Zachory

...is my grandson in Urbana. He’s 9. He is using my first violin - ¾ size. He seems to have a real, permanent interest in violin, but like most kids I’ve ever taught, he just doesn’t practice. If not practicing and his mom were paying for the lessons, he wouldn’t last long. But we are paying. That’s a different issue & we aren’t going there. I don’t mind paying for lessons as long as Zack wants to play. It’s just that he will take forever to learn if he doesn’t do something at home in between lessons. He even sees that himself when he hears the other students, often younger than himself, who are way ahead of him. He says there are Korean kids there who play “better than you, Popo.” Fine; I wouldn’t be surprised, but I doubt it.

Since I’m staying with a friend in Springfield this week, so as to play in the IL Symphony this weekend, I went to Urbana yesterday to pick up Zack from school and take him to his violin lesson. It was the first time I’ve seen Zack since before he started violin last Fall. I thought his teacher was doing a wonderful job working with him. I just felt a little sorry for her, not getting very good results for her efforts. I knew her from when I lived in Urbana and we were both students at U.I. at the same time. In fact when I left Urbana to move to Korea, she took some of my students. I feel she is the best teacher for Zack, and she even lives very near Zack‘s school and house. So, I quietly observed Zack’s lesson. His mom showed up at the end. We went to eat Chinese. I took them home, but before leaving, I played violin with Zack for 20 minutes and gave him a little pep talk. I wish I could see him more regularly to do just this. We played Twinkle - var.1 a few times in a row. I worked with him to get the bowing more correct, and in several repetitions, it was evident the tune was not securely in his head. Hmmm. And then we learned a little pattern from “Batman,” assigned by his teacher, involving low & high 2nd finger. That was not hard to learn, but can’t say he’ll still remember it tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow (which is now today,) just before I left yesterday, Zack asked if he could come to my concert. So I got it worked out with his mom & dad, who live in two different places, 30 miles apart. Mom will bring him to me in Normal after school. I will take Zack with me to visit some old friends in Bloomington for supper. That family is going to the concert and can sit with Zack. After the concert I will take Zack back to his dad’s house in Paxton. Then I will drive ’home’ to Springfield. So today I will have another chance to work with Zack on his violin homework. I hope the concert is not way too heavy for him: Vaughn Williams “Sea Symphony;” but also “Victory at Sea” by Richard Rogers and “Titanic.” Zack will be worn out by 10:00 I think. I don’t mind all this driving if I can have some positive influence on him. (I figured out that I’m driving 478 extra miles so that I can see Zack these two days. If I had stayed strictly with the IL Symphony agenda and skipped seeing Zack, I’d ride the orchestra bus up to Normal and back twice - about 200 miles total commute.)

Besides the side trips to see Zack, all I have to do is practice my 2nd violin part, go to the gym and hang out with my friends here in Springfield. Peggy is just now arriving at home with our big red truck, loaded and ready to deliver to Wheeling, WV on Monday. Next week we will drive two trucks, so as to help out our friend Floyd who is recovering from chemo and can’t drive for a couple more weeks. So tune in later for more notes from the road, from the Trucking Fiddler!

BOOK REVIEW - MY BIG FAT GREEK DIET

I finished this book and loaned it to a friend. This is a most engaging read. It’s not just another diet book. The story is written journal style, very personally (and with the aid of a ghost writer, Mike Yorkey.) In our increasingly obese American culture, Dr. Nick does the near-impossible - loses weight and keeps it off. Very seldom do dieters keep the weight off for very long. Dr. Nick is not trying to sell another diet system. In fact he has tried them all and realizes that diets don’t work. He recommends people to “choose a diet and stick to it.” However, diets generally don’t work! The book is divided into two parts. 1) Dr. Nick tells his story, and 2) he discusses his “Seven Pillars of Weight Loss,” which are principals that, if followed, will greatly increase one’s chances of success. First, one must change the way one sees before changing the way one looks: eating as nutrition, not recreation - that sort of thing. Another pillar is that one must be accountable to one or more other people. Maybe you get the idea - very common sense stuff, put together in a powerful way to facilitate losing and keeping weight off.

The author, Dr. Nick Yphantides (pronounced ee-fahn-tee-dees,) is a Greek-American physician in Escondido, CA. Having had a bout with cancer in his early 30’s and having come through it successfully, he realized that though he had dodged a bullet, he was still on track for early demise because of his weight. He had let himself get fatter and fatter through high school, medical school and a busy career in the public health system. In his mid-30’s he weighed 467 lbs. However he didn’t know exactly how much he actually weighed because the scale only goes to 350 lbs. He thought he was a little over 350... He spent a year making plans to go on an 8-month weight-loss odyssey. He was head of a public health facility and gave notice one year in advance of quitting his job. On April 1, 2001, Dr. Nick began his war on fat. The night before, he went to a favorite steak house to have his Last Supper, celebration style with family and friends joining him. Then for eight months he lived exclusively on protein shakes. He felt he needed a most radical program since he had so much weight to lose and didn‘t want to do it too gradually. He bought a YMCA pass and began to exercise faithfully. He was supervised by his brother, also a physician. At the first weigh-in on April 1, 2001, he had bought a second scale, so he had two professional quality doctor’s office type scales. He stood with one foot on each scale. That was the first time he knew his actual weight - about 100 lbs more than he expected. His brother photographed him from all angles. Dr. Nick bought a used camper-van and spent the next eight months indulging his passion for baseball while losing weight and exercising. He criss-crossed the USA, attending major league baseball games. After 3 months, by July 4, he had lost 103 lbs. But he could not tell any difference in his appearance - depressing! Over July 4, he and his brother and a couple friends were on a fishing trip in Canada. Nick could not partake of the buffets and special food that was part of the package. His mood was at its lowest ebb. Out on the charter boat, he was mean and surly to his buddies, but then in the deep water he caught something enormous! It took 45 minutes of fighting to haul it in - a halibut weighing 103 lbs, the exact weight he had lost to that point! It was a sign from God and a turning point. He could see and feel the weight of that fish, a tangible way to grasp the extent of his progress in losing that same amount of weight. Then he knew that he could finish the course to attain his goal!

