Music
Not just any music. Music played by me. I've been into music my entire life, starting with violin at age... 4 I believe, if not 3. I played violin for a few years, but one fateful day at a violin camp in Ithaca I decided that I would no longer play violin. It was to be piano for me. So, my mom set me up with piano lessons, and we rented and eventually bought a piano of our own. For the next two years, I was solely a piano player, unless you count singing along in church. In the summer after third grade I began cello lessons, in order to play in the school orchestra. For three years I played both piano and cello, which was something of a load of practice, around 2 hours a night, which then seemed like an eternity
(that's typical of a practice session for just cello, now). After seventh grade I dropped piano in favor of simply playing cello. I regret dropping both violin and piano now, of course, but I only had so much time and the violin decision was one made when I was only six years old, so thirteen years later it's hard to turn back the clock and pick it up again. We just sold the piano so that's not really an option either, even if I had the willpower to practice through the horrible lack of skill I've acquired over the years.
Now I play the cello and sing
(to myself), and I dabble in guitar occasionally when the mood takes me. I'd love to pick up mandolin, but the unfortunate reality is you have to spend several thousand dollars on a mandolin to get anything halfway decent, and I don't have that kind of cash lying around. I'd also love to play violin again, but the same problem exists and the cost of a good violin is roughly twice to three times the cost of a decent mandolin. Some people don't realize how expensive good string instruments are, but let me tell you, they ain't cheap.
I started out in private lessons on a $5,000 cello, 3/4 size
(or I'd probably still have it today) that I loved. It was German, made in the 60s, and well cared for. Good instrument. We traded that one in for my current cello, and paid another four to five thousand dollars on top of the trade in, plus another five hundred dollars for my now-demolished bow
(the tip is chipped, twice, and should cost around 200 dollars to fix). This cello was brand new when I bought it, made in 1999, and required some work to get it playing well. For years I suffered through a high nut
(the piece of wood by the scroll that determines how high the strings are over the fingerboard) and we had to pay a hundred dollars to get that trimmed down. As soon as it was trimmed my playing improved drastically, thanks to much simplified fingering. Net cost for this cello is around ten grand, not including the soft and hard cases. Not cheap at all. Oh, I didn't mention strings. Strings only last six months to a year under hard to moderate playing conditions, and a full set of Larsen strings for my cello costs around 350 dollars
(might be a little off, but I believe that's fairly close). Ten thousand dollars plus maintenance, and this isn't even a great cello. My last private teacher had a cello that cost her over 40,000 dollars, which she can justify because she makes her living playing it. Just about the only good news is if you take good care of the instrument, it doesn't depreciate in value.
I love playing the cello, even if my skill has atrophied a bit
(okay, a lot) in disuse, but sometimes I want to try something different. I'd like to play Celtic fiddle, for example, and while I've tried adapting some Celtic music to the cello, it's not quite the same thing. I'd also enjoy playing mandolin, like I said, because I love the sound and I'd like a smaller instrument I can take with me when I travel without getting another ticket on the plane for my cello to sit next to me
(I don't really do that; I have a hard case rated for plane travel, but I was trying to be witty. Some of my mother's friends DO buy second tickets to take their dogs on planes, though. Crazy dog agility people.) My voice is the one instrument I have with me all the time, but I'm so shy about singing in front of other people I won't even sing in the car unless I'm alone. I don't think I have a bad voice, but I know how much vocals can grate on my nerves unless they're perfectly in tune, and I guess I think others feel the same way, even if they don't.
Update: This is what made me write this post, even though I didn't actually make any points in it. I was playing one of my Bach suites, which are pretty interested because they were originally written without any bowing or loudness instructions, which leads to a lot of different interpretations, and I thought how it'd be cool to record some of my music and post it on my website. Unfortunately, I'm using blogspot for the time, obviously, and I can't even post pictures, let alone music. It's something I'll get around to someday though, so if you like instrumental music
(I'm NOT singing and putting it on the net) maybe someday you can hear me play!
