Saturday, March 25, 2006

Musical Genius: 99% Perspiration, 1% "Pop"

I took violin lessons when I was about 8 years old, which brought me some local and fleeting fame at Hardranft Elementary School in Philadelphia.

We would have periodic assemblies at the school, which called for the opening of the blackboard panels which separated about four or five classrooms, transforming the space into our auditorium. My teacher knew I was taking my lessons and at one of our musical assemblies, which featured those students who played instruments, I was scheduled to perform on my violin.
My contribution was to play one song, "Pop Goes the Weasel." Well, my time came and I played the song, which included plucking the "E string" to sound the "pop" in the song.
Little did I know how fortuitous it was when I plucked the "E string" because it brought an endless round of applause and laughter from my schoolmates. My encore was a second playing of "Pop Goes the Weasel" and again, the "pop" brought forth joyous laughter and applause throughout the assembly.
So that was my first five minutes of fame as a musician in the third grade. Of course, there were other musical interludes in my early school years to come . . .


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home