My grandfather came to America from Sweden when he was 18. He and his brother and little sister walked from Minnesota to Colorado in about 1905. They worked in the gold mines in Cripple Creek and lived there too. He married and eventually became my grandfather.
He played Swedish violin. I loved it. I was 5 years old when this all began. I would stand next to him with my hands on his knee and listen. I loved the fiddle music. When we would go home from the visit, I would run around the house pretending to play the fiddle I had made out of cardboard and a ruler.
One day, our neighbor was visiting and saw me fake-playing my cardboard fiddle. She turned to my mother and said, “Alice, you need to give this child violin lessons.”
My mother’s instant reply was “Oh, please. We don’t own a violin.”
“Well, I do, and you can borrow it immediately,” our neighbor replied.
The next day, the violin came to my house to live, and I was thrilled. The violin lessons began when I was 6 and I was at full throttle to learn. I was asked to join our school orchestra when I was 7. Mr. Christopher, our conductor, had me sharing a music stand with a beautiful eighth-grade girl. I could tell she was insulted, but she would follow directions.
One of the pieces we were to present in the spring recital was Bizet’s “Toreador Song.” I loved the music but knew something wasn’t right when I played it.
Then my stand partner, the beautiful eighth-grader, turned to me with disgust in her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “You can’t even play B flat.”
She was right. I knew something was wrong and that was it. So I looked at her and asked, “Will you teach me how to play B flat?”
“OK,” she said. “Pay attention. On the A string you have open A and then the alphabet. So … A, B, C, D, A is the open string and your pointer finger is B or first finger. When you put it down, it is about an inch away from that little piece of wood that the strings go across. Now put your fingers down one by one until they are all on the A string. Now, slide your B finger, your pointer finger, back to touch that place where the strings cross over. Now slide it back to the original spot.
“Put your violin bow to it and play it in the original spot then slide it back, play it again and then slide back to the original spot. When it is back against the wood, it is B flat. Now do that 10 times.”
I did what she said. I was thrilled! “Oh, Sharon,” I said, with second-grade enthusiasm. “Thank you sooooo much. You could teach violin someday!” Obviously not what she wanted to hear, but I had already said it.
We played a beautiful concert, for a grade school orchestra, and Sharon went on to high school. She never spoke to me again, but it was because she had moved to a different school.
Her instruction to me was the beginning of my violin career. My first professional job was Nat King Cole when I was 18 and my last, Ray Charles, when I was 65. I loved going to work and I loved playing, and even though this happened in 1947, I still think of Sharon with respect and love.
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