Czardas

As I write this, there is a girl in my parent’s house. Mom is teaching her a violin lesson. The product of their combined efforts will be $16, a wasted half-hour, and a horribly angry Riet.

For although I can’t hear it, I know she’s making something I love into something filthy and obscene.

(You may recognize this as the beginning of Lady Gaga's Alejandro video.) A Czardas is actually a type of dance as opposed to a specific melody. Vittorio Monti wrote this one, despite the fact that he's not Hungarian or a gypsy.  His became the most famous Czardas, often mistaken for folk music despite its bastard origins. It is simplistic and sappy.  I adore it. 

Flashback time!

The first really good student my mother ever had was named Andye. She was in 10^th grade and played in the Grand Rapids Youth Symphony. (9-year-old translation: VIOLIN GODDESS) One day, I was upstairs when she started playing the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

The violin pieces I had experienced up until that point were neatly organized and rather bland classical tunes, minuets and the like. Czardas was earth-shattering. It didn’t give a shit about your metronome. It spit on your tidy divisions between notes.

I was in love. Now that I think about it, hearing Czardas was the very beginning of my borderline obsession with Eastern European music.

All complaints resulting from excessive Red Army Chorus fangirling may be directed to Vittorio Monti.
Or you can just hit me. That too. 

I started to secretly learn it when alone in the house; even at the brash age of ten I somehow had the sense not to be appallingly jumped-up for once in my life. I had heard a violin cry, laugh, and dance all at once, and damned if I wasn’t going to learn how.

I was never allowed to play it. By the time I had enough technical ability and courage to mention it to my teacher, I still couldn’t summon enough anger on command and translate it into music. (I don’t know where that Riet went either.) Now I only play it in angsty solitude.

...Anyway! This student—let’s call her Laura—is in high school and reluctantly taking violin lessons because her mother thinks it makes her well-rounded.

And.

She.

Is.

Abominable.

Basic rhythm and intonation are complete mysteries to her. She pays no attention to even the most basic key signature; apparently we have to write out every single note exactly as it is, complete with color coding and encouraging arrows. When Laura starts drivers’ ed, she’ll have to arrange for all the roads to be painted bright orange so she doesn’t constantly plow into 7-11s and small children. She probably has warning stickers on all knives, outlets, and open flames in her house that say “THESE MAKE OUCHIES” and depict expressions of horrible pain.

 She is allowed to play Czardas. She is allowed to play CONCERTOS. She should be playing pieces with names like “I Have A Little Moo Cow” and “Spring Is Here, Hooray!”. But no.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing my mother’s teaching methods. Throwing someone off the deep end is a great way to force him or her to learn. In an individual setting, the difficulty of the piece is so humiliating that the fear of defeat drives the student above laziness. In a group setting, the student is inspired by the talent of those surrounding her and will be motivated to rise above the bottom of the barrel. The individual approach might not work if the student is an arrogant princess type. (there’s the rub…)

My problem is with the song. You can completely slaughter melodramatic pseudo-gypsy music and not draw my wrath. God knows I do it all the time. In fact, it's probably more authentic that way. But you have to mean it. 

The absolute worst way to treat a melodramatic piece is to slog through it apathetically like a hipster through a mall. Much worse than wrong notes. Much worse than erratic rhythm. I know feigning enthusiasm is horrifying to a teenager, but then why did she pick that song? Ugh! She makes me want to smash her violin onto her oh-so-breakable fingers, just so she'll feel something. 

Augh! Ok...ok. Calming down.

Dear Czardas, I will always love you. Those horrible things Laura did to you are not your fault. Let’s run away together to an island where there are lots of klezmer bands and magical violins. On second thought, I think that island is Manhattan. Oh well. We'll find you an accordion player and live happily ever after.