Performing Without My G String

OK, now that I've got your attention, this post is actually about playing the violin.  Hardingfele and I drove to the mall, which is the last place I usually want to go this time of year, but this was to do a Good Deed.  And yes, sans G string.  Because when I pulled my violin out of its case, the G string was very, very broken, and I did not have a replacement.  Not to mention that these were gut strings, so even if someone had had a spare steel string around, wouldn't that have sounded weird?  Three gut strings and a steel string?  Talk about gauche!  (I didn't set out to throw lots of random French words into this post; it just kind of happened.)

Anyway, Hardingfele and I joined two other violin players and two cellists, and we played for two hours by the Salvation Army donation bucket.  If you noticed something missing in this picture, you are very astute:  no violas!  This means we had nobody to tell viola jokes to.  It also might have meant we were missing some important harmony, especially on the Corelli "Christmas Concerto" in G minor, but as fantastic of players as we are, that was probably the least of our issues.  The one violinist pulled out an accordion for the piano arrangements of the secular tunes, and we noticed we got a lot more donations during those songs than during the lovely religious tunes like "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming."  One cellist said maybe we should stick to the peppy secular stuff, and I noted that we actually got the most donations between songs, so she said, "Hm... maybe they're trying to tell us something."

As I may have mentioned before, I had no G string, so I was forced to play the first violin part.  Once in awhile things would go too low, so I would have to fudge with some harmony.  Then again, Hardingfele and I came across some kind of rhythmically bizarre harmony in one well-known carol, so we fudged that entirely.  We also had to borrow chairs from the Food Court, since I am still recovering from a cold and didn't want to spend two hours standing.  Otherwise, it was a fairly successful performance, even if I didn't have a G string.

Famous Hat