When I was in 3rd grade and some of the kids had violin lessons, I would pass by the room and look in through the window part of the door and I was sooo jealous. I started lessons that year and I was enamored with the smell of my violin and its case was just perfect in my eyes. I grew through the sizes and worked through Suzuki Books 1 to 4. My mom attended every lesson and supported me throughout.
In high school orchestra, I wanted to learn cello and when I got to be a senior, all the cellists had graduated so my teacher let me switch. I wanted to play cello in college but I wasn’t good enough, since I had only just started like a year prior, and only in orchestra, not private lessons like I had for violin.
After my freshman year of college, I didn’t really play much of either instrument. I always kept my high school violin with me, but I just didn’t make the time to play. I didn’t want to play violin in an orchestra, but that’s all I’d ever done with my violin. My best friend in high school had “opinions” about playing anything other than classical and I didn’t feel that strongly about it, but I was a little hesitant to branch out.
Anyway, time goes on and I go to a show with my friend and it was an Irish band and there was a fiddle and I was SO intrigued. I wanted to learn how to play that kind of violin. I made some starts and stops with this, but by this time, I had had my first kid and I felt like I couldn’t really practice without bothering people and, more than other hobbies, this one could definitely grate on whoever’s witnessing the bad stages!
So I listened to that sort of music and read folk literature and tried to sort of get it in my head. So some years went by like this, when I found myself organizing with some friends locally to help get books to prisoners in Ohio. One night, they decided to do a fund raiser, but they were all going to do street theater which was terrifying to me, so to avoid having to do that, I opted to bring my violin and busk (for the first time) and give the money to the org. I will admit I did not fully enjoy it because I was too nervous. But it stuck in my head and I found myself learning more tunes that I liked so that I could play them on the streets again. It was mostly Eastern European, old time, Irish, Scottish, and Cajun. I found myself thinking about it a lot so I decided to go out and busk again and this time I did kind of enjoy it. I played all those new tunes and it was really satisfying. And so I kept going and learning and going and learning more. I had some really great nights! And some stories, lol.
AND THEN (!) I saw a bar near my house was hosting old time jams every Sunday night. I did not know what that was. (Old time is the genre that predates bluegrass. It is not bluegrass!) Anyway I showed up at the right time without my instrument because I didn’t want to look silly in a bar with my violin if it was going to be like not my kind of scene. Well it was, in fact, my kind of scene. GOBS of people came and left over the course of the night and the music was just so good and energetic and social. It felt warm and like I’d finally found the right place and time for me.
Years of playing that jam and getting to know the people, I felt I had a music family. My kids played instruments in that jam too. When my mom was doing terribly, I would just call her and let her listen to what we were playing. I learned hundreds of tunes and made tens of friends. Truly this was my source of energy every week.
During this time as well, a few of us got together to play “Anything but old time” since some of us had other genres we loved. It was me, my friend, and a luthier who made dulcimers. My friend was really on a Scandinavian kick so we were looking into learning new tunes of this variety. This is when the luthier saw and heard what a nyckelharpa was (it is a Scandinavian instrument with 16 strings, lots of keys, and a short bow) and he decided to make 3 of them at the same time, one for each of us!! He worked and worked at it and in the end, we all had them. Me and my friend learned to play it and I started also playing with a band that would play for Scandinavian dances. I really enjoyed these times as well.
After awhile, we moved outside the city, then outside the state, and now we’re outside the country. And I genuinely miss those days every day. I have tried finding people to play with here in Uruguay and I did meet a guitarist who plays old time. I’m really happy about that! But what I’m missing is that feeling of opening the door to a familiar place and being blasted with the sound of my friends playing this music. I play together with my guitar friend every few weeks or so. I’ll get there, just don’t know where yet! Til then, I’ll be working up a tune list for me and my guitar friend to go busking! <3