Inspiring the Violinist in Us

I recently posted on BlogHer about how my family and I were inspired to learn the violin.  I’ve also posted here about how I first got sucked into became reacquainted with the violin.  The BlogHer story ends where inspiring the violinist in us has come full circle. 

My mother-in-law’s friend had once played the violin quite proficiently as a youth.  Now at 80 years of age, he hadn’t picked up a violin in forty years.  At a get together, I urged him to try my violin.  After a couple minutes, he was able to play a Danny Boy with beautiful vibrato.  He even became choked up over how much he missed the violin.

This occurred about a year ago (drafts are forever languishing at mommy bytes) and here is the rest of that story.  I had come to a family get together in February last year, and was planning to visit with my fiddle friend afterward to try yet another one if his fiddles.  I brought my own violin inside to keep it out of the cold. I had no intention of taking it out, as I had yet to perform in front of them.

My mother-in-law’s friend, RUP, kept asking me about it, telling stories of his glory days as a violinist.  I kept urging him to try mine out, but he refused until he heard me play first.  Finally, I took it out and performed the Thomas Gavotte from “Mignon” from Suzuki Book 2.  This was after less than six months of lessons and no expectation of having to perform it.  I played it passably enough (darn accidentals!) to garner applause from the family.  Then RUP picked it up.  At first, he had trouble placing his fingers, but once he found the notes, his fingers reflexively started to vibrato, and incredibly beautiful sounds came out.

RUP was so moved by holding and playing the violin again that he vowed to have his violin repaired so he could pick it up again.  I received a thank you card from my mother-in-law, where she specifically thanked me for inspiring her friend.

Angela - you have inspired RUP to have his violin repaired. He told me he had a "great time" at the party which he has never said before and he thanked me for inviting him.

Wow, I guess it did leave an impression.  About a month later, I received some sheet music in the mail with this letter.

The duet with RUP has not come to pass, but we’ve had many duets and more with the kids.  I might even dare to say that they actual enjoy playing with me.  Now if I can only get these darn posts out of draft, you’ll see what I mean.