#33: The Viola
Ok, I confess, I was a violinist first. I am no ‘true’ viola player.
I started teaching myself to play viola this year, when I was bought this viola at Easter from the absolutely amazing shop Woodbridge Violins. I have grown up near to this magical shop, the place which fulfilled all of my violinist’s needs as I progressed in skill. When you walk it is like a fairytale store, with violins and violas and cellos everywhere, hanging along the walls in all their beautiful glory. You can even watch them build and refurbish the violins with their great care and skill through the glass front of the shop. When I went there with my wonderful mother to try out violas, we were taken upstairs to one of the attic rooms, also full of cellos, where I could try out as many violas as they had to offer. I was there for over two hours, and it was wonderful.
I am a musician. I am so thankful that at my primary school, I was offered the opportunity to learn the violin. I am thankful for the amazing violin teachers that I had, and the brilliant music opportunities that the Suffolk County Music Service has managed to continue, even through all the government cuts in the arts over the past few years. I am also particularly grateful to my mother for making me keep going with the violin when I reached that stage that almost all musicians reach, around grade 3 or 4, when you just really don’t feel the need or wish to put that much practise in. To those of you out there at this stage, keep going, it’s worth it.
People question about whether the arts are ‘useful’, they ask what the point of them is. The latest news on the EBacc (the English Baccalaureate) consists of teachers criticising the lack of ‘expressive arts subjects’ in its core GCSE subjects (those being maths, English, science, a language and history or geography). Being at university, I am out of the loop for a lot of the changes in school education that are being made, and whenever I do hear about them, I just start to despair a little, like in a lot of the news that I hear about. Those core subjects are vital and important, but so are the arts.
I never quite knew where music would take me, and I still don’t know what place it holds in my future, but I can say that it has given me so many experiences and skills I never would have expected. I am a musician of three instruments: violin, piano, singing. My singing has led to me leading two choirs at university, and no one can tell me that there aren’t a hell of a lot of ‘transferrable skills’ that I’ve learned from trying to lead choirs of 16–30 people. My violin playing led to me being president of a string group — once again, ‘transferable skills’ galore on the organisation front. My favourite of the unexpected ‘transferable skills’ I have acquired from my violin playing? The strength and flexibility of my left arm enabling me to carry a large number of plates when working as waiting-on staff at a wedding. What wonderful and surprising skills will I acquire after picking up the viola?
Music is a key part of my life, so much so that I’m even managing to write my English Literature BA dissertation on it. The viola is still a relatively new thing in my life, but I have had numerous opportunities this past week to practise it in all of the music rehearsals and concerts that have been going on. I love learning a new skill, and I particularly enjoy the satisfaction at being able to teach myself by using what I have already learnt from being a violinist. Let’s just hope my life doesn’t turn out quite how Classic FM seem to think the life of a viola player goes:
I hope and plan that music will never not be a key part of my life. I do not fully understand what it is about music that makes it so wonderful, but I know that it is not simply a hobby on the side. It is a part of me and a part of my life, it helps to make me who I am, and I pray that those after me will be granted the same opportunities that I had. Music and the arts are worlds that the logical and the scientific cannot entirely understand, they do not fit into clear boxes and reasoning, but that does not mean that they are any less valuable.
