I started playing the violin when I was 7 years old. I think I’ve spent more than 1,900 hours of my life playing the violin, and I have the calluses on my fingers to prove it. Recently, my dad asked me whether or not I thought playing the violin was worth it — instead of the time I could have spent being with my friends; the money I could have used to buy new clothes that was instead poured into buying an old, high-maintenance violin with a matching handcrafted bow; and the hours of lessons that often seemed fruitless until the rare moment of breakthrough.
Was it worth it? Was it worth the hours of practicing that left my fingers bloodied, scarred and sore? Was it worth the feeling of utter frustration that often grips artists when they are unable to convey what they want to convey? Was it worth the endless days of sawing away, when I could have been doing an infinite number of other things…only to find out that I was no musical prodigy?
I have to admit, the violin has held me to the highest standard of perfection — “almost” is never enough. If a note is out of tune, it’s out of tune. If you’re off on a beat or come in late, you throw off the entire orchestra. It’s not enough to get the technicalities with robotic precision either — there also has to be gut-wrenching emotion. You have to hone in on the individual notes and watch the bigger picture — the phrasing of the song. I stopped taking private lessons almost a year ago, but 10 years of playing the violin still haunt me.
Total music immersion
Now I’m in college, and when I have a big project, I lock myself up in my room until it’s finished, and I remember the nights when I struggled to tune out family conversations, the phone and dinner as I focused solely on the music. There is no other way to practice. In an ADD America, you have to learn to focus all your energies on the music and the instrument, because otherwise it’s impossible to worry about the intonation, the rhythm, the speed, and the tonality all at once.
My violin teacher always told me, “It’s good to be a little nervous when you audition, but if you’re so nervous that it affects your playing, then you’re not concentrating hard enough on the music.”
Self-discipline
Perhaps the hardest — and yet most rewarding — part of playing the violin is the self-accountability. Yes, the instrument holds you to the highest level of perfection, but in the end, it’s you who held yourself to that in the first place.
No matter how much I moaned about practicing every night, and no matter how frustrated I got, there was something that kept me pushing: a desire to see myself succeed. The strength of that is what pushed me to endure the highs and lows of playing the violin and to take ultimate responsibility for everything that happened. I quickly learned that only I could make sure that I went where I wanted to go. A teacher can tell me what is wrong, but it’s up to me to fix it.
I had to try different things and lay awake at night figuring out what went wrong and what combination of pressure, angle or finger arrangement would make it right. But then, of course, the breakthroughs never happen immediately. It takes years of patience and diligence until you can pick up the violin one day and everything seems to fall into place — to make sense.
Over the past 10 years, I have gradually become extremely sensitive to the nuances of sound. I remember the violin when I sit by myself in a group of strangers or take a walk in the arboretum. I learn to listen and store the information I gather into my brain to busily pick apart and process.
Never say goodbye
In playing the violin, I have had to answer to the highest standard of perfection. I have immersed myself in a way that I’ve never done before, and I’ve had to work harder than I ever have before and listen harder than I’ve ever done before. But after 10 years, it has just become a part of life. I don’t practice nearly as much as I used to, and in some ways, I’m happy that I finally have enough time to pursue other hobbies. But I still carry my violin around wherever I go, hoping that one day I will be able to lift it out of its case and play, a momentary stay against an onslaught of deadlines, facts and problems — a practice in focus, art and perfection.
So, in answer to my dad’s question — yes, I do think that it was worth it.
Jenny Chen is a freelance writer.
