When I was six years old, my grandfather handed me a violin. My family had taken a drive up to my grandparents’ house on a late summer’s day. We stood on red carpet in the downstairs living room; coal stove in one back corner, upright piano in the other, and door open to the driveway letting the sunlight inside. Two of my older cousins were there, making music with their violins. I wanted to play too. My grandfather took one of the violins and put it under my chin, directed my left hand fingers around the neck onto the strings, and guided my right hand to hold the bow. On a yellow post-it note he wrote out letters for the strings and numbers for my fingers: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It was the first song I played, and I’ve been playing the violin ever since.
