"It's like someone amputated the tip of your little finger," muses my teacher, as he watches me struggle to reach the farthest notes on a full-size violin.
I am an adult beginner and I have started violin lessons. My neighbours are probably not the happiest people in the world, but then again, I don’t question the loud thuds coming from their garage at midnight.
After a few lessons I can play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and "Long Long Ago". These might be cute when played by a four-year-old in a pinafore and pigtails, but are probably a little creepy coming from a 30-something adult.
The violin is not like the piano.
Playing the piano, in the early years, is like learning to swim in a safe, warm pool of jelly. Pianos are agreeable, patient creatures; always in tune, always happy to see you.
Violins are suspicious beasts that have to be soothed and coaxed into letting you play them. Strings have to be tuned and retuned. Bows have to be rosined into submission. Beginners must be bold and forge on, no matter how uncanny or unnerving the screeching becomes, because violins can smell your fear.
But one day, you will play a perfect bar of music. The bow and string will move against each other like air on silk, and you will feel your soul parting gently from your body.
I have always loved the violin, but in the small town where I grew up, the piano was king.
I was a slothful child, and my first piano teacher would use jelly beans to cajole me into playing my scales.
My second piano teacher was a very angry lady who would frequently wring her hands and shout, "Jesus!" into the air with exasperation. I don’t think she was trying to start a conversation with God.
Also, I know I was a wearisome brat, but still, losing your temper and cussing in front of a seven-year-old? Nice, lady.
Fortunately, before I gave her a full-blown aneurism, she got married and moved away. I remember receiving the news with shock and incredulity (and unadulterated glee). At the time, the only explanation that made sense, was that her new husband was a robot.
Well, a robot, or a vampire that had heard about her prodigiously high blood pressure (and we know who to credit for that).
My third and fourth piano teachers were fairly normal and I learnt a lot from them.
When I finished my lesson, my mother would always be waiting for me. I would come out to find her fast asleep in her car, usually under the moving, dappled shade of a tree. Her seat would be reclined and an open Reader’s Digest propped over her eyes, or fallen onto her chest while she dozed.
At the time, I took these things for granted: the music lessons, being chauffeured to and fro, watching money change hands without understanding its worth. Now I feel a little sad when I think of all the time and money she invested in us, while we raced around, absorbed in ourselves and our own little worlds, and never recognising the sacrifices she made.
When we were children, piano lessons were a trial, and daily practice a chore. Today my siblings and I are grateful that we can sit down at the piano and lose ourselves in nocturnes and sonatas, play the theme song for a movie, or sing along to our favourite musicals.
People say that they won’t push their children into things they don’t want to do, but I am thankful and proud that my parents pushed me into music.
Now I have to push myself, and I’m finding out just how hard it is.