I stopped by the violin maker today. The bridge needed adjusting and I was in a good mood to spend a little time and money on a job that meant nothing to the world, but all the world to Lea, whose little fingers had been straining against the tough metal strings.
As I stepped through the wooden gate and walked along the mildewy roses over to the work shop, I felt slightly undeserving, given that all I was carrying was a Chinese-made 3/4 violin and no musical genius to claim my own.
This feeling was compounded when I opened the door to the cramped shop and found myself surrounded by dismembered wooden bodies, pins and a variety of glues. Everywhere around me were unvarnished curvy bits and pieces of a 3-D musical puzzle.
I was greeted with great delicacy as the violin case was taken from me and the fragile body extracted from its entrails and dexteriously inspected. And while the specialist’s eye hovered on it and the over-sized hands spun it adroitly back and forth, he explained the various approaches for the cure and also pointed to other musical patients in the shop who were in his expert care.
And for the next fifteen minutes I felt treated like a beggar in a ball dress. Seeing this much expertise and delicacy applied to wood in order to ensure its exquisite sound enhancing quality, the many steps from material to mastery was in all truth humbling.
I couldn't help but think that whoever decides to spend this much time and energy on a project with an often uncertain outcome must be a) a compulsive crack b) a visionary, or c) a parent.
Why else would they do it...?
1 comment:
Nice little trip.
I just recommended "The Red Violin" to a student for a writing assignment for all the stories that instruments can tell about the people they touch and times they witness. And they can "talk" which makes them as good as any book at telling history to present generations.
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