Learning Again For the Very First Time

I've always been a good storyteller, but all these new tools are making me crazy. They are so elementary, and yet so HARD to use. I feel like an expert who is back in beginning classes. I'm having to learn all over again.

Fortunately, I have a life experience of learning something again for the first time.

I started playing violin in 4th grade. For some mysterious reason, I was fascinated with the instrument, and my parents, hoping (I'm sure) that I'd soon tire of the fad, actually bought me a used, 3/4 sized violin.

Learning the violin is no easy task. First there's holding the darn thing so it doesn't fall and break into a million pieces and then how do you explain THAT to your parents? Then there's placing your left hand fingers on the fingerboard to make an approximation of notes. Finally, there's the bowing. Who invented this stuff anyway? Dragging a horsehair bow across a string to make a sound?

Strangely enough, and to my family's dismay, I stuck with the instrument and played in orchestras in junior high and high school. I even joined the orchestra in college. Then Dr. Gordon Childs, the orchestra conductor and a fine man who should have known better, encouraged me to take violin lessons -- so I would get better. "Better" at the violin was always an elusive goal for me. But I was young and energetic and willing to try new stuff, including getting better at the violin.

I actually did improve a bit, and enjoyed playing in the orchestra more when I wasn't always the last chair of the last chairs.

But then one day, the whole thing changed. I went to my lesson and Dr. Childs said that I was going to learn a new way to bow. I'm sure I said something brilliant like, "There's more than one way?" And he said yes, there was now a new theory about bowing and I was going to learn it because it would make me, like everyone one else, a better violin player.

The new method of bowing didn't require a significant change. All I had to do was lower my right elbow so that the weight of my arm drew the bow. This was the opposite of what I'd been taught: to hold my elbow up and use force to draw the bow. A lot of benefits were immediately obvious: my elbow and shoulder would not get so tired, my playing would be more natural (whatever that was), and, well, it would make playing the violin a lot easier. Being a lazy violin player, I was all for "easy".

Man o man, maybe bowing was easier the new way, but LEARNING the new way was hard, Hard, HARD! Did I mention "hard"?

Suddenly I couldn't play at all. My fingerings went to hell (well further), my timing was off, my sound was atrocious. I was back to screeching sound out of my poor instrument, just like when I'd been learning all those years before. The process was one of the most frustrating learning experiences of my young life. The thought of breaking that violin into a million pieces began to look very appealing.

And yet, little by little, day by day, the bowing came easier, the fingering and timing and other techniques came back. Slowly I learned to play the violin again for the very first time.

(Sometimes I wonder if the whole orchestra sounded atrocious that year as we all adjusted to the new playing technique. Poor Dr. Childs! And yet the reward when we were playing well again must have been stunning.)

Slowly, I am learning to tell stories again for the very first time. At least this time around I know to expect the HARD part. Or maybe I just know that all the whining in the world won't help -- I must just practice.

Have you ever had this experience? Learning a new technique at something and then having to re-learn all over again? How did YOU keep your sanity? (I'm desperate for tips right now.)