In this 7 Minutes, Aaron tells the tale of how he became the Milli Vanilli of his youth orchestra.
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music: thomas j. duke
S3 EPISODE 11: THE VIOLINIST - powered by Happy Scribe
This is Bret The Hit Man Hart and I got a very special shout-out going out to a very special man, but more importantly, just a very special, longtime fan of mine and a guy that has done some amazing things in there. I just want you to know how much I appreciate what a great fan you are and how you've always been in my corner for so many years. Always there for me.
But that's what everybody loves about you, Aaron. You're just there for everybody all the time. I want to wish you great success with your award-winning storytelling podcast. I know you've got one episode in particular, Wrestling is a Love Story, where you pay homage to a lot of the great wrestlers that played a part in your childhood growing up, and I'm lucky enough to have been one of them. I want to thank you for that.
I just want you to know I appreciate a fan like you that appreciates all the bumps and the grinding and the hard work that goes into the life of being a professional wrestler. Just know that I wish you continued success with your podcast series you got a great thing on your hands and I hope you do some great things with it.
Stay cool. Stay safe. Keep on rocking and all the best, Aaron. God bless.
You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato, this is season three. If you want to connect with us or grab some merch, visit us at 7minutestories.com. That's the number 7minutestories.com. This episode, The Violinist.
I don't remember how I got into the elementary school orchestra, but I do remember our first practice. I'm playing the violin, and there's a few features of this that I remember. One just sitting in the classroom, all the kids with their stringed instruments. I remember seeing the size of the cello in the bass and being like, that is an unbelievably physically imposing instrument, I thought to myself.
I'm glad I played the violin because it was portable. I could carry it around. The sound it made, though, not so good, for me at least, the squeaking of the bow against the strings, that was something I was like, I better get better at this. Then, the rosin, the dust. I remember that.
I just remember having a music stand in front of me and the teacher guiding us through reading music. The basic elements, EGBDF, FACE kind of thing. Also learning basic songs. When I could play the basic songs, it felt really good, I remember. It's like Mary Had a Little Lamb, Good King Wenceslas. Isn't that the [singing 00:02:51]. I don't know if that's the same song. That's what I remember.
I was at family Christmas my mom's side and they were like, "Aaron, would you play Good King Wenceslas?" I remember playing it and just being like, yes, this is an amazing moment flipping it now being an adult, like some kid squeaking along in the violin for me, I was like, this is a concert that could change the world. I performed it.
I enjoyed being in the orchestra, and I enjoyed playing the violin. We kept learning pretty cool pieces of music, but they were simple for me because I could follow along on the sheet music and I could start to play. I started sounding good. Because I started sounding good, I decided to improvise a little bit during these rehearsals. [singing 00:03:38] I would go [singing 00:03:40].
The conductor teacher just was like, she was like, "Bro, you can't do that." I'm like [singing 00:03:48]. She just said, "Stop! Got to stick with the song, man." It's like, okay, I'll fit in the box. No extemporaneous improvisation for me. I'll stay in this box. But when we weren't in actual rehearsal, at home, I was just making my own music and not reading it.
As the year went on and the rehearsals went on, I noticed a couple more things. One, I was having a hard time keeping up with the written music because it got more complicated. Before with the earlier songs, pretty simple, but with eighth notes and 16th notes and rests and all that stuff, I was having a hard time following along.
I'm looking around. There was a skills gap that was starting to emerge. The other violinists in the orchestra were excelling. There was this dude, Roland, I remember my man's playing concertos, [singing 00:04:37]. I'm like, whoa, I'm falling way behind. I'm being really self-conscious here.
As we're practising and we're reading the music, the only thing I could think to do to keep up, was to do what I knew well, which was to use my memory, to and play from memory and perform from memory. I didn't have perfect pitch. I didn't know what that was called at the time, but I had a really good memory melodically for sounds. I can mimic really well. I would just listen to the song and eventually I would memorize it and play it.
I essentially stopped reading music. Then I began to pretend. It was like performance art because I'm pretending to read the music and looking at it and just playing from memory. I did this for months at concerts, and for a while no one knew the difference. But then a couple of things happened. One, the music got more and more complicated so I could only remember certain portions.
I'm at these concerts. To overcompensate, instead of just laying low, I'm playing the violin like I'm the greatest violinist on earth. I'm halfway standing up from the seat. I'm shaking my head. My hair is flopping everywhere. I'm performing. Then what happened was when I couldn't read the music anymore and I couldn't play any of the song, I was literally pretending to play entire songs with the orchestra during the concerts.
I became the Milli Vanilli of elementary school Vinolinists. I got to be honest, it was fun. But because my performances started getting out of control and I'm standing up and bringing attention to myself, the teacher conductor, she noticed. She didn't say anything during one of the shows. But the next rehearsal that we had in class, she called me early.
She sat me down and she said, "Do you know how to read music?" I was like, "Yeah, a little bit." She said, "A little bit?" I said, "Yeah." She goes, "Are you pretending to play the songs during our concerts?" I was like, "What are you talking about?" She puts a sheet of music in front of me? She goes, "Play this." I lift the violin up and the bow... Sprinkle a little rosin on there.
I said, "I can't do it. I can't play it. Don't want to read music. Sorry." The jig was up. She was so disappointed in me. I remember her headsort of slumped down and she said, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave the orchestra." They kicked me out. I had never picked up a violin since that moment. So I was embarrassed. You would think I from that terrible moment of embarrassment, I would learn. Not a chance.
If you listen to this podcast for a long time, you can go back and listen to the story called The Audition, where as nearly a 20 year old man, I auditioned for a college programme with the guitar, which I had learned to improvise and play. But I didn't learn how to read music because it was so damn hard. I just wanted to do it my way and play music my way and sing with the instrument my way that I failed an audition to get into college.
So, yeah, history repeats itself, but maybe it was all supposed to happen because I eventually abandoned all those instruments. I still play the guitar, but I'm saying traditionally because all I wanted to do was tell a story melodically from my memory. I just have a new instrument now. It's my voice and a microphone.
Now there's not an orchestra or a conductor to tell me what to do. I'm the conductor. Now it's just a show of one. It's just me, and I'm not reading any music. I'm just playing from memory between me and you. This is my every week concert that I perform week after week after week after week. [singing 00:09:03] I'll talk to you next week.
7 Minute stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Our senior audio engineer is Ken Wendt. Our resident artist is Pete Whitehead. Original music by TJ Duke. If you or your company needs help starting a podcast, Aaron and Ken's company, Valley View does just that. Reach out to them at valleyview.fm. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcasts. I'm Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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