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From Music to Tech
Now Children Can Learn Violin at Home
Note: Want to get started? My Level 1 Course is now handled over at my Vimeo site .
Before I got into tech at age 34, I was a musician. I played violin professionally, for churches, some small Nashville recordings, and taught it here and there too.
But before I grew up, I was a kid who went to church, singing classic Hymns. We sang hymns with piano and without piano, sometimes with me playing violin at church. Mainly we used what we called the “black” and “red” hymnals:
It was the summer before my 6th grade, in my town in a good 1980’s state of Iowa. John Deere and summertime, that’s what our town was known for. This time of year, the corn was high in the fields, and you could smell the soybeans and pigs almost wherever you turned your nose outside.
[Is This Heaven? No, it’s Iowa.]
This day, this hot day, I could also nearly smell the humidity. It clung my shirt to my skin, cuz I was just outside playing with my friends, playing tennis, riding bikes, and now I just wanted to stay in the cozy air conditioning in my bedroom.
Every Wednesday night was for church: prayer and hymn singing
It was a typical Wednesday evening. Everyone knew in our house that every Wednesday was prayer meeting at church. So I had to get back out in the sauna-of-an-Iowa-day. Dad called for us upstairs, and Mom walked down with us. It was me, my brother, sister, and Mom and Dad all into the car.
[Teaching rhythm in a training in The Christ-Centered Violin Method program, now available to the public.]
Dad kicked the dark long-for-bragging 1980 model Blue Lincoln Continental two-door into reverse from our pond house. He went around our drive and headed off. Destination: the old time Gospel chapel, dressed casually, and that meant shorts were OK for me, but not for Dad or Mom. Mom wore a dress, Dad in jeans.
We always drove to church as a family
Dad would sometimes put the 8-track music on in the Lincoln, but usually it was the radio tuned to FM station 101.9, blasting the Good News through soothing, Christ-centered music. Back when the only Christian music was really Sandi Patty, Steve Green, and Larnelle Harris.
Those were good days, because those were some solid artists putting out some solid songs. I hadn’t been introduced to Petra yet by my buddy Jason — my Christian friend in school from 5th grade till even today. But I did get for Christmas a Sandi Patty “Make His Praise Glorious” live cassette tape.
Now, I digress. Back in our family’s Blue Lincoln Continental. Windows down, waiting for the a/c to pop on, we made some dolphin diving hand motions in the wind as we breezed onto the highway.
No Walkmans or iPhones — we had to spend time together listening to music
Keep in mind, these were the “old days” for me. Before phones. Before internet. And Walkmans. I stared out the windows of the family car, and after a few miles down the green-pastured countryside portion of our drive, the Lincoln got its strength to hoist the air conditioning system, finally pushing out glorious cold relief into my face and arms.
The sound of my brother on my right (us 3 kids were squeezed into the back seat) shutting his window with the bleeding-edge technology of electric window buttons… the sound that warned me that my ears would pop. But at least it was cool in the car now as my legs in technicolor 80’s shorts on the leather seats threatened to stick if I didn’t shuffle them a bit.
[Sometimes I get to tour around the country and share my program, The Christ-Centered Violin Method program, while meeting wonderful new friends and families.]
We talked a bit on the drive. And then in under 15 minutes we finally got to the church building. I knew what we would do there, because it’s what it always was in those days: a half hour of singing from hymnals (black and red books), some good teaching from the Bible, and some serious, on-knees sometimes prayer, with the men and women separated for privacy and openness among us.