I once committed murder with a violin on public radio. It changed my life forever.
My journey started in fourth grade and ended years later with a performance best described as a horror show of biblical proportions, an abomination, and a crime against humanity. I did not master the violin; it mastered me. It humbled me and taught me innumerable lessons. It scarred me for life.
My first teacher was an unhappy lady in her late forties. Lessons took place in the grade school basement, a place designed to protect the other students from hearing my first efforts as a musician.
The instructor had issues that even a ten-year-old boy with his head at least fifty percent up his butt one hundred percent of the time could sense. What exactly was going on? I couldn’t guess, but she taught by intimidation rather than inspiration.
Now, granted, I had shortcomings, including the attention span of a snail, a lackadaisical attitude towards practicing, and a fundamental lack of talent. Yet I just knew that one day I’d be great, and for that reason, I did not quit.
Okay, the real reason was my mother. I couldn’t tell her I wanted out. I could not take the dump-truck-load of guilt she would throw down during that conversation and for years afterward .
On to junior high school and an inspiring new teacher. She was a younger blonde — something of a looker. This must have been her first teaching assignment and her vivacious attitude made me feel more positive.
I vividly remember the morning that she rushed in all frazzled, twenty minutes late for the 7:00 AM rehearsal. Her blouse was not buttoned correctly and hung out of the back of her skirt. She had left a pink curler in her bangs. Her makeup had a certain Halloween/applied-in-the-parking-lot look. At the time, I had no idea why a young lady would come to work in such a state, but this was the highlight of my middle school musical passage.
My relationship with the violin continued to fester in high school. The director knew I had no talent and was not a great student, but he needed kids in the chairs. If there weren’t any students, there wouldn’t be an orchestra. If there wasn’t an orchestra, there wouldn’t be a director. So, he tolerated me.
The high point of my high school years was playing in the pit orchestra for a couple of musicals. We were the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel; the members of the orchestra who actually had talent were on stage singing and acting.
The band director led the pit orchestra. He was tightly-wound and had no respect for the losers from the orchestra. He often humiliated us in front of his beloved band members. Once he belittled the violinist seated next to me because she did not know the music, saying, “Why aren’t you like Tony? At least if he doesn’t know a section, he doesn’t play it.”
Could it be that knowing when not to play was my true undiscovered talent? If only I’d walked away right then and there, the rest of this story might be quite different.
Now off to college at a small liberal arts school in Minnesota. I was there to study accounting, but I joined the damn orchestra. What was wrong with me? The talent fairy didn’t sprinkle me with magic talent dust when I turned eighteen; I still sucked. However, I wanted to meet women and thought the orchestra might help. Nope.
I met the director and quickly figured out that he was a sexual predator. For me he was a “hands-on” kind of guy. He made some unusual propositions regarding private lessons at his apartment. What exactly was going on? I could guess, but music had very little to do with it. I quit in a month.
But the violin was not done with me yet.
I next tried to become a fiddler. A fiddle is just a violin played in a certain style, and I had developed a thing for American folk music. In a moment of profound thick-headedness, I entered a fiddle contest. I asked a friend, Fred Jones, to accompany me on the guitar.
Fred was a proud and talented guitarist. For one month I practiced two short and simple ditties. I had them memorized and could grind them out with absolutely no feeling or flare. Fred practiced with me several times, but he was busy and didn’t need to rehearse.
My gut told me to think twice about the whole endeavor. I should have listened.
The competition took place on a Saturday afternoon in late January. Minnesota Public Radio broadcast the affair from the school’s field house. The announcer was a very tall guy with huge bushy eyebrows, thick glasses with round black frames, red stockings, a red bow tie, and red suspenders. He wore a fedora. He was the soon-to-be-famous Garrison Keillor.
The competition was scheduled to last about three hours. Everyone played in the first round and the better players went on to round two. If there was a God in heaven, I should have slept late next to a redhead and missed the show. But that day, I found out that God has an extremely sick sense of humor. He let me go on stage.
I listened to the competition for about an hour. The talented older fiddlers offered wonderful songs that pulled at the audience’s heart strings or brought joy to their souls. A nine-year-old flawlessly blasted out the “Orange Blossom Special.” The listeners did not just applaud — they stood up and roared.
With every new contestant, I sunk deeper into a dark, funky hole. The field house became hotter and hotter. As the world closed in on me, I realized that I was in over my head. Way over.
Then it was our turn. Fred and I took the stage and Keillor introduced us. Fred was calm; he knew what he was doing.
I choked.
After starting the first song the train immediately left the tracks. The violin was out of tune. I was playing a little too slow, so I stomped on the accelerator and played way too fast, my bow became an alien thing running amok over the strings. My head was swimming; it screamed for me to run out of the building. My stomach threatened to launch my lunch into the first row as a technicolor cough.
Finally, I finished that sad, innocent song. It was out of its misery.
Poor Fred, he deserved better than this.
At this point, my face glowed red and sweat flew from my forehead. I might have wet my pants just a little. I should have abandoned the ship and retreated to the nearest tavern.
Instead, I started the second piece.
Two bars in, I became a random note generator. There was no melody; there was no rhythm; there was no song. There were just miscellaneous notes presented in no particular order — some flat, some sharp, and some almost okay. Fred kept it together like a pro.
I didn’t stop and regroup; rather, like a wild horse, I ran right off the cliff and died. Right then and there, the violin and I had a murder/suicide experience. As my spirit floated away above my body I just kind of wound down and called it a day .
Keillor got back on stage and looked down at me with that knowing smirk he made famous. He repeated our names and let the audience know that the disaster had passed. I heard polite applause backed by laughter. I imagined public radio listeners across Minnesota doubling over with uncontrolled guffaws while spewing beer out of their noses.
That ended my relationship with Fred, the violin, and playing in public. The state of Minnesota amended its criminal code, and it now forbids me from ever playing near other humans, fish, or farm animals. These days, I play a couple of songs on a banjo, ukulele, or guitar, but only in my home a dozen miles outside of town with all the windows closed.
No one deserves to hear me choke again.