My Violin


by Sisyphus

It's a strange thing but to this very day when I start to play the violin I feel a slight twinge in my posterior. The matter all goes back to my training under Professor Bently. It was my mother's idea that I should take violin lessons. She had always dreamed of being a professional pianist, and she transferred that dream onto me when she purchased a violin for my use at age twelve. A neighbor recommended Professor Bently to be my teacher. He had once played professionally with the Hyde Park Quartet and was now making a living by teaching his art to others.

The day of my first lesson I went to his home with my instrument under my arm. He opened the door and I entered a somewhat darkened living room. He kept all the blinds pulled down and relied only on the overhead electric light for illumination. It was always this way, so I assume that he did not like direct sunlight. The living room contained various pieces of furniture and the piano he used to accompany his violin students.

He told me to place my violin on the table and then pointed out that my hands and fingernails were too dirty to play the instrument. He insisted that I go into the bathroom to clean them before he would give me any instruction. It was most embarrassing. You can be sure that afterwards I always carefully cleaned my fingernails before I came to his door.

When I returned to the living room, he began to instruct me in the correct way to take the instrument from its case, tighten the bow, and tune the four strings--G, D, A, and E. He then showed me how to place the instrument under my chin. He demonstrated that I could hold the violin between my chin and shoulder without using my hands at all. It took many tries before I could do this easily and I found the pressure on my shoulder rather painful, but I was finally able walk around the room with the violin held in this way.

Then Professor Bently indicated how I should grasp the violin's neck with my left hand, placing my fingers on the strings while pulling my left elbow deep underneath the body of the instrument. Again I found this posture somewhat painful. Yet it was not until I had demonstrated that I could consistently maintain that arm position for a few minutes that he showed me how to crook my right hand over the bow to hold it properly. The feeling was quite unnatural and the Professor spent most of the first session adjusting my arms and hands so that I positioned the instrument properly.

At the end, he gave me three simple songs to learn--"Three Blind Mice," "The Star Spangled Banner," and another for which the name is now forgotten. That was the first of many lessons that I had from Professor Bently, lessons that took place every week for more than six years.

When I came the second time, Professor Bently examined the way I was then holding the violin and pronounced it "pitiful." He told me that he would have to start all over again to show me how to hold the instrument properly. This time, he said, I should remove my shirt so that he could clearly see which muscles I was using as I positioned the instrument. Thus, bare from the waist up, I held the violin under my chin as he manipulated my arms, fingers, and neck into the right positions. We spent almost no time on the three songs I had practiced during the previous week.

From that day on at every lesson for the rest of the first year I was required to bare myself from the waist up before taking the violin from its case. At twelve I was quite naive and thought this was just part of the teaching process, so I never told my parents about having to take my shirt off in the Professor's living room. It wasn't until many years later that I realized that Professor Bently was probably more interested in looking at my naked upper body than he was in assuring that I was holding the instrument correctly.

In any case, I gained musical skill as the lessons continued. I even became one of his "special students," ones he believed showed enough promise to someday become professional musicians. Professor Bently gave me ever more complex and difficult fingering exercises and pieces of music to work on. He insisted that I practice at least an hour each day, and because I was beginning to enjoy my newfound ability, I did just that.

Then one week I was so enmeshed in school projects and study (I was then in seventh grade) that I neglected my practice sessions. My lesson that week revealed this fact almost immediately.

"You didn't practice this week, did you?" Professor Bently asked as soon as I played just a few notes for him.

"Not as much as usual," I replied. "I was too busy with school work."

"Well that's no way to learn the violin," he said. "Don't you realize that your parents are paying good money for your lessons? If you don't practice, you're just wasting their money and my time."

Weakly I replied, "I'm sorry, I won't let it happen again."

"I'm going to make sure you don't," he said. "Either you practice an hour every day, or you quit taking lessons from me right now."

I felt rather miserable for letting my teacher and my parents down, and I secretly vowed to double my practice time during the next week. But the Professor was not through scolding me. He told me that he would give me no new music this week and that the lesson time would have to be taken up with my practicing the fingering exercises in front of him, the exercises that I was supposed to have worked on at home. Then, to my great surprise, he added that he would have to punish me before I started doing them.

He told me to put the violin I was holding on the table, and that he was going to spank me with his "special bow." He then took out of a drawer in the table a large bow that was missing the ribbon of horsehair that produces tones when drawn against the strings of the instrument. It had once been a cello bow, but without the horsehair, it was not much more than a wooden shaft.

