Читать книгу My Midsummer Morning - Alastair Humphreys, Alastair Humphreys - Страница 15

BECKS GOT STARTED STRAIGHT away: pick up the violin, stick it under your chin and clamp it there. That’s the ridiculous way you have to hold it, like a balloon in a party game. Don’t worry; it’s not a Stradivarius. Relax! You won’t break it. Lightly balance the violin’s neck with your left thumb, keeping your fingers free to position on the strings.

Where should you put your fingers, you ask, for you’ve noticed the violin has no frets to guide you like a guitar? Well, that’s up to you: you must gauge the position, listen to the note and adjust your fingers accordingly. Hopefully, by the way, you tuned the strings: that’s your job, too.

Now, grasp the end of the bow, loosely, with the fingertips of your right hand. You use this awkward horsehair bow (correctly tensioned and lubricated) to produce the note. Draw the bow across the strings, neither too gently nor too hard. Perfectly straight. Not too fast, not too slow. You’ll get through these screeches, I promise. I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got time for this lesson. See you next week …

Oh, Laurie, why did you inflict the violin upon me? In the hands of someone who has dedicated decades of effort there are few more beautiful sounds. Listen to Yehudi Menuhin playing Elgar’s Violin Concerto or Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. How can such divinity flow from the same instrument with which I just made those first awful screeches? My spine shivers even writing these words! I did not have decades to learn. I had seven months.