Or as the saying used to be, “It’s not the arrow, it’s the indian.”
Last week, Adventure Girl got an early birthday present in the form of tickets to Lindsey Stirling’s Warmer In The Winter Christmas concert tour. For folks who don’t know who LIndsey Stirling is, here’s a video for one of her Christmas covers.
Yes, she’s the “hip-hop violinist” from America’s Got Talent. She’s really good at what she does, and put on a great show. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I highly recommend it. But that’s not the main point of this blog. The point is that during one section of the concert, Lindsey and her two main band members put down their regular instruments and pick up… toys, essentially. Lindsey plays a tiny child-sized violin, the keyboard player is at an old-school toy piano, and the drummer is at a kid’s drum set. Then they play a Christmas medley.
Here’s the thing: if you handed me a violin made by a master craftsman, which in the hands of an expert is capable of creating music of such evocative beauty as to make grown men weep, I won’t be able to do much more than coax out a few ear-splitting screeches. I’ve never played a violin in my life. But hand something that most people look down on as a toy or a mere child’s starter to an expert, and you get beautiful music. It was a great reminder to me that the hours spent refining a craft aren’t in vain. They’re for mastering something.