Beginner Mentality: Opening

“You’re really starting now?”

As of this month, I have been playing the violin for two years. Beginning as (almost) an adult, I have often been asked this question by all types of people. Playing the violin is not a remarkable thing in itself for me to do — many people, after all, play musical instruments. But the process of learning a completely foreign skill has revealed a lot of assumptions about making art, youth and of course, how we learn and understand things as we get older.

As a culture we are obsessed with youth — the music world is no exception. The musicians and composers we idolize were all mostly prodigies. Mozart began his musical journey when he was three and was composing at five. Beethoven began playing publicly at seven and wrote groundbreaking compositions when he was not much older than me. Now, most people assume that you can’t become good at music if you start at 20, let alone 40, 60 or even 80 years old. The ideal year to start playing music slowly creeps backward in a well-meaning desire to inspire musicality, but also in response to the arms race to get into good K-12 schools and colleges.

I have never really bought into this obsession with youth. If I had begun playing when I was six or seven, I’m not exactly sure I would have loved it. I remember going to a Rachmaninoff concert around then. I thought it was really boring! For me, a passion for classical music came later. I remember finding Philip Glass’ music when I was in eighth grade. From there my desire expanded into all eras of classical music and opera. When I picked up the violin, it was like meeting someone I had known only in dreams.

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I remember when I got back from the rental store, I visited my brother and opened the case. I was struck by how light it was and I didn’t know the first thing about playing it.

The first few lessons with my amazing teacher Beth Bahia Cohen were tough. Humans are not made to hold the violin or the bow, really. It took me weeks to master just playing the open strings. We didn’t even get to the notes for a month and I was stuck playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! But from the very beginning, I was hooked. If someday I could play the music of my idols, I thought I would have fulfilled some grand dream.

While I’ve learned a lot at Tufts, I think that my struggle to play has taught me the most about life and what a good life might look like. There is something enlightening about witnessing your own learning which you can’t do as a kid. Playing has also been a humbling experience and more than anything has impressed upon me the need to allow to fail and to really suck at something — a need to have, in short, a beginner mentality.