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October 2012
How "You" is Your Violin?
October 29, 2012 15:30I know a lot of people who play instruments. Some are very casual about it - for example, an organist uncle who is very blase about his exceptional playing, and seems to play solely when he feels like it - and others (a melodramatic cousin, let's say) insist that they "are" their instrument.
A lot of people (like violinist Charlie Siem) have said that they can't really imagine their very identity without their instrument. Others love it and enjoy it, but the relationship ends there.
I know a cellist; at one point, I thought he would murder his younger sister, because she somehow managed to access his cello and dotted it with Dora the Explorer stickers (the horror!).
The furthest I've ever gone in personalising my violin is tying a Lipton's Yellow Tea tea bag around the area where the scroll dips and the beg box begins, just before the begs (really, the only place you could tie something.)
It isn't necessary, and some people have told me it looks ridiculous. Others have said it's strange. To be honest, I don't see the harm. I smile whenever I see it dangling, and it smells lovely, so in my opinion it's a win-win.
Someone asked my why I had my tea bag on there (and small onyx stone from York, to act as a kind of weight on the string) anyway. It's pretty simple. It's personal to me. Maybe it's redundant, and it doesn't make me play better; although really, I feel I do play more smoothly, just knowing it's there.
Stickers? Never. I must draw the line there.
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