Sal Goes To a Violin Lesson

Faithful readers of Travels With Sal may remember the following from the post titled Sal Spends a Perfect Summer Evening at Blossom Music Center  (August 26th):  "I've also been inspired to get my violin out of the closet.  I haven't really played it since high school -- which was a looooong time ago -- but seeing other people playing violins always makes me want to try it again.  Perhaps I should take a few lessons and see what happens.  I have discovered that there is a fiddling class nearby...  I would have to take refresher lessons first, but maybe next time fiddling is offered..."

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of getting a great idea -- and promptly forgetting about it.  I experience it often!  But this time, for some reason, I followed through.  I got the violin out of the closet, took it to Royalton Music to be checked out and get new strings, and e-mailed the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music. 

I am happy to report that BW connected me with an extremely patient violin teacher, who encourages and challenges me!  Her name is Jessica Filing, and she plays her violin beautifully!  I can't say the same about myself, but with her encouragement I am improving a bit (I think).  There is no way that relearning this instrument is going to be a quick and easy process, but I hope I have the gumption to stick it out -- and eventually be able to do some rudimentary fiddling.  (At this point I'm working on a shorter-term goal -- to be able to competently play a song from the first Suzuki book!)

Sal come to my lesson with me today.  There were about 30 minutes of excruciating attempts to make a pleasing sound come out of my violin.   ("Excruciating" is, I must confess, a very slight exaggeration for humorous effect.)  Then I took three shots of Jessica posing with her lovely instrument -- and Sal.  Normally I would choose just one picture to post, but I have to use all three this time, because they are all so much fun.  For some reason, I felt that using the matte effect on iPhoto added something to these pictures.  I hope you agree.

The first picture.  I think this one captures the sense of humor necessary to be my violin teacher.

This picture shows a very nice person who has the patience to be my violin teacher.

I'm not sure what this one says about Jessica, but I think it's a fun picture, so here it is.

After we said goodbye, Sal and I stopped to get some shots of the beautiful reflective glass front of the building.  I wonder who has to clean all those windows...