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When I was
four-years-old the famous Wall Street crash of 1929 occurred
and devastated the U.S. economy for the next decade until the
Second World War began to inject some blood (literally) into
the economic fortunes of the capitalist world. My father’s
electrical contracting business, as with every other business
during “The Great Depression,” was bringing almost no money
into the household, so my mother, who in school had taken, as
all middle class girls did, a secretarial course, learning shorthand,
typing and how to “keep books,” found a daily 9 - 5 job in an
insurance brokers’ office as a secretary.
Calvin,
Age 4, with his mother
When I was
five-years-old, my mother took me to a well-known music studio
run by a Russian couple: a pianist and a violinist. I was to
start piano lessons with Mrs. Svet. They tested my ear by playing
a note and asking me to sing the same note. I did and then when
they stared to play the next note, I saw which key they were
going to play, and I sang the note before they struck the key.
The husband, Mr. Mandel Svet said,
“This boy has a wonderful ear and has perfect pitch...he
should take violin with me.”
So I came happily
home swinging a violin case. Actually it was shortsighted
on the part of both those teachers and my mother. I should have
started both violin
and
piano lessons.
I later regretted not having also learned the piano. For very
little extra effort at the time, especially with my mother being
a pianist, I could have easily been "bi-lingual” in both violin
and piano.
I was basically
a healthy boy with very quick reflexes and a very quick but
lazy mind. I was able to maneuver the intricacies of that most
awkward but most beautiful instrument without problems, and
without any undo or excessive work. Efficiency is described
as achieving the most with the least effort. I was exceedingly
efficient.
I would come
home from school at 3:30 p.m., run out to play with my friends,
and when I knew that my mother was about to arrive home at 5:15,
I would run upstairs, take my violin and would be practicing
when she came in the door. I would then lay my violin down and
pretend to be fatigued from “all that practicing” and then would
waste time until dinner. After dinner I did some homework, and
then I went to bed.
At the time
I found street football more interesting and more fun than practicing
the violin, so I practiced more hours throwing passes with a
football at a circle painted on the inside wall of our garage
than I did with throwing ‘passes’ with the bow ‘at’ the
violin!
Calvin with his Grandmother
Graduation, 1938
I had a talent for the violin and was also talented
in being able to do the least amount of school work while still
managing to pass. Of course, I did “work” the sympathy angle
with the teachers…telling them that I had to practice a lot
and telling my violin teacher that I had a lot of school homework
- playing one against the other. They were each always very
sympathetic to my overwhelming practicing and schoolwork ‘burdens,’
but I think that, in part, all those physical activities have
contributed to the superb physical condition that I enjoy today.
So perhaps all was not lost in the days that I should have been
practicing my violin and didn’t.
Unfortunately,
by being blessed with a quick and analytical mind, I was able
to “squeeze” by, both in school and in violin, with the minimum
amount of effort - a loss of time and potential development
that I only realized later.
A great deal
of my potential was mostly unrealized, but I am thankful that
at least I was given the chance to do something with my musical
abilities.
I have accomplished
as much as I could, in spite of the limitations of my early
development as a violinist.
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