the violin

on my eighth birthday i was extremely disappointed to find, amidst an ocean of wrapping paper, a violin. the good thing is that my parents, who gave me the instrument, were not disappointed to later find that i was a complete failure at playing it. at least i tried. three times.

i come from a somewhat musical family (i say somewhat because there is no confirmed evidence of musicality on my father's side). my maternal great-grandfather was an accomplished trumpet player, who taught herb alpert (who i always thought was herp albert, until i recently *five seconds ago* googled him) and played on gone with the wind and woody woodpecker. my mom has a beautiful voice and actually recorded a boleros tape as a gift to my dad back in the nineties. my sister and i were bored out of our minds in the studio, although it was cool watching our mother sing her heart out with a trío from tijuana. as a result, those six songs were imbedded in my brain forever. my sister also sings very well and will do so at any given moment, if there is musical accompaniment present, be it a complete mariachi or a karaoke machine. her most memorable performance, for me, was at panzón and my wedding in oaxaca, when she sang a couple of rancheras with the mariachi at two a.m. oh, and she also plays the piano.

so, with that musical background, i should have been a semi-talented violin player at the very least. what happened? it is a known fact that you must begin playing the violin before the age of seven, if you are to master this extremely difficult instrument. even if i had been excited about getting a violin instead of, say, a toy for my eighth birthday, it would have probably been too late anyway. still, i tried. i can only recall two things about my first batch of violin lessons, which began immediately after receiving it: 1. how the instrument painfully dug into my skinny collarbone; 2. how enjoyable it was to apply rosin to the horsehair of the bow.

after that, there was a three year long cease-play period, which ended when i was about thirteen. i really made an effort during the second bundle of lessons, which culminated in a retirement home recital with my fellow students, most of whom were seven years old and/or asian. i practiced my solo for weeks, a simple yet dignified piece from the pages of suzuki violin school, volume 2 or 3. my big moment came and i stepped on stage. it was actually going well when, all of a sudden, right in the middle of my performance, my mind went completely blank. i looked out into the audience and saw a room full of old people shaking their heads in disapproval. i truthfully cannot remember exactly what i did next, but i probably butchered the rest of the piece after a long, humiliating pause, and, with an either very red or very pale face, walked off the stage.

we moved back to guadalajara soon after that, where i attempted to play the violin for the third time. my mom drove me to class a couple of days a week after my daily nap (yes, i napped through high school and still do when the chance presents itself), dry-eyed and dazed. my teacher was an aged austrian man who had a fascist teaching technique, due to the fact that most of his students were young men training to be mariachis. i think he was fond of me because he would occasionally tell me an unrecognizable joke, revealed as such only by a fleeting, stiff smile. the lessons tapered off as my mom realized that the chemistry between teacher and student and violin was simply non existent.

maybe i'll take up the violin again when i'm eighty. i'm pretty sure vibrato won't be an issue then.