January 2010

Remembering the beginning.....

January 13, 2010 22:18

Today I listened Hilary Hahn playing twinkle twinkle little star in a Danish tv show, I had seen that interview before, but I just wanted to listen to her playing.... So I watched the whole interview and in the end when she was sending the viewers to sleep ( a tradition of the show) the interviewer asked her if it was the most well known tune in America, she answered : " I´m not sure if in america, but is the most well known piece among music students, I think everyone starts with twimkle it was the first piece I played"....

I was transported to my beginnings on the violin, I remembered how happy I was when my teacher taugh me the piece on my lesson, we played other tunes, but that one was the most special one, it was the beginning........

Hilary Hahn played it so beautifully, it made me remember all the joys of playing this instrument, all the good times it has given me....... I know we have to focus on intonation , posture practice scales, etudes..... but if that is what it takes in order to play the violin , I will do it...

Its been almost 2 years...... I started on february, so next month will be my violin aniversaryyy!!!!!!!

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Doctor with a musician´s soul.......

January 8, 2010 23:12

Okay, january 30 is the day of my graduation and february 1 is my first day at college..... I will study medicne and I am more than happy with the decision I made, but Im not gonna lie... I wish I could have been a PROFESIONAL violinist.

Since I was little..... I have always been atractted to sciences biology, chemistry..... but of all the carrers I considered...( a lot i must say) the one that always came back to my mind was medicine. 2 years ago I started doubting about my carrer choice when I had started to play violin, I had started doubting before playing but my doubts increased when I started lessons.

I knew that I couldnt be a professional violinist, but a doctor has to make a lot of sacrifices, and I couldn´t (can´t) give up something that had become so important for me ( and something I turned out to be good at), so I started looking for carreers related to my favorite subjects. But medicine just kept coming back and I always struggled to find reasons that made me forget about it............ and like a plague medicine followed me everywhere tv, school( in Ecuador we choose kind of a specialization 2 years before going to college and my specializations main subjects were chemistry biology and ANATOMY) friends who wanted to be doctors, it was everywhere.

I just couldn´t understand why didn´t ask for violin lessons as a kid... there were so many experiences that dragged me to music and specially to violin, a wedding with a quartet( I loved the violins) a concert our music teacher took us (it was meant to introduce kids to the orchestra and the instruments) and I just couldn´t take my eyes off the violin section specially when they made vibrato, I just loved to see the bows moving like that... and yet I didn´t ask for lessons.

But there was a point where i realized that I couldn´t live without both...... and then I had something like an epiphany( revelation whatever you call that) I could still play my violin while been a doctor... but I couldn´t be a doctor if I chose another carreer.

That made me start thinking (again)... maybe it was meant to be that way... the violin helps me to express myself, to be more conscious about my body( we all have to be, because of the basics) and it will keep me human. I think that one of the reasons that make so many doctors are ummmm disrespectful angry( some lacking ethics) is because they supress their emotions( kind of , and I know not all the doctors are like that)In college you spend a lot of time around corpses, long nights studying, and then you start working and you deal with other people suffering you are trying to safe human lives... but I think that every doctor should have something that let them realease everything, to relax to take them away from the stress they live with and the pain they see everyday, so when you go back you can treat every patient like a human and not a corpse that you will be learning from...

Maybe I won´t be able to practice as much as I want... but if I organize myself I will be able to practice and make progress and also work hard to be a great doctor ( and maybe have kind of a social life).

I know that sometimes I will think how would my life had been if I had started violin as a kid... but call it destiny, gods plan or anything you want, I know it was meant to be this way so I can work in my two passions:

Medicine, the ability to heal human bodies, and

MUSIC........ the ability to heal and connect with human souls.

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