First of all, however trashy this year has been, time flies and it's 75% done.
Starting mid year this year, a very subconscious resolution started to recur, that is to pick up playing a classical string instrument again. I need to use the term string instrument because from the violin that I used to play throughout my school years, I have switched to the viola. It could be "beginners luck" but as far as the multi instruments I've been through, it feels like a string instrument of the right size for me.
As a not-so-diligent kid learning the violin, I paid zero effort into discovering anything beyond what was in front of my face. Mozart was a violin composer who composed minuet, Beethoven was a violin composer who composed a different minuet, Bach was a violin composer who composed minuet and gavotte. I'd done all the stupid things a violin 熊孩子 (Chinese slang, means an annoying kid, in particular in a not-so-smart way) would have done but I was not really ready to keep playing. Before leaving for college my violin teacher made some remarks that left an impression in me, that I should try the viola some time, get better at bowing, try to let the bow sing before spamming vibratos, but more importantly I should get more well-read in music, stop treating hitting the notes as the end goal but see if I can find some joy in drawing nylon strings with horse hair.
In college, I completely forgot about the violin and played many other instruments. Judge away but I'll line this up anyway in that I've played various drums, a random lute instrument called the Turkish oud, while for sake of playing in the Turkish ensemble with the class, I briefly went back to the violin cuz its "my instrument" to join any musical endeavor, I've played more rhythm section in the ensemble and continued to become more serious about drums and other unpitched percussions after college, and was involved with multiple groups of friends playing all sorts of normal band things like guitar, bass, ukulele, and so on.
In terms of composers or genres, Bach registers no longer as a violin composer but a man of Baroque time who took his contemporary tunes into his compositions with no shortage of originality, always creative and always giving out surprises. The Xinjiang style I liked as a violin kid has its unnamed connection with Ottoman music and guess which composer also became intrigued by all those similarities, Bartók Béla, who went on cataloging folk songs and practically created ethnomusicology. Although I'd been pretty roasted throughout my Jazz quarter (instruments and colors were still fine, I started to lose points having to identify musicians based on styles and I completely made craps out for my paper), at the very minimum I am more than delighted to have discovered ragtime as my favorite piano genre.
There is no way that ridiculous kid could have approached music the same way I can now. In particular my kid brain had no imagination whatsover, it was all logic, rationale, and induction. I did enjoy some eases with school work but assure you I'm a wrong kid to get started with music. Luck has me that I've kept it as a secondary line throughout my life anyway (with a 3-year sabatical dedicated to climbing), and now I'm actually ready to start enjoying music, listening or playing, in my own way paved by those goaless explorations. And the questions finally occur: What tone do I like? What sound do I make? What harmony touches me? And what instrument is my instrument?
But I guess in this peculiar time it's more about.. What delights us? Why become a closet musician? What's so great about classical music in a way that while the then as-prosperous telegraph industry had died, classical music, while making no particular contribution to human survival or life convenience, and while musicians on average earning less salary than certain other industry of our time, classical music is still prosperous.
There were some funny moments that Huijing and I encountered together as I picked up the viola. And then the storyline expanded. What is happening now is that she has a Shopify sticker store as a Shopify employee, and I've become a 打酱油 (Chinese slang, literally meaning you're a mere passer-by who's supposed to get soysauce only) storeowner as well, of this RedViolaPanda character who has many friends in her wonderful world of fluffy musicians. They play in the Fluffy Philharmonic joined by sporadic external guest musicians. They do fluffy cute things around their rehearsals and performances. They're not without conflicts but love each other at the end of the day.
The point is, we love them so much and we can't stop working on them for no particular reasons. Good things must share. Among other things, it's classical music fanship in this context.