The trip was documented with lots of photos, which appear in the book, and with a website which was updated weekly. There was mushrooming interest in Dr. Nick’s project in the local and national media. He was accountable not only to his family and friends but to his whole community and fans throughout the nation. He had to succeed or return home in shame and humiliation. In the end his lowest weight was 197. He had lost 270 lbs. Then he gained back 15 lbs of muscle as he worked out at the ’Y.’ As he was working on his book, he was introduced to Despina - a friend of a friend, who became his wife. He refers to his marriage as ’gaining 120 lbs.’ HA! He has maintained his ideal weight ever since 2001 and seems to be an entirely new person, exercising 7 days a week and working a lot less than before.

So this is a practical book for people like me who need to lose weight. But even for skinny folks, it is fun to read because of the baseball angle and events of the journey. Here is an intelligent man - a pillar of his community, who has gained control of the one most out-of-control area of his life. Dr. Nick is on a mission to help guide and encourage overweight and obese Americans to lose weight and keep it off. You may see a series of photos of Dr. Nick from fattest to skinniest on his website “www.healthsteward.com.”

Michelle

Two weeks ago, on Sunday afternoon at the Urbana Middle School, where our church was celebrating its 18th anniversary (which is another story,) 7-yr old Michelle turned to me, when I happened to be standing behind her, and said her parents had talked about asking me to teach her violin. Hmmm… interesting. I responded something to the effect that she should talk to her parents about it, and I’ll just wait till they ask me. She went directly to her dad, and just a few minutes later he came over to ask me. How to make that work has been strong in my mind and prayers ever since then. By God’s grace, I want to do it.

How to structure my next studio for teaching violin is constantly on my mind anyway. Since Peggy and I joined a company that gets us home weekends, I have thought about starting a program on weekends. To do it right would present special challenges and commitment. What I have in mind is a group setting in which fundamentals of music would be taught using psaltery, recorder, singing and rhythm instruments to begin with. Psaltery and recorder are very accessible and would yield quick results. Anyone can make music almost immediately on these instruments. Singing is the most natural way to make music. Rhythm & beat provide the framework on which to “hang” the music. So - I want to use these various ‘routes’ to build a foundation before ‘graduating’ to violin. The fist few songs and rhythms we would work on would be the same songs that would be learned on violin but in a different key, by the time we add the violin, many aspects of the music would be accomplished already. That’s the plan…

Logistically, because our time off is so limited, I can’t commit to traveling anywhere regularly on a Saturday, so it would be necessary to meet at my home. Generally, in this season of my work-life, I expect to be home only 3 weekends per month, so I can only offer lessons 2 or 3 times per month. The other advantage to meeting at home is that I have many resources collected in my music room. I’d like to get started teaching Michelle if we can work out the logistics. So, I will have to talk to her parents about these parameters. I had thought of the possibility of meeting sometime on Sunday in Carbondale, since we are there anyway on Sundays. I don’t rule it out, but I suspect it would not be the most conducive time for learning because Sundays are already so full. Still open to discussion…

I feel like a scientist doing experiments. It is not certain that all these plans will ‘take.’ That’s okay. With every new student I hope (s)he will catch the vision and fall in love with violin or great music in general, which seems to happen less than half the time. I see part of my job as provider of inspiration. I have seen many kids quickly identify with violin, get professional studio photos made with the violin, etc. But it may very well be that after learning fundamentals of music, a child may be fascinated by some other instrument - piano, brass, woodwind, percussion, cello, string bass… That’s great! Concerning beginners, parents and teacher should be on the lookout for indications of what the child may be naturally drawn to. I’ve known of students who got pretty far into violin and then switched to cello or guitar or singing - could be any other aspect of music. In that case the experience on violin is not lost; much of the violin experience transfers to any other instrument. It’s common for musicians to learn piano and 1 or 2 other instruments.

Another idea I have is to send home listening assignments every week - CD’s loaned from my collection - various styles of music for violin,/fiddle, orchestra or any other great music. I like to set performance goals, so we should be on the lookout for places to perform the songs being learned on psaltery, recorder and violin - nursing home, church, home-recital… This is most effective if done only when the student has prepared well and is confident of being able to make good music - in a group situation at first. One other part of inspiration is finding concerts to attend such as Paducah Symphony. Of course SIU Music School produces a constant stream of performances.

Next step is to discuss how and when to get Michelle started - one on one.