SEPTEMBER: Play 🎻

on childhood violin tears + your creative assignment for this month

Welcome to September’s new moon offering—a special newsletters for paid subscribers. This newsletter includes a creative assignment on play, and unlocks an exclusive chat for paid readers to share how the assignment is going + support each other on our creative journeys. If you’re interested in expanding your creativity, consider upgrading for just $5/month or $50/year—it’s an affordable way to access my creative coaching, and also funds my livelihood as a full-time artist. Wishing you many blessings 🌊

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I started playing the violin at 5 years old. My youth was seized by weekly (and sometimes bi-weekly) violin lessons in Manhattan, music theory classes at The New School, hours-long masterclasses on school nights, weekends in orchestra practice, and summers at classical music festivals in Vermont. None of this was of my own choosing. 

My dad, an incredible concert pianist himself, was the stern force behind my classical music career. He’d require I practice at least one hour every day, and keep a written record of my start time, end time, and what I’d worked on. He’d mandate I play a piece 10 times, and move a set of 10 toothpicks from one side of the music stand to the other to count the repetitions. The three-quarter violin I played on when I was young had persistent tear streaks down its side—I’d cry while playing, my dad constantly berating me to do better in the background.

This led to a fraught relationship with the violin, my dad, and music itself. I learned to be perfect—to perform a piece only after I’d practiced it every day for a year, finessing each shift, each run, and each emotion to excellence. I learned to be ashamed when I displayed even the smallest flaw. I stopped playing after I graduated college, my life quickly filling with joyful passions of my own choosing—and as time passed, it became harder and harder to pick up my instrument, the weight of being “out of practice” growing heavier with each day. 

my dad accompanying me at a recital. i will say that our relationship has healed and grown into something genuinely beautiful; and i’m grateful that he’s taught me the value of grit, commitment, and hard work

Recently, my mom got married to the kindest man I now proudly call my now stepdad. Her one wish for the wedding was that I play violin during the ceremony. I agreed, as the beauty of the occasion outweighed the trauma I still have around the instrument. About a month before the wedding, I picked up my violin after a decade of not playing—and re-familiarized my fingers with its fingerboard, my hands with its neck, the delight that comes with gliding over strings to create a heavenly melody.

In the weeks leading up the occasion, I caught COVID and wasn’t able to practice the way I planned—I’d feel winded after playing through the piece once, and only had the energy to practice for 20-30 minutes at a time. I wanted to get back to a certain skill level, one that felt “presentable” to a public audience, and was frustrated at how clumsy my fingers & hands felt when they once had mastery over the instrument. When the wedding weekend arrived, I figured there was nothing more I could do—I’d just have to play with where I was at.