Although I started playing violin in fifth grade through the string program in my public school district, I didn't take private lessons until high school. My high school orchestra conductor, Ms. Y., recommended private lessons after I (unexpectedly) auditioned into third chair in the first violin section as a sophomore. She recommended Dr. E., a retired professor of music at the local university.
A steady stream of young string players flowed in and out of Dr. E.'s home studio--a spare bedroom of about 10 feet by 12 feet crammed with an upright piano, file cabinets, bookshelves, and multiple instruments. Dr. E. was a cellist--a fan of Lynn Harrell--and he had huge hands. When he played a violin, his left hand flopped all around the neck and his right hand sprawled all around the bow. He rarely mentioned his performance career, but he had played in the symphony orchestra of a Rust Belt city in the 1930s under a famously demanding European-born conductor.
If he had a thick skin from this experience, he didn't show it, and certainly didn't force his students to cultivate one. When Dr. E. first heard me play, he told my mom, "She's a diamond in the rough." That meant a lot to me. He dealt with the rough in a calm, grandfatherly way--and introduced me to Kreutzer. This was the first time I'd played Kreutzer or even heard of the exercises. I was too unfamiliar with violin repertoire to have opinions about what I wanted to work on. So it was entirely Dr. E.'s doing that in my senior year of high school, whether I "deserved" to play it or not*, I was working on Mozart's G major violin concerto. So fun, so motivating.
Dr. E. had also founded a chamber orchestra for adult amateur musicians, and this orchestra rehearsed each Sunday afternoon in his living room. To round out various sections and (presumably) to give his students some chamber orchestra experience, he also invited some of us to play in the orchestra. As a sixteen-year-old, I felt thrown into adulthood when called upon to make small talk with a sixty-something stand partner. Even the break at the halfway point of each rehearsal felt like a challenge. The adult members took turns bringing snacks such as cake made from scratch, and Dr. E.'s wife served the cake on lovely glass plates along with coffee and punch in china cups. I was always nervous about the balancing act of handling the cake and punch in Dr. E.'s and his wife's pristinely clean, white-carpeted living room.
Once when I was in college, I was home over a break and running errands around town with my dad when we ran into Dr. E. He seemed delighted to see me and asked, "Are you still playing?" Before I could answer, he took up my left hand, ran his thumb over my fingertips, and announced, "I can feel your callouses!"
A few years ago, long before I thought seriously of returning to the violin, I heard Lynn Harrell play with the local symphony. I thought of Dr. E., of course. I'm glad to have those callouses back.
* My college violin teacher, Dr. O., sort of turned up her nose when I started lessons with her as a freshman and she found out I was working on this concerto. She seemed to view it as a case of pearls before swine, musically speaking. I didn't disagree with that assessment, but also didn't let it dent my enjoyment of playing the concerto. In any case, she did work with me to finish it!
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