My mom used to play the flute. But she traded it in to get a piano. And yet the piano was also supposed to be a gift from her parents, so I'm confused about what happened to the flute.
But as I took piano lessons and then took clarinet, I was bugged by the question of why my mom would enjoy the flute, yet not own one. She spoke wistfully of when she played a flute, and loved picking up my aunt's to "borrow."
Meanwhile, I thought I'd follow in my mom's footsteps, but the instrumental director took one look at me and assigned me to the clarinet. The cool girls got the flutes, the nerds got the clarinets.
Even if I wasn't thrilled to have been assigned the clarinet, I still remember the excitement when I entered the local music store for the first time. Many times since that day I purchased sheet music (for piano) and later some cassette tapes for my boom box.
A year ago, I entered that same store for the first time in decades.
The store was cluttered and dark. Old instruments hung from hooks. I coughed a bit from the dust in the air. The objects here were very well loved, but very old. The elderly shop owner helped my son select a violin to rent. I heard a saxophone wail from the lesson area upstairs. The man punched at the adding machine to figure out the total. The only electronic technology in the store was the credit card machine, which the owner made a younger man operate for him.
Nine months later, the old man was dead. I cried, even though he had been a grump when I last saw him. He had been in town a looooong time, and nurtured many, many musicians.
Right after the owner died, my son started taking lessons at a competing music store. That's where his school teacher's assistant rented space, after all. I didn't even know this clean, shiny, technologically-advanced store existed.
They have walls of sheet music, of course, but their instruments on hooks are shiny new. There is a popcorn machine and plenty of iced water for people in the waiting area outside sound-proof booths for lessons. There is free wireless internet, and even complementary ukulele lessons.
With the rental at the old place about to expire, and with an impressive "rent to own" program at the new shop (using new instruments rather than used like at the other shop,) I decided to shift my business over to the new.
But as I held my son's first violin, due back to the dusty shop, tears came to my eyes.
I thought about how excited he was when he saw the green case. Nobody has green cases! It must be a sign! And I thought about how well-used it had been from previous pupils, unlike the super-shiny new ones at the other store. This violin has been through a lot, I thought. It has character.
I took photos of it, thinking of how I'd caption them later in life, "The violin that started it all!" "His favorite green case!" I thought of my mom and her flute. I thought of how my son told me the other day that he was so happy to have found a favorite blanket from when he was small because, "It holds all my childhood memories." He continued, tearing up: "Can you imagine if you had just thrown it away?"
And then I also thought, "Hey, I've put in $200 of rental fees on this. I bet I can just buy it outright!"
As I entered, still waffling between giving up the violin or purchasing it, I noticed the shop had been cleaned a lot since last I was in. Things look more organized, but it still has that old rundown charm, too. While I was there, a woman came in and made small talk with the cashier. It was clear the woman visited the shop frequently. She made a comment about how she'd never go elsewhere. But otherwise the shop was quiet, unlike the bustling new place. The man behind the counter looked up my son's handwritten rental information in an index card holder. He used the adding machine while he scratched some figures on the back of the rental agreement. He then smiled and knocked a chunk off the pay-off price.
I am now the proud owner of a well-used 1/2-size violin that may get played again if my youngest son studies violin in school (which he says he will, but a lot can change in two years), while my oldest has a shiny new violin in the next size up that - according to the computerized contract - will end up ours around the same time his brother will be selecting his fourth-grade instrument. (You better believe I'm hoping my oldest grows into the full-size by that time, since purchasing a full-size is definitely a better investment than owning a 3/4 size.)
Our monthly business is now over to the spanking-new music studio, but when the man at the old shop told me to come on by if I ever needed anything, I wasn't completely lying when I said, "Sure!" since I might just find a reason to pick up a little sheet music. I'm a softie like that.
