I can admit when I'm wrong... really I can...

I just had a most excellent evening. Which is a bit ironic, since my plan going into it was to use the evening as the final proof for why I'm not going back after half-term break. You see, I'm spending 3 hours in transit for a 2 hour group fiddle lesson (really only 1.5 since we have a 30 min break in the middle). I would be willing to do the traveling if I were getting something out of it. The major issue is that it seems as if everyone else in the group has been playing for, oh, say 20 years? If I'm not in tip top shape going into it, I leave frustrated, short-tempered, and not wanting to pick up my violin for the next week. In fact, I left at break time last week because I could barely hold back the tears, and I recognized that a full night's sleep would do me more good than beating my head against a brick wall.

Tonight we learned Spoot o' Skeery, a tune that I heard on the Shetland Islands at least 5 times a night. I'm sure that being familiar with the tune helped a lot, but the instructor also slowed down and broke up the tune a bit more in his teaching. It was soooo encouraging to not only feel like I was actually walking away with a full tune, but also knowing that I now have one more tune in my repertoire that I can use next summer when I go back to the Shetlands. Slow session, here I come!

Speaking of jam sessions, we spent the last half hour of class doing a review/session. No one would volunteer to start off with a tune, which is completely ridiculous considering how GOOD they are, and have such great tunes to share. I'm getting a little sick of being intimidated (they're not the friendliest and most welcoming bunch), so I volunteered to start. I played a slower, haunting tune called Sigurd o' Gord. Legend has it that it was taught to a man who was whisked away by the Trows for a hundred years. When he was returned to his town, all of his loved ones having passed on, he went out and played this tune as the sun fell. As the last rays disappeared, and the last strains of the melody floated on the wind, he slowly turned to dust. I don't know what I like more, the tunes themselves, or the stories attached to them.

Obviously I stumbled over a few parts in the middle, but everyone seemed a little more willing to volunteer after that. AND I may have made a friend... she's been hiding in the back, being a beginner like me, and having the same frustrations. When I say "beginner", let me qualify that by saying that she plays several other string instruments and the piano, but has only been playing the violin since last Christmas. I'll take what I can.