Any story I tell about violins must of course begin with my own. My first violin (an 1/8th size) was a rental from the music school, but my parents soon discovered that for just one semester’s rental fee, we could purchase our own violin in China. This was my introduction to China’s machine-made instruments, a cheap alternative for students. We immediately asked my uncle to bring a ¼ sized violin, the next size up, for me, and we coordinated our visits to China with my growth spurts until that one day my parents had been dreading--I was ready to switch to a full-sized violin.
Instrument quality had never mattered before. Children grow out of smaller instruments very quickly, and their skills haven’t developed to a point yet where instruments can really make a difference. The full-size, however, stays with you for a long time, and the advancing student learns new techniques (such as high positions or false harmonics) that sound terrible on an inferior instrument. My teacher, Phoebe, had strict requirements for picking out violins, and the instruments she approved of always ended up costing 1000 USD or more. My parents, both students at the time, fretted about the inevitable bill.
A few days before we were beginning to shop, Phoebe called. “Linda,” she said, her voice filled with excitement, “I have great news! A friend showed me a violin from China. It’s a new instrument and machine made, but the sound is surprisingly nice. And he’s only asking for $170!” My parents took the deal.
I was the only kid out of my friends that didn’t have an expensive violin to play with. Brian got a custom-made violin from Cremona when he switched to a full-size, Jenny had a fleur-de-lis engraved in the back of her new violin, and Dan was looking at different luthiers in Boston and New York City. They all treasured their instruments and took incredibly good care of them. As for me, I treated my violin quite nonchalantly, to say the least. My family quickly named my violin the “little crappy violin” for all the abuse I put it through. There was that time I was skipping on my way to the bus and my case flew out of my hands and landed in the middle of the road. There was that time when the seam split over the winter and I had to beg my school’s woodshop teacher to glue the crack together, since the repair would have cost more than the instrument. There was also that time when I got so frustrated with my trills in Mozart’s A Major Concerto that I threw my violin and bow at the wall. However, my crappy violin survived everything, and I began to develop a grudging respect for it.
I was content with my crappy violin until I participated in Connecticut’s All-State Orchestra my freshman year. All of a sudden, I was in an orchestra where we had to perform seating auditions, and where we had to play stand by stand. Everyone else had their old European instruments, and then there was me. I became convinced that no one was taking me seriously--not only was I a freshman that somehow bummed her way into the first violins, I also played a sub-par instrument. I demanded an upgrade. That summer, after a wild goose chase that began in New Haven and ended in Beijing, my family and I picked out an 1870 French violin.
