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!