With this "special bow" in hand, the Professor told me to drop my pants and to bend over the piano bench. Confused, I didn't know what to do. He clearly meant to apply this wooden shaft to my bottom, and nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I never was spanked at home. When my parents wanted to discipline me, they just sent me to my room. I stood before the Professor with my mouth wide open.

"Drop your pants," he repeated, "and I mean all your pants, including your underpants! Then bend over the piano bench."

My face must have turned a dozen colors of red before I finally decided to comply and lowered my trousers and underpants. Until then I had been bare in front of him only above my waist, but now I was bare down to my shoes. I bent over the piano bench, my hands and head drooping over one side and my feet touching the floor on the other. My bottom was sticking up above the bench. The Professor pulled my trousers away from where they surrounded my ankles and put them on the table next to my shirt and violin case.

Then, suddenly without warning, he brought the "special bow" down on my posterior with tremendous force. The shaft of wood made quite a bite, and I screamed. I don't know whether the pain or humiliation of this situation hurt me the worst at first. But as he struck me again and again it was clear that the pain predominated. I screamed, cried, and eventually sobbed as the cello bow laced across my bottom. I don't know how many times the wood found its place on my bare rear, but my buttocks must have been covered with welts by the time he finished, and I knew my bottom must be a nasty color of red.

After that, he told me to stand up and begin to practice the fingering exercises. Still sobbing softly, I rose slowly from the bench and reached for my trousers. He told me to leave them where they were. So I had to perform the exercises standing there in my birthday suit. I still don't know how I got through the lesson, humiliated as I was and sore as was my backside. I don't think I even did the exercises correctly, but then I was finding it hard to concentrate on them.

When I got home I went to my room and looked in the mirror to discover that my worst fears were justified. My bottom was a mass of red and pink lines, each about the width of the wooden bow. I didn't say anything to my parents about this incident, partly because I was so ashamed to have been treated this way and partly because I had no idea how they might react. Would they withdraw me from further violin lessons or would they, perhaps, thank Professor Bently for taking care of their errant son in this way?

That next week I practiced long and hard, almost two hours every day. My parents were surprised at my determination, and probably rather pleased at my increasing musical skill. So was Professor Bently, who told me that he had many pupils of all ages and both _s_e_x_es yet only four that he considered to have musical talent. I, he pointed out, was one of those four "special students."

My lessons went well for the next few weeks, although I was finding some of the music he assigned quite difficult. One week I went to my lesson without mastering a piece, even though I had worked on it quite hard during my home practice sessions. He told me I would have to be spanked again for failing to play this piece correctly, and so I was once again lying over the piano bench with my bare buttocks exposed to the sting of his "special bow." Several lessons later the same thing happened. I began to pray to myself each time he handed me a new piece of music that it would not be too difficult to learn properly during my week's practice.

But then came the time for Professor Bentley's annual recital. He had all his students prepare for this program, which was held in a small auditorium with most of the doting parents in attendance. For me, he had decided to assign a violin rendering of "The Swan" from Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals." The notes to this piece are not difficult to play, but the dynamics can be murder, and Professor Bently was insistent that I play the piece correctly and smoothly, so smoothly that the average listener wouldn't even recognize when my bow stroke changed from a descending to an ascending one.

I practiced the piece over and over again for a week until I could play it for memory. Then I knew I was ready for my lesson.

When I got to Professor Bently's and took my shirt off and lifted my violin in preparation for playing "The Swan," he stopped me and told me that we needed to discuss the performance first. "You are one of my students who has musical potential," he began, "and so I want to be sure that you play this piece correctly at the recital."

I stood there listening, my shirt on the table and my violin hanging limply from my right hand.

"Do you agree that you should try to play this piece with perfection?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied, not sure where he was going with this conversation.

"There are two ways to learn anything," he continued. "One is by reward when you do a thing right; the other is by punishment when you do it wrong. The first way is a rather slow way to learn. The second is much faster, so I prefer the second."

It was still unclear to me what he was talking about, but I stood there dutifully listening.

"How do you know when you make a mistake in your playing?" he asked me.

"Well, I can usually hear it," I answered. "And sometimes you tell me."

"That is why every student needs a teacher to tell them when they have done right or wrong," the Professor said. "Now if I just compliment you whenever you finish playing something right, you will never know when you do wrong. Isn't that correct?"

Again I nodded.

