Alastair Humphreys - My Midsummer Morning

Music Lesson Music Lesson Progress Into Spain First Play Hope Encouragement Preparation First Walk First Night Marriage Dawn The Pram in the Hall Swifts Kleos Reverence Polar Grace Help Choices Fear Casting One Day Lost Rhythm Baggage First Light Buscando Manna Health Check Bravery Privilege Camping Changes Hitchhiking Loneliness The People of this Earth Siesta Daily Bread The Music in Me Jungle Postman The Greatest Day Evening Last Light Treasure Coffee Kindness Gambling The Art of Busking Alone Fiesta Respite Chorizo Cassiopeia Party Forest Permission Last Days Mountains Way Back River Thunder Road Last Play The Wall Last Night Into Madrid Home from Abroad Reward It’s All Right Photos from the Adventure Acknowledgements The Violin Case About the Author About the Book Books by Alastair Humphreys Books by Laurie Lee About the Publisher

BECKS GOT STARTED STRAIGHT away: pick up the violin, stick it under your chin and clamp it there. That’s the ridiculous way you have to hold it, like a balloon in a party game. Don’t worry; it’s not a Stradivarius. Relax! You won’t break it. Lightly balance the violin’s neck with your left thumb, keeping your fingers free to position on the strings.

Where should you put your fingers, you ask, for you’ve noticed the violin has no frets to guide you like a guitar? Well, that’s up to you: you must gauge the position, listen to the note and adjust your fingers accordingly. Hopefully, by the way, you tuned the strings: that’s your job, too.

Now, grasp the end of the bow, loosely, with the fingertips of your right hand. You use this awkward horsehair bow (correctly tensioned and lubricated) to produce the note. Draw the bow across the strings, neither too gently nor too hard. Perfectly straight. Not too fast, not too slow. You’ll get through these screeches, I promise. I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got time for this lesson. See you next week …

Oh, Laurie, why did you inflict the violin upon me? In the hands of someone who has dedicated decades of effort there are few more beautiful sounds. Listen to Yehudi Menuhin playing Elgar’s Violin Concerto or Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. How can such divinity flow from the same instrument with which I just made those first awful screeches? My spine shivers even writing these words! I did not have decades to learn. I had seven months.

I HAVE SPENT MY adult life cajoling myself to work hard and make the most of my potential and my opportunities. I have coached myself to behave more boldly and be more optimistic than my natural disposition. Adventure entails taking on things that scare you, risking failure and pain in pursuit of fulfilment. One reason I gravitated towards physical challenges in remote environments was to make me uncomfortable and fill me with doubt. You put a little grit into the oyster if you want a pearl.

But the more expeditions I went on (what Wilfred Thesiger described as ‘meaningless penances in the wilderness’), the more competent I became. My life of calculated risk began to lose the jolt of surprise that adventures were supposed to provide. This is the timeless addict’s problem, the slippery slope towards bigger doses and greater risks. I could keep doing the same stuff, but higher, further, faster – pushing my limits, pushing my luck – or else something needed to change.

Centuries ago, the word ‘adventure’ meant ‘to risk the loss of something’, ‘perilous undertakings’ and ‘a trial of one’s chances’. An adventurer was ‘one who plays at games of chance’. If I wanted to keep living adventurously, I had to veer from what I was good at and search again for uncertainty. Could something as gentle as learning a musical instrument count as adventure? I was beginning to think it might. The idea of busking terrified me. It was filled with risk, vulnerability, fear of failure and excitement. That was precisely what I wanted from adventure!

I quickly learned that the violin cannot be quickly learned. It is an idiotic instrument to use for enticing children to love music. It sounds hideous for a very long time. But Laurie crossed Spain with a violin, not something more beginner-friendly, so I was stuck with it.

I knuckled down to make the best of the time I had available, with a weekly lesson and an hour’s practice every evening. Laurie also practised daily, though without the luxury I enjoy of a shed beyond earshot of the family. He sometimes overheard complaints from downstairs of, ‘Oh Mum, does ’e ’ave to, ’e’s been on all night’. I briefly suspected foul play from my own family when my violin got stolen. Someone broke into my shed one night, ripping the door from its hinges. But while I never saw my electronics again, I did stumble upon the violin a few days later, propped up carefully at the foot of a tree behind my house. I pictured the burglar’s wife grimacing at his initial attempts, and him being sent back – in his mask and stripy jumper – to return the frightful instrument.

I was atrocious at the violin and needed to improve quickly if the plan was to become even vaguely viable. But I also discovered that repetitive rehearsal and incremental improvement had an allure of its own. Learning the violin demands deep concentration. As a compulsive multi-tasker, I found this forced focus calming. Late at night in my shed, my worries faded away for a while. I enjoyed the enforced humility of being a beginner and the mindful rhythm of committing to improvement.

I also glimpsed how enjoyable it must be to play music properly. Growing up, Laurie often played at dances in the village hall. He earned five shillings a night, plus lemonade and as many buns as he could scoff.

As adults, we rarely learn fresh skills or dare ourselves to change direction. We urge our children to be bold risk-takers, to show grit and open themselves to new experiences. We encourage them to try things like learning musical instruments. But us grown-ups? We hide behind the way we’ve always done things. We become so boring!

Adults are ashamed to be novices, and so we shy away from it. We draw comfort from being competent, even in narrow and unchanging niches. So we plateau and settle for the identity we have. We don’t stretch ourselves because that risks failure and pain. In fact, it guarantees it, for the pain of being stretched is how we grow. You are vulnerable when you begin something new because you are exposing your weaknesses. I had not been so incompetent for decades. I was surprised to realise that it delighted me.