Electric Violin

I am desperately trying to talk myself out of this awesome electric violin.

I got a violin years ago with the idea that I would learn to play it. It wasn't a very good one and bow was too small, but I hauled it around for nearly eight years and across country twice before giving it to a little boy in Massachusetts as his first instrument.

Here's the story (at least my side of the story). My parents always wanted my sister and I to be musical.I took piano, my sister took voice lessons, we both took recorder, Sara tried drums, then I took up saxophone. I wasn't bad, the basic notes come pretty easily to me, but my sister really didn't like any instrument so my parents were especially keen to get her interested in something. One summer Sara and I both wanted to learn fiddle but, because I already had an instrument I liked, Sara got lessons and I did not. I was very disappointed, especially when Sara lost interest in the fiddle a few months later, and I have been wanting to learn ever since. This was also around the time that I heard the Edgar Lee Masters poem about Fiddler Jones that ends:

"I ended up with forty acres;

I ended up with a broken fiddle,

and a broken laugh

          and a thousand memories, 

                 and not a single regret"

I always liked to think that someday I would end up the same as Fiddler Jones, which may have lead to my slight infatuation with the fiddle. Well, now there's this awesome electric/silent violin on Amazon for $129, which is a lot of money, but I could practice in my apartment without waking the neighbors and enraging my roommate.

This may just be a Christmas present to myself...