Wednesday, August 31, 2011

No Fiddling While Driving

Today my student's mother told me her son discovered he likes to practice violin in the car while she's driving. No car sickness for him (or her!) I told them a funny story from when I was in high school....
When I was in 11th grade, I had an audition for chair placement in the Seattle Youth Symphony at the University of Washington's music department. I had just gotten off the I-90 and onto I-5 North and landed smack dab into the world's worst north bound traffic.I could've left my car for 30 minutes, come back, and be in the same place. I nervously watched the minutes tick by, knowing that each minute that passed was one less minute for me to warm up. So I took my violin out of the case and began to run through my scales in the drivers seat still wearing my seat belt. I got a few weird looks. But that was the one and only time I can say that I practiced while driving! Back then, teenagers didn't have cell phones, so texting while driving wasn't an issue!
The only other strange place I used to practice was in my parents shower. The acoustics were amazing. I remember the very first time too. I brought my music stand and a stool into the tile shower and was totally lost in the amazing sound when I happened to look up and see both my parents standing there with the camera!