The Chord that ties it all together

Pretty much my whole life I have considered myself to be a musician. While certainly not Julliard-bound, I have worked long and hard at my two instruments, violin and piano.

Music lessons were a normal weekly routine since I was eight, and practicing was expected: a half hour on each instrument per day.

By high school, music was all-consuming. Competitive sports were not an option primarily because of the huge time commitment of music (and my lack of coordination...). Chamber music rehearsals beginning at 7 am, orchestra, independent study music, staying at school until sometimes 7 pm, fiddling the evening away.

My freshman year of college I was at my peak. I practiced close to two hours a day on the violin, and intended on minoring in music. I was playing in the Symphony of the Lakes, taking violin lessons, and beginning to understand the finer craft of violin. But I missed fiddling. I missed the friendships and the joy of performing pieces written in my memory, rather than etched on a page.

Halfway through the year, I found out Grace's music program was shutting down. In a way I was relieved; I was getting burnt out, and I was tired of continuing my two hours-a-day practice. I wanted to be with people, not stuck in a practice room. I knew I was no virtuoso, and so I decided to stop taking lessons, and to stop practicing.

For three years I took a hiatus from violin. I still occasionally played. But instead of two hours a day it was more like two hours a week (orchestra rehearsal). And that quickly dropped to two hours a month. If that.

Occasionally I would hear some amazing music, and everything in me would desire to be at that level again. But when I would unlatch my violin from its prison, it no longer sang. It sounded dull, squeaky, and annoying. So I practiced even less.

But the power of music would not allow me to keep away forever.

This year I was hired into a school that loves music. A school that desires to build that musicality in students from a young age. To challenge students through the arts, and to expose them to the world of music.

My passion for education, especially music education has exploded as I see the power it has in the lives of these kids I teach.

I got to host a fiddle band at my school... a fiddle band made up of the "kids" I fiddled with in high school. The students at my school were enthralled. And my love for music, the fiddle, and my desire for all kids to experience music in depth simply swelled. This was the kick-off for the start of my own fiddle club where beginning fiddlers can begin to experiment with this genre of music, and hopefully fall in love with it.

But today, my heart is full because a struggling little fourth grade boy held his half size violin high. He mastered a correct bow hold. He grinned and said, "violin is the best part of school." He hates reading. He hates math. He hates writing. And he won't behave. But music ties it all together. And he will do all of those for the sake of the music. Music is his behavior plan.