I attended a recital by the violinist who led the ensemble for my birthday concert. It was her last recital for her Doctorate. After the recital, I got to sit and chat for a while with her and her new husband. He was in from Miami for the weekend, where, I was told, he was also a violin student.
As we chatted about music and various other topics for a while, I got the perverse notion to play an excerpt from my Killing Time 2, in which I improvise on solo violin. Keep in mind I have no idea how to play a violin. Indeed, I have no idea how to even tune a violin. So this is several minutes of "jamming" from an untrained musician on an untuned instrument. Far from being appalled, they were actually amused, and mildly impressed that I had managed to generate any kind of tone at all with no training.
Later that evening, I look up the husband from Miami, and find he is the CONCERTMASTER of the Miami Symphony Orchestra!






