Last night we were down at the PAC (Performing Arts Center) in the pit orchestra, when I heard this sound that made my heart jump.
Then Barbie, one of the violinists, stood up with her violin-- and her bridge in her hand. None of you play the violin, so you wouldn't know this, but the bridge is that wooden thing that holds the string up. Here's a picture--
And when this comes off, it's kind of a big deal. Cause if this comes off, there's a huge chance that the sound post will fall. The sound post is a little pole INSIDE the violin that basically brings it life. No sound post, no sound at all. That's why it's called the sound post. Go figure.
Now Barbie's violin is really expensive. She's majoring in music, so she has to have a great violin.
So her bridge was out, but, luckily, her sound post was still in. She walked it over to Mrs. Rose, our orchestra conductor, who fixed it.
Close call.
Then we were in the middle of 'Goodnight, my Someone' when I felt Zachariah accidentally hit my violin with his bow... or so I thought. I looked over to the left to see if he was okay, but all I saw was a thin white cloth fall over my violin, and Zachariah staring at me as if I'd just turned into a tree of brocolli. Then I realized that my bow wasn't working right-- it had completely broke at the tip! This is a picture of the tip-- it split in half left-to-right.
So there I was, with everyone around me playing the sound, holding a totally broken bow.
I didn't know what to do, but Zachariah did. He did what any sensible high-school boy would to when a friend broke her bow-- he started cracking up. Then the girl next to me, Anna, started laughing, too, and I decided that, hey, it was really funny, so I laughed while I pulled out my extra bow. Then I just kept on playing. When we finally finished, Zachariah, Anna, and I resumed cracking up. Everyone else looked towards us, trying to figure out what was so funny, and when they saw my bow, everyone was laughing really hard and asking me how it happened.
Then we had to get on with rehearsal, because, well... that's what we were there for. I finished off the rest of the rehearsal with my extra bow.
At the end, when the cast was on the edge of the stage, rehearsing some of the harder songs with us, I showed Jesse, a boy in my orchestra class, my bow. He completely freaked out, put his hands over his mouth, and started screaming. He pointed to me and yelled, "SHE WAS PLAYING SO HARD HER BOW BROKE!!" and before I knew it, almost all the actors were gathered on the stage above me, asking me questions and whatnot.
It felt kinda nice, to be the center of attention, to be honest.
Then I suddenly felt like it was too much attention and people would think that maybe it was on purpose, so I just finished packing up.
I was joking around and told another violinist that maybe next time it would be her… and Mrs. Rose agreed and said that there’s probably a ghost in the pit!
SO glad my mom wasn't mad...
Cause it really was funny.
Really.
