawthorn. I drove along the tree-lined streets, gazing at the mansions with the words of Vince Vaughn in Swingers going through my head (“So fucking money“), but we got there in the end, after narrowly avoiding two car accidents.
We got to this shop, with the violins and other instruments laying like cats on the windowsill.
And the ones for sale, hanging for display in beautiful rows.
It was a shop more suited to Diagon Alley; dark, carpets clogged with dust and love.
I handed over my violin and despite its corrupted ‘A’ string and jumpy bridge the owner was able to play such a tune as to make Keira and I look at each other in delight.
“It’s a fine enough fiddle,” he said, untucking it from his chin. “But, yes, there’s work that needs doing.”
So now I am to have strings and a tail piece from Germany and a bridge from France. I’m to pick it up this week.
I can’t say how relieved I am, which is an odd confession to make seeing as, honestly, I’m not enjoying playing it – yet. I think I was as distressed to consider its ability had been compromised.
Perhaps that’s because that’s how my own writing voice has felt lately.
Now one’s about to be fixed, I need to get to work on the other.
And I will.
*Some might call it ‘laziness’!
