Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Day 2: Teaching a dog new tricks

Because of my racial background, most people would look at me and assume that my mother was one of those "tiger moms" who pushed me into grueling practice sessions in front of a piano when I was younger. Don't get me wrong, I do have a tiger mom but when your father is the head cook of a local Chinese restaurant in the not so nice part of town, music lessons cost more than we could afford. Not to mention the two older siblings who were heading to college and had to buy all of those fancy nice smelling textbooks.

Truth is, I've always really wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument. I'm actually one of those sick twisted Asian children who secretly kind of wished my mom had pushed me into doing all of those things. But because my family's financial standings were far from those of Amy Chua, tiger mom or Amy Tan, I never got to go to the piano lessons or the fancy summer advancement camps. I suppose it's only natural now that when I hear a piece on the violin (my string of choice), I kind of wish I could pick up one of them and sway along, to literally pull the strings of my extended heart. It's one thing to hear a song with words and be able to sing them out and another to listen to a beautifully crafted piece of music and not be able to express everything it makes you feel.

In my attempts to be a more well-rounded person and to achieve a life of no regrets, I spent a good part of my evening and morning looking up beginner's violin classes around the DC metro area for adults. You would think that in an area that has the Kennedy Center and celebrates musicians from all around the country, that the options would go on to at least page 3 of Google. But to my surprise, there were only 4 or 5 actual hits for private lessons and Joshua Bell's wikipedia article on his L'Enfant Plaza experiment. I don't know how well I would do in a private lessons setting, I generally like to learn as part of a group. I'm also afraid my debilitating social awkwardness might be the end of me in a one-on-one environment. So far, the place that looks the most promising is the Capitol Hills Art Workshop however, it doesn't look like they have any classes available at the moment. My search continues, but this is one of the things I would really like to do in my life. Perhaps I'll start with that online Guitar class on coursera for now.

3 comments:

  1. Get your violin on Annie! I feel like you'd be a quick learner, something about you says "I play the violin" (only 5% is because you're Asian). I want to learn the bass and then we can be in a band.

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    1. Woo! Yay for being in a band! I always thought you wanted to play the keytar . . .

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    2. That'd be pretty sweet as well!

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