Choking in a Fiddle Contest on Minnesota Public Radio

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 scared 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, so 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-truckload 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 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 began to fester in high school. The new director understood 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 weren’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 several musicals. They were scraping from the bottom of the barrel; the orchestra members who had talent were on stage, singing and acting.

The band director led the pit orchestra. He was a tightly-wound, arrogant prima donna who walked around like he had a drumstick permanently stuck up his keister. He 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 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. But I wanted to meet women and thought the orchestra might help. It did not.

With me, the director was a “hands-on” kind of guy. I quickly figured out that he was a sexual predator. He made some unusual propositions regarding private lessons at his apartment. This was 1973, and I was a teenager. It never occurred to me to tell anyone. 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. In a moment of profound thick-headedness, I entered a fiddle contest. I asked a guitarist, Fred, to accompany me.

Fred was proud and talented. For one month, I practiced two short and simple ditties. I memorized them and could grind them out with no feeling or flair. Fred practiced with me several times, but was busy and didn’t need to rehearse.

My gut told me to think twice about the whole endeavor. But I didn’t listen.

The competition took place on a Saturday afternoon in late January. Minnesota Public Radio broadcast the affair from the school’s fieldhouse. 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 to round two.

I listened for about an hour. The talented fiddlers offered wonderful songs that pulled at the audience’s heartstrings or brought joy to their souls.

I sank deeper into a dark, funky hole with every new contestant. The fieldhouse became hotter and hotter. As the world closed in on me, I realized I was in over my head. Way over. I should have slept in with a redhead coed. Gone for a hike in the woods. Taken up yoga. But that God damn violin spurred me on.

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.

My face glowed red at this point, and sweat flew from my forehead. I may have wet my pants a little. I should have abandoned the ship and retreated to the nearest tavern.

Instead, I started the second piece. What a moron.

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 off the cliff and died. Right then and there, the violin and I had a murder/suicide experience. As my spirit floated above my body, I 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 said, “Let’s hear it for Tony.” I heard a little smattering of 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 and playing in public. 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 or ukulele, but only in my home, a dozen miles outside of town, with all the windows closed.

Last year, I donated that violin to a local charity. Now, it is tormenting some young person. I hope they survive the trauma.