The Green Power Blogger's Music Career

Hello people. I'm just here with a throbbing knee that kept me from playing tennis today (nooooooooooooooooooooo....). This week was a tough week because I got less and less sleep along with the overburdening homework. But I'm not here to bore with you my problems. Instead I'm going to bore you with my musical past.

It all started when I was about 4 or 5. Piano was pressed upon me and my parents expected me to uphold the stereotype I was going to be in the future. Piano lessons went on for about a year (maybe a little more) and I have to say it was the least enjoyable experience of my childhood. I would cheat and not practice when the teacher left the room, I frequently wanted to quit, I did not want to practice at home, and I was a total brat. My parents reluctantly agreed one day for me to quit and I did not have to worry about anything musical until 4th grade.

Ah yes, fourth grade was when a new, alienish piece of wood was introduced to me: the violin. My mom signed me up for orchestra to see if I would like it. Haunted by the memories of my piano lessons, imagine my reaction. I dreaded and counted down the days until the inevitable day where I would meet the dark teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thomas and I have to admit she was a pretty enjoyable teacher. All of us would take out our rental violins and attempt to play those scratchy, sour notes until the calluses formed on our finger tips. To my surprise, it was much easier than I thought thanks to the hated year of piano lessons. With my prior training in the finger-coordination arts, I picked up violin pretty quickly and became the "concert master" in the elementary school.

I thought I was progressing at a good pace but my mother thought it would be better if I took private lessons. Dark teacher #3 was Shelly. She was a very bubbly lady with a fiery passion for fiddling (no joke, she was VERY enthusiastic about it). She taught me every single thing there was to violin: rhythm, site reading, intonnation, shifts, scales, and above all, how to play dynamics with feeling. She also gave me the experience of playing in front of an audience.... alone. And so, the confident little me set out for middle school and my teacher was also confident that I would shine. She gave me a collection of Suzuke books and I was off to show the world what I could do with my violin... in middle school.

Dark teacher #4 was Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller was an awesome teacher who taught me how to play in a non-solo style (in other words how to play with other people). I hated blending with the orchestra back then and would play out a lot. That was also the year where I was shown what true skill was. There were two people in the orchestra and I was amazed at their playing levels. Their names were Bri and Phil. I couldn't believe it. They were so brilliantly amazing while I was stuck with my mediocre skills. However, I discovered a new talent hidden in me that neither of them had. I could memorize a piece by simply remembering the feeling of the piece. I felt special ^-^. But Bri, Phil, and the soon to come Bailey were so much better in every way that my memorization skills seemed like nothing. I had Mr. Miller for a long 5 years (he followed us to high school) and my fire for the violin was burning out....

I just lost all interest for the violin. I wanted to practice less, I quit my private lessons, my two violins were gathering more and more dust, and my bond towards the violin was hanging on by a thread. The culprits were praise and worship. I was looking at our church band play and noticed that it was slowly disbanding. It got to the point where there was only a drummer, pianist, and singer. I wanted to worship so bad yet I had nothing to contribute except for violin... but we had no use for that. So one day, the ex-guitarist said to me," You should take up guitar. It's not that much different than the violin and it's way more fun to play." And so a new fire started to burn. I was all for the guitar and I really wanted to go up to the stage and play in the praise band. I practiced with my dad's guitar for a month and quickly got the hang of all the basic chords. In the end, violin took backseat and guitar came out as my new instrument. I loved it and I still do. It helped me in many ways than one (spiritually mostly) and I even wrote a few songs with it.

So now you know why I keep saying that I'll never go back to orchestra. Sorry if I cut the post a little short at the end or if you thought the post was long and nothing but gibberish.... but I have to start my homework now. So join us tomorrow with another juicy and scrumptious post of Caroline.

-June

Random Question: If a man was beating you with his prosthetic leg, would it be kicking or hitting?