When I was in elementary school, I had the good fortune to be picked to play the violin. I say picked because, in that assembly-line fashion that comes natural to long-employed public school music teachers, I was.

I practiced bowing malformed notes on a cheap cardboard practice piece and anticipated the next time in class I could get hold of one of the “legitimate” violins in short supply. It was a passion that unfortunately would not follow me far. Eventually I moved to the cello, the trombone and then to a state of musical passivity. For the longest time now the only things I’ve played are the stereo, DVDs and video games.

But as these youth experiences are wont to do a seed of affection for the violin was planted deep in the impressionable soil of my mind. To me, the sound of a well played violin is the true sound of a soul’s mirth and sorrow. However it is not enough to simply lay a bow or a finger on the tuned strings of an excellent instrument. If it were that simple, all of us would be masters and the feeling would be lost.

It’s for that reason that I have the utmost respect for musicians who can play from their soul. Vocalists and instrumentalists who fall into that deep pit in their hearts where truth, beauty and love dance hand in hand with guilt, pain, and hate. A stew of emotions, raw and vibrant, spinning, leaping, crawling and screaming with the undiluted ferocity of their very presence. The musician is no longer a simple man. They become psychopomps for their own convictions, their own passions, and their own pain.

The rarest violinist plays as if the neck was the spine in their back, their heart humming in the chamber, their veins the strings, and their bow the gritting convictions buried somewhere in the labyrinth of their mind. To those people, lavished with recognition and playing for the undulating masses or languishing in obscurity playing for themselves, I say thank you. Thank you and never, ever, lose your center.

-B

Tags: creativity, music, musicians, purity, violin