I used to really like Fridays, now I really like Tuesdays.
I mean I still like Fridays, but Tuesdays are just awesome! I know they are already better than Mondays because Mondays are the first day back to school, and you just really don’t want to be in class, and by Tuesday your fine to sit there while a teacher drills Thesis Paper information into your head. But Tuesdays are really cool because I have music lessons. I love to play my instruments. Violin I have been playing since 4th grade, so about 11 years. Guitar I have been playing for about a year and half.
Bud Neff is who I took from in 6th grade. A really nice man, who made me cry a lot. Because at that time period, I had trouble believing that I played violin well, and having a really harsh classical teacher, used to teaching students of higher skill level, didn’t help me feel better about it. I ended up leaving him, happy that I had kept up my violin playing, but wanting to try something different. I moved on to fiddle playing. You play the exact same instrument, but a totally different way. Fiddle is quicker, you hold your bow differently, you shift where you play, up towards the neck more…it was interesting to me, and I found I didn’t judge myself so harshly on my playing, and that in some ways, I was better at Fiddle playing than Classical.
When we moved to Texas it was a priority for my mother to find a good school, and a great area for us to live in, and soon we found a great place…but for me it was to start liking Texas at all. After all, I had not wanted to move, I had great friends that I had gotten back in touch with when I started 7th grade at my middle school, and I really wanted to be in High School with those great friends. Moving to Texas meant not going to school with them, picking up life, and going to somewhere that had no hills, no beach, and no family. How did I cope? Well, school helped, but Orchestra was the first place that I remember making new friends. It’s funny, but once someone found out I was joining orchestra, all of a sudden I was an Orch Dork, one of the gang of kids who played an instrument, who enjoyed playing together, and enjoyed eating lunch together. Some of my best friends today are from that same group. Having something, like an instrument, gave me new doors to open, and it led me on to Tuesdays.
Tuesdays began as Fridays…In my sophomore year I started High School, because Sophmores through Seniors had High School and 9th grade was still in middle school, that changed the year I went. 9th graders came with us to High School, so I wasn’t the lowest fish in the pond. With some 9th grade friends, 10th grade friends, and others, we joined the orchestra there. Lucky for us, our 9th grade orchestra teacher moved to our High School. That is what I thought, Lucky Us…
She ended up being a dictator of an orchestra conductor, later on she not only insulted our playing and let the the band conductor insult our playing, she even went so far as to insult my instrument…and that in the world of instruments is insanely rude. Your instrument is a part of you, it helps you create, be who you are in the that world. So by the end of sophomore year, I was ready to quit, and I was fed up with her…and I was mad enough that I did. I went out to find a teacher outside of school to teach me lessons. That is how I found Lewis, his violin shop, and Fridays.
There’s an electric green violin sign that you can see peeping out from amongst an antique shop. Hidden in a corner, it stands, with its many music books, its violins, and a few mandolins, banjos, and guitars. It’s a family run business, and Lewis teaches lessons. I was ecstatic when I found it! Not only does it teach classical music, it teaches Fiddle, and Lewis was not any violin teacher I’d had before. In fact, you think you were a genius the way he compliments you. Able to teach and correct without being harsh, able to teach without being a dictator and insulting, this was and still is today my violin teacher.
More than anything, I count him as a friend now, and one that I hope I can keep in touch with as long as I’m alive. I have grown immensely in my confidence in playing the violin as well as guitar, and I have grown in skill level. I was able to learn that you can find a teacher that is Nice, and will still be able to teach you, and that you don’t have to settle for anything but that.
So, know you know why I love Tuesdays, and why I love music, and why I can’t wait to get to lessons! Sure I have played a long time, but I am always learning something new, and there is no way I’m stopping when I’m having the funnest time of my life, and now that I’ve started my own band, it’s even better!
February 18, 2010
Written by Emily
