REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
By John Tredrea
I can well understand why the notion of scrapping or scaling back Primary Strings upsets some people.
I don’t think you can love music much more than I do. I’m addicted to music, period. I’ve got instruments and CDs and cassettes all over the place. In the center of my bureau is the first instrument I ever got the straight bugle the VFW gave me when my father put me in a drum and bugle corps at age 7 in 1954. This bugle still works. I use it sometimes on our younger son, who is still at home. He enjoys hearing reveille to get up or taps at bedtime or assembly when its time to assemble.
He didn’t like Primary Strings. Looking back, I think it would have been better if he hadn’t had to take it for three full years. But it was required, and he did. The squabbling over practicing the violin would have far better been spent on the Three R’s, it seems to me.
On the other hand: In the center of a shelf of a large closet I use for an instrument room is my fiddle (if Jascha Heifetz can call it a fiddle instead of a violin, and he did, then it must be OK). I wouldn’t have this fiddle if Primary Strings hadn’t been such a great experience for our older son. It has been interesting to contemplate human nature through the prism of our two sons. Alike in some ways, they are different as can be in others. I once described the older one as a cross between the young John Travolta and Bill Gates and the younger as a cross between Huckleberry Finn and Eminem (he’s a rap singer, speaking of music).
Both went to Hopewell Valley K-12. Both took Primary Strings, which was taught by great teachers.
The older one loved Primary Strings. He had much talent, I thought, for the violin. I was sorry when he finally gave it up. He was around 15 at the time. His first rock CD, by Green Day, was the death knoll for his violin playing. But I think playing the violin did for him everything that Primary Strings buffs are saying the program can do for you. It improved his discipline, concentration, sheer intellectual power, etc., etc. That’s how it seemed, anyway. I’ll never forget the first time I heard him play a song. It was "Betsy From Pike." He played it as a waltz (maybe it’s a jig). He had so much soul in it that my eyes misted. This was nearly 20 years ago. I knew then that the violin was a big thing for him. I did as much as I could, believe me, to keep him with it. My wife isn’t a musician, so that one fell to me. I was on a violin crusade for years.
At one point, in fourth grade, when he was no longer required to take violin, he seemed on the verge of quitting. This drove me to distraction. I decided to use reverse psychology. I asked him to teach me how to play. I figured the chance to tell me what to do would trick him into staying with the violin himself. It worked. He kept playing for a few more years. When he was 10, we joined a contra-dance band together. Played in it for five years. I’m still using stuff I learned there. To play in a band with your son . . . it doesn’t get much better than that. I still miss it. It was at the invitation of his Primary Strings teacher, by the way, that we got in the contra-dance band.
Yes, he gave up the fiddle years ago. But his Primary Strings benefits are still there. He wouldn’t be who he is without them. And I wouldn’t have my fiddle.
He took a year off between high school and college, worked double time for months and then spent four months in Europe, based in Prague. He got me a fiddle there, bargain price. It was made in 1932 by Bohuslav Lantner. That information, along with a bit of the Prague skyline, are carved into the inside of the violin body. You look through the soundhole to see it.
To say that fiddle means a lot to me is some kind of understatement. And one thing a fiddle can do is make a lot of other instruments seem easier to play. You have got to get down with your discipline and concentration and attention to technique to try to play one of those things. What I mostly make with it is strange noise. But I could never part with it or give it up. That’s a piece of my heart, that’s all that is.
Overpowered by what a great experience Primary Strings was for John Travolta-Bill Gates, we assumed it would be great for Huckleberry Finn-Eminem also. Looking back, though, I think that I would have favored pulling him out of that program if we could to it again. It just didn’t click. It made going to school harder. It was tough enough. You know how Huckleberry and Eminem are on stuff like that. And the violin, after all, is not the main reason for being in school. Far from it.
We tried everything to make it click for the younger one, including private lessons from two violin teachers. It just wasn’t in the cards. My wife might not agree with me, so please don’t tell her about this story.
I guess the bottom line is that the only way to find out if it’s good for your child, and it was a watershed for my oldest, is to have them try it. We could tell well before the first year was over that it was good for him and would have stayed with it, without question. Not so for the other guy. I think he would have been better off without it.
Take your pick. You can learn an instrument in all kinds of places. School is one of them. Music is one of the great joys of life. To make an enjoyment a requirement seems not that enjoyable an idea to me. Maybe for one year. You’ve got to give some things a serious try to see what’s up. I don’t think you need three years. Not in this case.

