It is difficult for me to wax poetic about the beauty of a stringed instrument in a way that hasn’t been done before by countless violinists, violists, cellists, and bassists. In fact, my description would be much lesser in fluency and articulation, albeit meant with the same sincerity. 

It has been many years since I last unzipped the worn fabric case of the old violin. I do not dare venture to call it my violin, as I appear to have belonged to it more than it ever belonged to me. It was handed down to me by my sister, a much more successful violinist who has gone on to perform (with a newer, better violin) across Europe and North America.

Often I imagine a sort of melancholy emanating from this old instrument, a despondency at having become a hereditary wood piece rather than the harbinger of musicality it was meant to be. Perhaps it will become, like a wild white-tailed deer, a taxidermy decoration void of life, mounted on the wall and seen only in passing. Or perhaps for you, dear Reader, I will uncover it one more time.

. . .

This instrument was purchased sometime in the year 2011, that murky time falling somewhere between an earthquake-tsunami that devastated Japan (thereby causing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster) and the launch of the Atlantis shuttle mission, marking the end of three decades. But I do not think violins care much for geopolitics, natural disasters, or space exploration, so it must have been born the same way we all are: rather unapologetically. 

I do not mean to say that this violin’s birth occurred when we obtained it. I wonder at all the hands it could have passed through before reaching mine or my sister’s. Were they crumpled and worn, with purple veins that bubbled beneath the skin? Were they strong and sprightly, sporting fingers that held an obnoxiously opulent diamond? I wonder what secrets this violin would have to share, if only we could unearth them.

Each violin comes with its own personality, or so they tell me. (I reference the words of a failed “first date” who was more intrigued by my pitch and horsehair bow than anything I had to say). This particular instrument came with an old wound—a distinct scar in the wood grain right by the fingerboard, the long black panel above which the four strings of the violin hover. My mother balked at the thought of any such blemish and scrubbed at it any chance she could, perhaps hoping that her stubbornness could subdue it. It is like an acne-scarred reminder of youth or a peculiar birthmark under one’s left earlobe—beautiful in an eccentric sort of way. 

It is often the way of science to draw comparisons between other organisms and ourselves, so why not do it with this particular species? We like to ascribe living terms to music: It grows, climaxes, pulses, dies away. We call it energetic, expressive, playful, lonely, and in almost all senses of the word, very much alive.

We will start from the scroll, a decorative spiral at the very top of the instrument’s neck (and here is where the humanoid comparison begins—but I am getting ahead of myself). The spiral, known as a volute, became the traditional design in the 1500s and has remained so ever since. The scroll is a way for violin makers to show their style or skill, with the work of more famous makers like Antonio Stradivari or Giuseppe Guarneri being distinguishable by look. There are tuning pegs that fit snugly into the pegbox, and these pieces together are considered the “head” of the violin.

The nut is a small piece of hard material at the top of the fingerboard with four grooves. The fingerboard widens downward, and is host to the four strings—G, D, A, E—if tuned correctly. The body of the violin is made up of the upper and lower bouts and has two “f-holes” that mirror each other on both sides of the fingerboard. These f-holes allow sound to project outward and were used in design during the Renaissance. Around the center of the violin body, there is a narrow inner curve called the waist. Makers like Andrea Amati came up with this human-like terminology to make these structures easier to understand. Perhaps we cannot ascribe this credit to Amati alone, as we are rather selfish and self-congratulating creatures. 

Now, on to the particulars of this specific violin. I still remember my visit to luthier Tsai Iaoshi’s home, though I was no more than six years old at the time. It is peculiar to have such a memory because there was nothing extraordinary about it: a nice suburban house less than a two hours’ drive away, somewhere in the upper East Coast. An ordinary front door with an ordinary front porch, and an ordinary man with ordinary hands who could carve the living from wood. We exchanged $4,000 for that violin, $1,000 for the bow, and (in my opinion, a rather unwarranted) $500 for its blue fabric case. That is how music came into our possession. 

Playing the violin seemed to me one of those difficult, impractical chores that adults task children with to swindle them out of playtime or other enjoyments of life. I hated every moment of it. My violin teacher was a middle-aged Asian man who threatened to wallop my legs with his metal and ivory bow every time I made a blunder. My lesson followed immediately after my sister’s. To have to fill the shoes of one who played Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major at the age of ten was nothing short of excruciating—I spent more time living in dread of the violin than playing it. 

When I pick up this violin now, I am called back to my younger self. In music, it has become the norm for suffering to be indicative of effort. To be a good violinist is to have black callouses that form on your neck from the abrasion of the chinrest, termed “fiddler’s neck.” To be a good violinist is to bruise your fingertips and develop carpal tunnel in your wrists. I call upon a memory of slicing open the pad of my left pointer finger on the uneven finish of a pool. I had bandaged it, unperturbed. I was a little more perturbed realizing that my violin teacher still expected me to play, cut finger and all. The vibration of the A string gave my finger a sour, unpleasant green hue that throbbed through the entirety of Chaconne in D minor and Partita No. 3.

It appears to me that violin is a glorified sport where hours equate to passion and rigidity is praised as persistence. But these are the sour complaints of an embittered former player, and the beauty found in the violin must far outweigh its temporary unpleasantries. 

Regardless of my feelings on the subject, music appears to me one of those mysterious, indecipherable subjects that reveals its true form to only a gifted few. I have never had the luck to be one of those gifted. But perhaps you, Reader, if I have not yet put you off the subject entirely, might be able to grasp it in my place.