scroll

Friday I volunteered to spend some time "sharing a skill" with my daughter's Pre-K class. I figured I would fiddle for them since they were a captive audience too fresh to know the difference between good and bad playing. I played "Hop up Kittypuss" "Soldier's Joy" and "The Golden Notebook" for them, but only after taking my sweet time discussing each part of the darling instrument, the front made of spruce, the neck and scroll made of maple, the bow made of horse tail, and the rosin, sap from various pine trees, boiled like candy syrup until it's hard. I don't know if it's sweet or not, because I never tried it. They say it's sticky.

It was sweet spending time with those gracious little people who seemed so interested in all of this, talking about history of the strings and what they've done for people in hard times, talking about the shape of the scroll, a shape that might as well have been carved as a tribute to the cochlea. Thankfully the spiral echoed Ms. Hilda's little blond pigtail so the kids had an additional example. I hope to visit again sometime to play some more fiddle tunes and explore the history they pack with a wallop.