This is the first part of a short story that I wrote for one of my final projects. Virtuoso is the story of Milo who is a violinist in New Orleans. Read part two here.
New Orleans, 2014
What is a violin?
A violin is a wooden string instrument. The player uses the bow to create an exquisite sound that transcends time. He knows what a violin is. Still, Milo asks the question again and again, even though he played violin since he was a small child.
A proper definition of the instrument would be this; a violin is a small, wooden musical instrument with four strings that a player (Milo) holds against his neck and plays with a bow.
Whenever Milo is on his way to a performance his mind always strays back to this question. Over and over again he will ask himself, “What is a violin?” The answer is always different. This is why he plays. This is why, every time he enters a concert hall, and it feels like the first time all over again. There are always new people to impress and even if people have remembered him from the last time he played at that concert hall they will be a new person.
Time changes people.
But so does music.
This is Milo’s job. His one goal in life is to change people’s hearts in one way or another. His goal may not happen immediately. Years from now, when his songs are played on the radio or his CDs fall into someone’s hands, they may be moved by the song he decides to play at this moment. His hands are sweaty because it’s November and the temperature is still well above seventy degrees. Today the song in question is the Concerto in D by Tchaikovsky. He will stand on the stage with an entire orchestra behind him showering the crowd with the most difficult piece he has ever learned. Yesterday his teacher told him that this would also be his first ever live recording. He only has one chance to get this right. He often wondered if other musicians felt this inner pressure to please the crowd perfectly.
When he walked through the French Quarter yesterday Royal Street had been blocked off and bands lined the street. Their music echoed off of the buildings so loudly that his head began to spin. Eventually he made himself stand and push on down the street. Down the street a little ways was another band.
Finally, he’d thought. Maybe I can actually stomach this. But the music that the fiddler played bored him. The sounds he heard were mostly for backup. He did remember one concert he was at with his mom. She had a friend that played violin as one of the main instruments. At the time he was about four or five, maybe even six. But he remembered that day clearly. Although his mom’s friend was aloof and quiet the way she played the instrument stuck with him for his whole life.
He never could remember her name because the two of them (his mother and her friend) had had a falling out when he was young. He just remembered her graceful, willowy figure that towered above him on stage in the French Quarter. The French Quarter is famous for being loud yet somehow he’d been able to focus on just her. Just his mom’s friend and her violin as the notes she plucked out of the air struck a chord with him every time the bow glided across the strings.
