Violin Woes

The Early Days

The scratchy banshee wail of the violin in my untrained hands still echo in my ears, dragging me back into that gloomy, carpeted back-room, back to good old Miss Yeoh and her monosyllabic admonitions. And pain – oh the pain shooting down my arms and tingling my fingers as I struggled with that unwieldy bow. My first violin classes, all those years ago – exist in my memories with a vividness that only traumatic events have. Today, I can look back at that time with a nostalgic smile, but that wasn’t always the case.

It was in Malaysia, where I spent a lot of my childhood; in the late nineties – a decidedly different era. The world seemed simpler, and hardships in life amounted to unfair quantities of homework, and having to wake up at six in the morning for school. One day, my parents suggested that I learn to play an instrument. I had no clue what learning an instrument would entail, but it was an alluring idea, and I said yes.

I can’t remember how I decided on the violin, but once the instrument was decided, all I needed to do was buy the violin and sign up for lessons. My dad drove me to an after-school activity centre near my home, which conducted drawing and music classes on weekends.

During the registration, I was introduced to my tutor, one Miss Yeoh, whose skin seemed to be made of that hard white plastic that they make switchboards with. I can’t remember her face, except the steely remoteness of her eyes  There was something almost robotic about her, and it gave me a bad feeling. However, despite my misgivings, I decided to go ahead with it. More than anything, it was the excitement I had felt when holding the violin in my hands, that got me into it.

My first violin was a thing of joy. I enjoyed rubbing the yellow stuff they called rosin onto the horsehair of my bow – it was curious how a bit of dried pine tree sap could suddenly coax such a strident sound out of the instrument - it seemed like magic. But my enthusiasm was soon shattered. In my first few classes, Miss Yeoh, taciturn, grumpy and decidedly unpleasant, would tolerate about ten minutes of the banshee wailing, before going down for her first of several cups of tea. She’d return about half an hour later, smelling of cigarettes, and say “whai you no pway lah!!” and then stalk off again, leaving me alone in that gloomy, high-ceilinged back-room. She always wore grey, and the lack of colour added to the brooding melancholy of the place.

I don’t think Miss Yeoh considered it important to explain to me what exactly I was supposed to be aiming for while practicing, or why it was even important to practice. My class usually went like this: She would give me a series of curt instructions on preparing my violin (that's right, violins need to be prepared before they can be played). Then, after telling me to repeatedly play the A note until it at least sounded like it came out an instrument, she would simply walk out.

 For a good Music Teacher

Now before I go on, I must say that this isn’t an indictment against learning music as a child at all. In fact, I really think it’s important for every kid to learn music, at least a little bit.  But I also believe that it is a teacher’s responsibility to first introduce a young student to the joys of listening to and creating music. This goes without saying, but it’s strange how rare it is to find a truly inspiring music teacher – maybe I was just unfortunate in this regard.

The rigours of practice and all the aching limbs can seem pointless unless you have a clear idea of what you can expect at the end of it. Maybe if Miss Yeoh spent the first few classes playing records of famous classical violinists, or her favourite pieces – just making me listen, I might have grown to appreciate the numbing pain in my knuckles.

But I hardly knew what was going on. Why did I have to deliberately inflict pain on myself, endlessly dragging that godforsaken bow over those strings? How was this better and more meaningful than playing with my digimon? Who was going to even appreciate it if I did manage to get a sound out it? It didn’t make sense to my eight year old, music-illiterate mind.

On odd days, Miss Yeoh wouldn’t show up at all – and I would have to sit in a Chinese drawing class where the teacher would teach us to draw ducks. There I learnt to say “thank you teacher” in Cantonese, which is probably the most useful thing I’ve learnt in that place. After a couple of months, in which time the only discernible improvement in skills was that my A note now sounded like a frog croaking, I decided that Miss Yeoh’s reign of terror would have to end.

       

The next morning I had to remain innocuous, and tried my best to blend in with the living room furniture. The plan was to escape the attention of my parents by pretending to be a potted plant, hoping that maybe it might slip their mind that their son had a violin class to be taken to. But my ruse did not last long. It soon became apparent to discerning members of the household that a little squatting boy wasn’t likely to be part of the living room furnishing. I was picked up bodily, and violin case was thrust in my hands. As I was being ushered out of the room to wear my shoes I started to increasingly panic. At the doorway I did the only thing I could – I starting bawling at the top of my voice.

It had the desired effect. Parents halted mid-push, and I remember I made a scene. Slowly I related to them the tyranny of the insufferable Miss Yeoh, and between bawls and whimpers, why I thought she was determined to mutilate me by forcing me to play until my arm fell off.

I was accordingly consoled, and promised that I would never again be dragged to that godforsaken place. But the disappointment in my parents’ faces was evident. I’m sure they had imagined a little Yehudi Menuhin in their midst one day, and now it didn't seem like that was going to happen.

 Another go

      

It wasn’t the last time that I tried to learn the violin though. Three years later, when I’d moved back to India, I joined classes again, this time for the Carnatic violin. I would like to say that I made a valiant effort, but it was evident from the start that this was a disaster waiting to happen.

 My new teacher taught at a nearby school. He was a fossil of some kind, kept alive with frequent cups of coffee and copious amounts of grey holy ash smeared on his forehead. I began to learn that grey was a violin teacher’s favourite colour. We sat on the floor in a circle around him, as he rocked and creaked like a boat, exhorting us to play, play, play.  

He played the violin well, but while he could make his violin talk with lucidity, it seemed that he himself had once stuffed a large sponge into his mouth, and forgotten it there. Incoherent teachers are something that all kids eventually get used to, but there was another problem. My grey old guru was a purist from the old school, and had never taught someone left-handed before. He didn’t seem to think that left-handedness was possible, and often looked at me as if I was an abomination of nature. “There is only one way to hold a violin,” he would tell me pointedly, “and you’re doing it the other way around. You won’t learn anything this way.” That was a great source of encouragement.

If I remember right, that class ended three months later, with the him angrily complaining that ‘I had no hope with any instrument’, since I kept using the wrong hand. I made no further attempts with the blasted piece of polished wood, and charitably ‘handed down’ my violin to my young cousin. It was the right decision – he has really learnt to play on that violin, and has become a bit of a virtuoso now.

I never touched the instrument again after that. Looking back, maybe I could have tried a bit harder. There’s a twinge of regret now and then. But the thing is, my two failed attempts at trying to learn the violin in some curious way sparked my interest in music. Today, music is a big part of my life, and at the end of the day, I’m thankful for that.