Then came the shock. "In preparation for this recital," Professor Bently said, "I am going to use the 'special bow' to let you know whenever you make a mistake." He then took the bow from the drawer in the table and held it ready in his hand.

"I'm not going to give you a spanking with this," he said, "but take off your pants so that I have a target to aim at when you make a mistake."

Now it was clear to me. The Professor was planning to hit my backside every time I made a mistake. The prospect made me quite nervous, but I still removed my clothing as he demanded. Then I lifted my violin and began to play the piece for him from memory.

No more than five notes into "The Swan" and I felt a sharp sting as the bow struck my right buttock's cheek. I knew what was wrong. I had been slightly flat on the pitch of the fifth note. I began the piece again, this time being extra careful to finger each note correctly. And then, in about the fifth measure, my left cheek suffered the same fate that my right one had.

I stopped and asked the Professor what I had done wrong.

"Don't you see the crescendo markings in the score?" he asked me.

I hadn't really seen them because I was so concentrating on the notes. "Oh, yes," I answered, as I prepared to begin the piece again. And so the hour-long session went. When I was through, I was exhausted and my backside felt like it had gone through a wringer. It was certainly as sore as it would have been had I been given a whipping over the piano bench. But I was also aware of the fact that I was now playing "The Swan" with the right intonations.

At the recital I played well, as did the other three "special students." It was the first occasion for me to meet these boys, all older than myself. My parents were very proud of my musical accomplishment. The Professor's other students played in a way that was either mediocre or poor.

At the next lesson the Professor told me that I had done so well that I would no longer need to take my shirt off at every lesson and that, if I continued to do as well as I did at the recital, I would probably never have to be spanked with the "special bow" again. That statement made me quite relieved.

The weekly lessons continued and I made ever more progress. Then, at the beginning of the second year, the Professor told me he thought I was ready to take his special Saturday afternoon class, which he held once a month. The only students allowed to attend this were his "special students," and the sessions were free. He explained that together they played violin duets, trios, and quartets. There would be no assignments as the group sight-read each piece of music. It would be a great opportunity for me to sharpen my musical skills.

So the following Saturday afternoon I arrived at the Professor's home to find that the other three "special students" were already there tuning their violins. We sat in a circle with music stands in front of us. When we were all ready to begin, the Professor distributed the sheet music we were to play that day. The first number was a quartet arranged specifically for violins. We began.

I had never before played in concert and was not used to listening to the other violins for my cues. So I made many mistakes in timing, coming in after the others sometimes and often entering a phrase too soon. But I did hit all the notes correctly.

At the end, the Professor asked us what was wrong with the way we played the piece. The other three boys said that I made too many mistakes and that they had a terrible time trying to meld their notes with mine.

"What do we do about mistakes?" the Professor asked the three of them.

"Punish the person who made them," the oldest boy answered, looking straight at me.

"I'm sorry," I told them, "I've never seen this music before today."

"Neither have we," another one of the three said. "The rule here is that anyone who fouls up a performance gets a whipping. And you really fouled up that performance."

I looked nervously at the three of them, but saw no mercy in their eyes. The Professor was already opening the drawer that held his "special bow." He also pulled out what appeared to be the backside of a violin that had become unglued. He handed the "special bow" to the oldest boy and the wooden violin section to the next oldest. Then two of them grabbed me by my shoulders and bent me over, pulling down my pants and underwear at the same time. The third boy stood in front of me and forced my head between his legs, shoving down on my shoulders at the same time. The two holding the implements of chastisement pulled my shirt up to increase the exposure of my rear. And then they took turns pounding my bottom with the "special bow" and the violin section.

I squirmed and yelled, but I couldn't pull away from the head lock in which the younger boy's legs were holding me. When they decided I had had enough they released me, but insisted that I stand for the rest of the session with my buttocks exposed to their view while they played several trios and duets that Professor Bently now provided.

The incident was most embarrassing, and I really didn't want to attend the class session next month. But the Professor insisted and so I was there when one of the others fouled up. I then had the pleasure of holding his head and shoulders down while the two more senior members blistered his backside.

There were many more Saturday afternoons and many more buttocks-bare whippings, some for me, some for the others, but the Professor never again had to spank me over the piano bench. I was becoming too good a violinist for that. And, when I eventually entered Oberlin Conservatory, I proved to be one of their top students. I now play second violin in one of the major American orchestras. But, as I said at the beginning, I still feel a twinge in my posterior whenever I start to play.


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