Music to Me

My life didn’t start on the day I was born. Instead, it started on a seemingly insignificant day in a second grade music class. On that day, I met someone who would change my life. Her name was Ginette Reitz and she was a violinist with the local orchestra. I didn’t think anything of her at first. She talked to us about how great music was and how it can enrich our lives. I was skeptical and didn’t really pay attention to what she was saying, but then she started playing. Over the years, I have forgotten the song she played for us, but hearing someone play a violin for the very first time is something that has always stuck with me. I heard her play and that was it. I absolutely HAD to learn how to play the violin. A few days later, I enrolled in her after school teaching program, and slowly began to learn how to play.

It was a long, slow, sometimes painful process, but I refused to give up. In the process of me becoming a performer and violinist, I started to come out of my shell. The quiet, shy, calm little girl I had been was gone. In her place was someone who was confident, knew what kind of person they were, was dedicated, and was happy. I may have started out learning to play an instrument, but I ended up as someone who didn’t hide behind parents, teachers, grades, or even a violin. By the time I started high school, I was in a youth orchestra. By the time I graduate from high school, I will have been playing for nearly eleven years.

I have played in youth orchestra’s, and taken private lessons all through my childhood and teenage years. I have learned commitment and patience through music. I have learned how to communicate and succeed in a group setting, and I have learned that the music is only as confident as I am. I have also formed a lasting relationship with my violin teacher. That teacher, was the woman who changed my life. To this day, I still have not achieved the level of playing I heard that day so long ago in a second grade music class, but I am nowhere close to finished with the violin.

Graduating from high school signifies the end of a part of my life, and many things go away. However, the ability to play violin is something I will carry through every chapter in my life.

-Lauren Hansen