Lena, my 7yo, started taking violin lessons in January at her own behest. It’s been an interesting few months. I’ve learned some things about my daughter that surprise me.

Surprise number one: she gets foot-stampingly frustrated when she’s practicing. There are tears at least once a week. (I agree with her teacher, who said: “But she’s not supposed to cry while practicing until she’s in high school!”) It’s surprising because first of all, Lena’s generally phlegmatic. Not easily fazed. And second, all her life thus far she’s shown a pretty remarkable ability to persevere. Even as a toddler, she’d set herself a task, like jumping with both feet off the ground, or learning the alphabet, and she’d cheerfully work at it to the exclusion of all else until she achieved mastery. I rejoiced that my child was born with good study skills — something which despite many years of schooling I still don’t possess. But alas, this ability doesn’t seem to extend to violin-practicing. When we practice I am on shifting ground, unfamiliar territory, and I have to learn to navigate it better.

Surprise number two: she has a better ear than I realized. She can tell when her finger isn’t in the right position, and adjust accordingly. Long ago I had resigned myself to the sad fact that my children could not carry a tune and would never amount to anything much in the music department; in fact, that’s why we allowed Joey to do martial arts. But he’s taking piano now, and doing great. He can sing in tune now, too. Perhaps by the time Lena’s 10 she’ll be singing tunefully too. Moral: young child’s inability to sing in tune not necessarily an accurate predictor of future musical ability.

Surprise number three: about half the time, Lena “clutches” at her lesson, and plays worse than she does at home. This is something totally alien to me. I always loved to perform in recitals, concerts, auditions, even lessons — I know, this doesn’t sound like an introverted bookworm, and I have no idea where it comes from — and I always rose to the occasion. Pop quizzes? Standardized tests? Ditto. Joey does the same, often managing to pull off a good lesson even when he hasn’t practiced enough. But let me tell you I was pretty damn nervous last week as her first recital approached. Lena’s piece (for all you Suzuki violinists out there) was “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” which, luckily, has a super-simple piano accompaniment. Simple enough that I could play it without any trouble. We played it together several times every day during that week. Sometimes she’d play it perfectly, other times horribly. One thing she got really good at, though: continuing to play instead of “Oops”-ing and stopping. Clearly it was a question of concentration and nerves, not ability.

All week I worried about the upcoming recital. As the newest and youngest student she would play first. Many of the students are in high school, and quite advanced. One girl was going to play the first movement of the Bruch violin concerto, for god’s sake. And here was little Lena with “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” and I wanted so badly — for her sake, let me emphasize — for her to do well. It’s not easy to be Joey’s little sister. She really needs to have something of her own, you know?

Guess what? She played beautifully! I wish you could have seen her up there in the moments before she played. You could tell that she felt she ought to have a serious expression on her face, but this little half-smile kept appearing. She knew she did her best, and was so happy afterwards. There are (I hope) many more recitals in her future, but I know that there will never be another one as difficult as this.

I suppose the recital was a rite of passage for her, too. :)