Teaching violin for the heart and soul

March 30th, 2005

Teaching violin for the heart and soul
Carol Cohan
Columnist

Have you noticed all the young kids tooling around The Villages this past week? I think spring break brings more children and grandchildren than any other time of the year.
Our household is no exception. Mizzette's daughter and granddaughter, Vicki and Madison, along with Vicki's friend, Gordon, drove from north Virginia last week and will be here until this Saturday. It's great to have young folks around again.
You may remember me telling you that Madison is a budding violinist, and that we give her lessons on the telephone now and then. She started taking violin this school year, and the school year has been steady. Nothing does a grandmother's heart more good than seeing a young child do well in school or in the arts.
When Vicki was young, her mother started her out on violin, but over the years her enthusiasm dwindled. Vicki still has her violin and brought it along for minor repairs. We dropped it off at Violin from the Heart, a music school and store in Leesburg. In the meantime, we rented a violin for Madison to use here.
Owned and operated by Jeff Smith, Violin from the Heart is billed as “Lake County's Top Progressive Violin School” according to his website. They offer private lessons as well as group instruction. The music repertoire ranges from classical to jazz, fiddle and even rock. Beginners and advanced students take lessons, learn and have fun at the same time.
Smith's motto is “Don't just play the violin, pla-a-a-y the violin.” He puts the motto on a t-shirt, and Madison hasn't worn anything else since she has been here. (We have washed it several times.) He also believes in the quote from Katie Greenwood: “Music isn't just learning notes and playing them, you learn notes to play the music of your soul.” We took Madison to the violin studio last Friday to observe a special rehearsal featuring the Fiddle Team. Five boys and three girls braved the strong thunderstorm for the two-hour session.
The members are accepted by audition only, and range from 9 to 13 years old. They've been studying for more than two years and have been playing together for the past year. They swayed and played, all from memory, and even after two hours, still wanted to go on.

033005 – Daily Sun