Where to start...
Okay. So if you ask me how long I've been playing the fiddle, I'll tell you, twenty years, maybe more. But if you want to know how long I've really been PLAYING the fiddle, the answer is about six months.
For years I kept trying to find a teacher, but often that was problematic. I struggled to find the cash to pay for lessons, (two kids always came first when it came to money). I also struggled with time - I was in a band, doing a degree, ferreting the kids around, walking the dog...
So... I taught myself...badly. I got away with it in bands, wee riffs here and there but when you're Scottish and you're seen with a fiddle in your hand, people expect things of you - amazing things, they look at you with a certain glow in their eye and say, "play something" and ...I couldn't. I can create wee riffs, I can easily read notation, I'd even get all the notes in the right order but if you think that's all there is to playing fiddle...well, it's really not.
So in comes the new fiddle teacher. The children have grown up and left home, I have a little extra income and even better- he comes to the house so I don't have to drive anywhere.
That first lesson. It was like utter torture. "Can you show me what you can play, Andrea?" Ehm, do I have to? Every single cell in my body was shrivelling and a voice in my head was screaming RUN! HIDE! IMPOSTER! It was excruciating. He was about to find out that I wasn't really a musician at all, that I had no style, no pizzazz, I was a Scottish fiddler who couldn't fiddle.
Mainly because I didn't know how to bow properly, or even hold the bow properly. My arm and wrist was stiff and it made the music sound stiff. I hated playing without accompaniment because I felt so exposed, just me and the very naked truth of my violin playing. Ugh. Ugly.
Every time he asked me to try a new way of holding the bow, I panicked - the intonation (clarity of the pitch of the note) would go out the window and I'd sound like the wailing cat I'd tried to avoid all my life. And the reluctance in me to actually even try these new techniques was physically palpable. I hated playing in front of him.
My teacher was very patient. We tried all sorts of tunes and made a little progress but I couldn't really hear it and felt like he might be telling me I was improving cos he felt sorry for me.
Then I found some tunes I loved on Youtube and after what felt like forever, he said to me - "That was spot on, Andrea. I don't think I'd change a thing."
Okay, that moment was something. It really was something. Because I'd convinced myself that I'd just have to accept I couldn't do it. I had to stop myself from begging him to keep saying it. (I really am that pathetic).
Now you may be thinking - so she's cracked it? Not even slightly. I have improved. But boy do I have a journey ahead.
But here's what I realised about myself. I'm a bloody perfectionist. I actually am. Which shocked me actually - I never saw myself as one. But when I think back to school days I can see the pattern. I refused to do anything I wasn't good at. So, maths? Nah, won't even tune in, I'm rubbish. Science? Jeezo way too complicated. Sport? Do not make me laugh.
I stuck with Music, English, Art, things I could actually excel at at times but even then, when I didn't, I didn't want to know.
But the thing about being a perfectionist, is that it can stop you moving forward. It can stop you blogging, writing, playing music, drawing. It's that awful voice in your head that says - What if the thing that comes out of you is ugly? What then?
Playing the fiddle has taught me that there's no escaping the ugliness of something new, whether it be an idea, an outline, a new song. You simply have to allow the ugliness to 'be'.
And I'm not going to lie, I struggle with that EVERY time. Whether it be a novel, short story, song or even a blog post.
But here's the thing. If I don't ever let my writing be ugly, or imperfect, how will it ever improve? Worse -how will it even exist? Because the fear of the ugly makes me not even write anything.
I need to let it out, let it exist as the ugly wee beastie it's destined to be on first draft. So my New Year's resolution is to let it all hang out. Here's my ugly folks, enjoy it.