The One

One time I went to a luthier in the city where I lived and saw a violin and played it and said “I must have this violin”. It wasn’t super expensive but it wasn’t cheap either; it was kind of a mystery violin—no maker name and no way to accurately determine its value without one. I already had a violin that I’d been playing since I was thirteen—a hand me down from my mom, purchased by her before I was born for two hundred dollars at a shop in Los Angeles by way of Mittenwald Germany—where I had once taken it to be appraised—with a resulting valuation of a lot of money. I didn’t love the way it sounded, but didn’t want to sell it—for sentimental reasons. I loved the violin in the luthier’s shop, but didn’t have money to buy it. I did have a regular gig busking at the farmers market though, and the market was right by the luthiers shop and he had seen me playing there so he said how about you take the violin now and pay it off over time with your earnings from the market? So every Saturday I went and busked and then I went over to the violin shop and gave the luthier his money, until the violin was mine for real. It took over a year to pay it off in this way and it was super nice of him to let me do it and everything about the transaction felt good. The violin was great, although it was harder than most to play—but what it lacked in ease it made up for in a big alive sound and I felt lucky to have it.

When I was sixteen I went with my friend to hear some classical music at a festival outside of Chicago, but we hung out too long and missed our train back to the city where we were staying. It was dark and getting late and the festival grounds were almost deserted and we didn’t know how we were going to get back but then we saw a man carrying a couple of violin cases which made him seem more likely to be safe than not so we asked him what we should do and he said hang on I have to bring Josh these violins to try out but after I can give you a ride. So we waited while Josh tried the violins and then we got in the car with this guy, Geoff, who was a violin dealer with a shop in the city. On the drive he said man I could really go for some D’n’D right now and I was surprised and said you play Dungeons and Dragons? And he laughed and explained that he was talking about Dunkin’ Donuts but it was after midnight and there weren’t any shops open. The next day my friend and I got up early and found a Dunkin’ Donuts and bought a couple dozen to take to Geoff by way of thanks for the ride. We went down to the violin shop and gave them to him and then he asked me if I’d like to “try a Strad,” by which he meant a Stradivarius which is a rather obscure type of violin that probably nobody has ever heard of but I said yes. He set me up in a little room with it and I stared at it and said how much is it worth and he said 10 million. I wanted to play it but was worried I might drop it and owe somebody 10 million, which I was not in possession of at that moment or any moment in the past present or, as it turned out, future. I looked nervously at Geoff but he just laughed, so I—very carefully—picked up the violin and put it under my chin and made a squeak or two, then put it, very carefully, back in its case. I was glad not to be holding it anymore, but the squeak or two I had made had sounded like nothing so much as liquid velvet emanating into the ether while being showered with golden sparkles that smelled like light and freshly baked rice pudding—the kind with ginger and cardamom and coconut milk, not the plain kind—and it had sounded like this with very little help from me and that was when I realized that with the right fiddle I could sound as good as my potential or better.

And that’s what I was still thinking about when, a couple of months ago, I made an appointment to try out some instruments at a violin shop in Los Angeles. I love my violin but we’ve been together a long time and I had started to wonder if maybe I couldn’t do better. The shop was the same shop that my mom had bought my other violin from in 1970. Maybe I could sell that one, or both of them, or trade them in. I’d do anything for the violin. I was really excited and full of myself: “I’m finally going to have the violin I deserve!” and dragged my whole family down to this joint where I spent half a day trying violins. While we were there an old Armenian guy came in, took one look at my mystery violin, and asked if it was for sale. I said I didn’t know yet. He gave me his card and waited until I left the shop—then approached me again outside. Is it for sale? If you don’t sell it here will you please give me a call, I am very interested in this violin, it is a special instrument. I couldn’t tell if he was for real or not—maybe he was an expert and could tell just by looking that my violin was extremely valuable? Maybe it was the lost Modigliani. Maybe it was the stolen Picasso! I looked at his card and googled his name and learned that he was a dentist at an unpopular establishment with bad reviews. I decided not to call him.

It turned out that my mom’s violin wasn’t as valuable in Los Angeles as it had been in Mittenwald—not worth enough for me to want to trade it in—but that didn’t stop me from trying a bunch of 20K budding-star luthier violins, 40K established-award-winning luthier violins, 300K famous-french luthier violins, and so on and at the end of the day I took my top choices home to try again against my own violin but when I did there was no contest—all of them were easier to play than mine but none of them sounded as rich resonant deep open lovely or warm, not even close, and I said so, to my violin—I said I guess you’re the one for me, always have been always will be. It was like in those 80’s movies where the Main Character is looking for love and has a Best Friend who is totally perfect for them but the M.C. is hopelessly obtuse and doesn’t realize the B.F. is the one so they keep trying for flashier models until the best friend takes off their glasses or gets a haircut or something and Boom! The moral of this story is that the best violin will win and sometimes it might be the one you had all along.