Suki Suki Suki! This is my brother's story, translated into Suki-ness. Of course, he left off playing violing a while ago, but whatever. Enjoy.
Suki grew up hearing the sounds of a violin; her father was a talented player. As a young girl she used to sit on the floor and watch in awe as he expertly drew the bow across the strings, making a music that she adored. She loved the shape of the instrument, the strong, decisive, yet gentle movements, the sounds it produced.
And she hated the style.
Too slow, too boring, too... bleah. She would have loved to see how the violin could be used in more fast-paced music, but her father only knew slow airs, and she could find no one that knew anything else.
When she was eight she sneaked into her father's room while he was watching TV and took his violin off the shelf. She placed it on her shoulder the way he always did, positioned her fingers on the neck and pressed down random strings, and then stood there for a solid minute trying to convince herself to just do it already. If she could just move the bow across the strings more quickly, or maybe play different notes that Daddy did... Taking a deep breath, she gently drew the bow across the strings... And flinched when it made a noise like a dying cow.
And from behind her, laughter. She whirled around, and there was her father, leaning against the doorframe and laughing hysterically. "Oh!" she gasped. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I shouldn't have..."
He waved his hand dismissively and, still chuckling, said, "Well, I guess one of my girls had to play violin, and you did seem the most likely to want to learn." He walked forward and took the violin from her. "Hold it like this."
And she learned how to play. But still, she knew that something was missing. She played for a year and a half before she gave up on playing classical music and began to stop practicing, bored with what her father had taught her.
Until, one day, a friend mentioned a song called "Devil Went Down to Georgia."
"You should look it up on youtube, Suki. You play violin, don't you?"
So she did. And she sat at the computer with her jaw almost touching the keyboard, listening and staring in amazement as Charlie Daniels showed her what the fiddle was. At ten years of age, she felt as though someone had just handed her the moon she was so overjoyed. Thiswas what violin could be, and what - to her - it should be.
She asked her father if he knew anyone that could teach her to play fiddle rather than violin; as it turned out, he did, and that person was himself. He knew a surprising amount about this different style, but as he himself had always preferred the classics he had not played any fiddle-style songs in years. Suki begged him to teach her, and he did, everything he knew.
Sixteen years later, she jumped onto the stage and clapped her hands over her head as she walked to her spot, screaming along with the audience. And when she picked up her electric violin - metallic green and shaped like the letter S- and fitted the instrument underneath her chin and fitted the music to fit the song, she sent up a silent thank you to her father - and Charlie Daniels.
And she loved it.