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| Photo courtesy of BHMpics.com |
A Story From the Life of Donald V.
Ghostwritten by Christine H.
Success Through Mistakes
Ever since kindergarten, I dreamed of playing the violin. Five years later, that dream came true. When I was 12 years old, my father signed me up for my first violin lesson with Mr. Lisco. Before that, I had picked up the instrument through my school orchestra and by locking myself in my room for an hour everyday to practice the same three songs over and over. After that day at school, I walked over to the subway station, and rode the train all the way across town, to the address that had been written down for me the day before . Once I had found the place, I climbed up the front porch and boldly knocked on the wooden door. A short minute later, the door opened and a short man with bushy eyebrows quickly ushered me in. Surrounding the room were a variety of instruments. From basses to violins, he had it all.
“Hello Don, I’m Mr. Lisco. To start off our lesson, I would like you to play me the D major scale.”
I began to play the scale. At first, the notes came out shaky and uncertain. But by the time I got to the second octave, my bow confidently rode across the strings. It was almost exhilarating to have someone listen to me play by myself for the very first time. Once I finished, he began to note off a few of the flaws in my playing.
“To start off, you need to tilt your violin scroll towards you. Not away from you. There also needs to be a clear separation between each note, and make sure that you are using full bows throughout the whole scale. Speaking of your bow, You’d be able to produce a fuller tone quality by moving the bow closer to the bridge of the instrument.”
I nodded along to all of his suggestions, slightly surprised by the sudden strictness in his words. He then instructed me to play the piece in front of me. I looked at the sheet of paper lying on the stand, and saw that it was a tune I was already familiar with. As I started off the melody of “Mary had a Little Lamb”, I saw his short figure to my left, hovering over me. He stood there, silently until I was completely finished with the piece. As the last note finished reading, he cleared his throat.
Once again, he told me the techniques and notes I needed to improve on, and almost nothing else afterwards. Immediately after the lesson, I went home and practiced for my next lesson over the course of that week. I began to feel discouraged by my mistakes and imperfections in the piece he had let me take home for that week. By the day my next lesson came by, I was dismayed by my lack of progress. When he asked me to play the piece once more, I was hesitant to do so. When I was finished, I looked up to see a look of approvement and understanding in his eyes. He was able to tell I was worrying over the mistakes I had made. He sat down, and said the very last thing I expected him to say.
“Don, I’m not looking for a perfect piece. What you showed me proved you worked hard this week to improve yourself, and that’s the most I could ever ask from you.”
He taught me that success is not found in perfection, but in how hard we work at it. His lifting words and kind suggestions encouraged me to continue playing throughout middle school, high school, college, all the way to where I am now, teaching music to other people I knew from my very first lesson, that playing violin was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
