Voice

Tonight, I went to hear my 17-year-old daughter play violin. She is the concertmistress of her orchestra, and she played a Bach fugue and then a beautiful piece called Mountain Spring. I watched her from the audience, tears streaming down my face. You see, when she was three years old, she saw a woman playing violin on PBS, and she turned to me and said, "That is what I am going to do with my life." As the mother of a gifted kid, I was kind of used to these dramatic pronouncements, even at a young age. But for a YEAR she pestered me for lessons, and eventually, she was accepted into a young strings program at a university (she was four and played a violin 1/32 of the usual size). And that was the beginning.

I cannot tell you the sacrifices a middle-class family makes to have a child study classical music in our arts-starved school system. Lessons as much as $150 an hour. A violin hovering near $10,000, plus the BOW. Driving sometimes 10 hours to special music camps. Camps that cost $1,500 a WEEK. I have probably taken ten years off my life sacrificing and working hard for her to have her dreams, and my significant other, who is not her biological father, works two jobs--weekends he sleeps two hours a day--as we get ready for the college audition season and all the money that entails flying her to auditions--as well as tuition looming.

But none of that matters because when I heard her play, I saw all those years go by in a blur. All the sacrifices vanished. The dark circles under my eyes disappeared. I saw a beautiful young woman of poise playing her violin. But even more, I heard her E-string.

Here's the thing. Over the years, I have learned a tiny bit about violins. Enough to converse with musicians. And I know an E-string when I hear it. And I know my DAUGHTER'S E-string when I hear it. In the 12 violins or so in the chamber orchestra, I could pick her notes out. Yes, she was concertmistress in the first chair, but even if she had sat further back, I knew her string. If you have never shopped for an expensive violin, you might not know that not only does every instrument sound different (hers is an 18th-century Italian), but every BOW on every violin sounds different. And then every player sounds different playing said different violins. And I knew her sound. In fact, if you lined up three players playing the same Bruch concerto (her audition piece), I KNOW I could pick hers out blindfolded. In a heartbeat.

Which brings me to writing.

To me, the whole point of writing is to have a distinctive E-string. Okay, it's not the same thing, exactly, but I would hope if you picked up one of my books you could tell it from the book next to it, never mind if you saw my name on the cover. I know a Neil Gaimain, usually by the third paragraph.

THAT is what you are trying to do. Find that voice, so distinct, the story only YOU can tell, with the VOICE that is yours alone. And then play that E-string for all it's worth.

Thoughts?

Peace,
E

P.S. To my daughter . . . I love you, and I believe in you, and will be here for you until the end of time and then some. And you have a gift. Let it shine. I love your "voice" on that violin.