I'm from the Adirondack Mountains in New York, and picked up a violin from the closet which had been sitting 20+ years with strings wound around the wrong pegs, someone gave it to my wife after she expressed interest.. after some drilling and new strings, I have been playing these months with passion.

A violinist said to me recently "you know, as far as the violin goes, you have to throw a peice of raw meat into the case every now and then to make it happy - it's that much of a lion to try and learn".  I agree!  But somehow this violin and I are reaching some mutual respect.

After catching the "I need a new violin" bug, I realize that a new expensive violin might be in the future, but there's no rush.  I like playing this one and that's all that matters to me right now.  

I play along with recorded music of all types, and downloaded the sheet music for the God Rest Ye" project - very inspiring.    I think the violin goes so well with some many genres that traditionally doesn't have a violin.  Lucky in our little mountain town we have an irish music jam session on Thursdays and a bluegrass one on Wednesdays, and on Saturday's there's church which they have not kicked me out of yet.  So that's something right there.

Talk to you all soon,

Mark