About two weeks ago, I started putting the word out that I was interested in buying, renting, or borrowing a violin. Soon after, I met with someone here in Cluj who had a violin that he wasn't currently using. Both the instrument itself and the instrument's sound are gorgeous, and immediately we worked out a rental agreement for the remainder of the time I'll be in Romania. Hand-crafted in 1899 by Sebestyen Alex, the label gives its origins: "in absam prope Oeniponium" (meaning, in Latin, "Made near Innsbruck (Austria.)") The owner grew up playing this violin, but now owns a different violin that he uses for his band's live performances or when he is asked to play violin for someone's album recordings.
This violin's owner learned how to play his instrument in a much different manner than I learned to play the violin. Prior to discovering his current niche as a violinist for a band, he had taken the path of a typical gifted musician growing up in Romania; he graduated from a music conservatory, sought employment in a leading symphony, and tried out the life of a professional musician. He quickly decided that this wasn't the life for him, and started to look for other opportunities where he could play his violin in a more free, creative, and less competitive environment.
He grew up learning to play in what he called "the Communist system," where he says that some kids were "locked into rooms for hours" until they memorized a specific part of a song. Those individuals who excelled in performance tests were sent to music academies for the duration of their education. Julia Fischer, a twenty-something violinist who has played with America's top symphonies and is currently the youngest professor at the Music Academy in Munich, had the following to say about the music of Shostakovich, the Russian composer whose music was banned by Stalin until he reluctantly joined the Communist party in the 1960's: "Both my parents came from communist countries. I was brought up knowing all the faults of that system-- faults that find their way into my interpretations of pieces written during the Communist era." "The music is sometimes cruel," she continues in an interview with Time Out Chicago in 2008, "yet it must be played without compromise. Whenever you try to make it nice or beautiful, you lose whatever Shostakovich had to say about the system.”
I, like many kids growing up in the 80's in the U.S. (and also Japan, and Western Europe), learned to play the violin under the Suzuki Method. This method, developed in Japan in the mid-20th Century after the devastation of World War II, focuses on nurture, and the goal of raising generations with "noble hearts" as opposed to creating famous musical prodigies. Interestingly (and fascinating for an ESL Instructor), the founder of the Suzuki Method, Shin'ichi Suzuki, modeled his method after many of the concepts he had observed in native language acquisition: "immersion, encouragement, small steps, and an unforced timetable for learning material based on each person's developmental readiness to imitate examples, internalize principles, and contribute novel ideas." Suzuki believed that if kids could learn a foreign language before age 5 or 6, then they could also become proficient at a musical instrument around the same age.
I was a lucky little Suzuki kid starting when I was 3 1/2 years old, skipping off to my violin teacher's house, which was right across the street from my grandparents', carrying a little half-sized miniature violin. I remember learning how to use the bow by screeching out renditions of "Mississippi Hot Dog" (which I later found out was sometimes taught as "Motorcycle Stop-Stop" in the western part of the U.S.) to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." I remember group performances with other kids from my class at Laurel Arts Center in my hometown of Somerset, PA. Learning the violin was usually fun, and I rarely remember dreading going to practices, performances, or, as I grew older, private lessons. Somerset Elementary, Junior High, and High School had a kind, patient, and enthusiastic Strings Instructor, Mrs. Forry (how she managed to tune everyone's instruments and conduct a rehearsal for over 100 kids in a 42-minute period is beyond me- absolutely remarkable.) We also had access to other orchestras & playing opportunities in the area: The Johnstown Youth Symphony, Tri-County Orchestra, Strolling Strings, and the open invitation to play our instruments for special church services. I was extremely fortunate to have had all of these experiences, and thank my parents immensely for buying me my first "real" violin, paying for all of those lessons, running me from one activity to the next for so many years, and making countless trips to school to drop off my violin on days when I forgot it.
As a college kid and adult, I have continued with the violin, mostly as a hobby and when I have the time, feeling so fortunate to have the skills to be able to pick up a violin and put it to use when the opportunity presents itself. During my Master's Degree year at Lehigh, I was able to play with the Lehigh Philharmonic Orchestra. When some friends from Lehigh's Drown Writers' Series learned of my violin playing abilities, they asked me to accompany some poetry readings. During the two years I lived in Queens, I was lucky to find and join the Astoria Symphony, and loved that my parents came to watch me play a concert at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park. Even in Namibia, after a conversation in which we discovered that we both played the violin, a Spanish colleague in the Language Department told me that he had an extra violin that "wasn't getting as much playing time as it deserved," and lent the violin to me so that I could "do it a favor" by playing it.
Just one week after acquiring my new violin here in Cluj, the pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church needed a guest musician, and I volunteered to put a few pieces together for yesterday's service. Sure, I get nervous and my hands get sweaty before I perform, but overall, I really do enjoy it. People love the sound of a violin, and I love the feeling of creating and giving, of turning notes on a page into warm and soulful music. I'm no musical prodigy, that's for sure, but I'd like to think that I'm something equally valuable to society; close to three decades after starting the Suzuki Method, I can hope that I am the result that Suzuki intended :
"I want to make good citizens. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart."—Shin'ichi Suzuki
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