Reconcile with the Violin
Table of Contents
A diary entry about playing the violin again after a long hiatus.
Why the Violin Now
Lately, between picking up the guitar again after 10 years and a friend starting a new instrument, my passion for music has been reignited. In the midst of all this, it suddenly occurred to me: “Why not play the violin again?”
I harbor complicated feelings toward the instrument known as the violin. I took lessons from the age of two, gave up once, and still managed to keep at it intermittently through high school and college, but in the end I moved on to DTM (desktop music), where I could do everything by myself. Ever since, the violin has been a symbol of “frustration,” “unfulfilled talent,” and what Jung calls the “shadow (the unlived self)“—and frankly, I didn’t like it.
So why did I, after more than a decade, feel like confronting the violin once again?
The Catalyst
Three days ago, while looking for a song to jam on with a friend who had picked up the saxophone, I suddenly remembered the music of Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.
Whenever I listen to the opening theme of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, for some reason a specific visual scene plays back every time. It’s a summer scene from my middle school days. Walking through the schoolyard with a friend under a pleasantly strong sun, looking up at the national flag and the school flag swaying in the wind. My field of vision from that exact moment comes flashing back.
Why does this track stir my heart so much? Of course, there’s the personal memory of port forwarding failing to work, which made it the BGM I listened to the longest. But looking at the music itself, the core of its charm is undoubtedly the beautiful violin melody.
This reunion reminded me of a life task I had almost forgotten. If there is an “unlived self (shadow),” confront it and integrate with it—such is the teaching of Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Momo Chiyoda (from The Demon Girl Next Door). I must reconcile with the violin that symbolizes my shadow.
Touhou and Me
Within me, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody occupies a strangely special place. If asked to name my top three favorite games, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody would almost never make the list, yet there is no doubt that, both subconsciously and consciously, it has had a profound impact on my life.
Why is Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody such a special work to me? I don’t understand it at all.
And yet, perhaps it’s because Scarlet Weather Rhapsody was the very starting point of my musical experience. Allow me to look back briefly on my musical history.
Second Year of Middle School
Playing “secret society” with friends, we got to talking about doing something musical, so I had my parents buy me an electronic keyboard. The very first piece I played on the piano back then was the ending theme of Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.
Second Year of High School
I had stepped away from Touhou for a while, but during our high school class trip, a friend I wasn’t particularly close to (who had apparently seen me playing Patchucon from behind during computer class) struck up a conversation with me. We hit it off talking about Touhou, and my passion reignited. After getting home, I played Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism for the first time in ages, and was blown away by the Extra stage theme, “Last Remote.”
I pulled out the electronic keyboard for the first time in five years and tried playing “Last Remote.” When I did, for some reason, the left-hand accompaniment for just the chorus section was astonishingly easy to play.
The reason was that the key for the chorus of “Last Remote” matched that of Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, which I’d played back in middle school, so I had already mastered the left-hand fingering (Eb → F → Gm).
In that moment, I discovered the concept of “chords.” This became the decisive catalyst for taking an interest in music theory and diving into the world of DTM, where you can build an entire orchestra on a computer.
Conclusion
In other words, my musical history is epitomized by these two works: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Subterranean Animism. The latter saw a provisional completion in the form of DTM, but the former—the task symbolized by Scarlet Weather Rhapsody—had remained unfinished.
When all is said and done, I love the timbre of the violin. Whenever I open my DAW, the very first virtual instrument I load is always a violin, and without fail, the songs that captivate me always feature a violin.
Reuniting with Scarlet Weather Rhapsody gave me the ultimate opportunity to face this unfinished task. “Flawless Clothing of the Celestials” was chosen as the track for our jam session, which is also symbolically intriguing.
Bhavaagra (Heaven), where “Flawless Clothing of the Celestials” plays, is the world axis in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. Bhavaagra serves as the passage connecting the earthly world and the celestial realm; triggered by seismic energy flowing down from the heavenly world, nearly all characters end up working to restore the world axis.
The world axis is also a singularity where all threads of time intertwine (which may be why the overarching story of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody takes on such an intricately tangled Grand Hotel ensemble format). It is almost too tailor-made a vantage point from which to look back upon the past.
Putting It into Practice
With resolve in my heart, I pulled my violin out of the closet and tried playing it.
The pain in my left hand from pressing the strings, which used to be so unpleasant. But to fingers accustomed to the guitar, the string tension of a violin was practically nothing. I was amazed at how much easier and pain-free it was to finger the strings compared to my memories.
…Well, this might just be because strings left strung for 10 years have long outlived their lifespan and zombified. Merely bowing the open G string a bit firmly causes it to buzz against the fingerboard, so it is certainly not at its proper tension.
So, I’m heading out to buy some violin strings today.
More articles
- Violin and the End of Summer• #ViolinPracticing Scarlet Weather Rhapsody on the violin.
- Battling Beneath the Waves with a Violin• #ViolinPracticing "Combat Beneath the Waves" on the violin.
- Reconciling with the Violin• #ViolinMy impressions after pulling out my violin for the first time in 10 years and playing a bunch of pieces.
- Impressions of Genshin Impact Ver. 7.1 Snezhnaya, Up Through Act IV "A Rekviem for the Underworld"• #Genshin ImpactAfter two years, I've finally caught up with the current release.
Notes on games, radio and technology, translated from the Japanese blog.