To live a life with no regrets is what first brought me through the doors of Headwaters Music & Arts. I had previously received eight years of violin lessons starting at the age of eight, but after I turned sixteen, my teacher moved away, and life became very busy. Over the years, I never found another violin teacher and my practice time dwindled away. As a young teenager, I had been given an old violin by some very dear friends, Don and Vera. Over the past 20 years, as life crowded out the time to play my violin, Don would ask me when I was going to start taking lessons again. He would lament that the old violin was not getting played like it had been before, and that it could sound so good if I took lessons and started practicing again.
I always had something that kept me too busy; school, work, etc., but finally, after all these years; I realized time was running down. With Don and Vera now in their nineties, if I wanted them to be able to hear the old violin sing again, I needed to make the time for lessons and practice. At the time, my old violin had broken strings since I had not picked it up or played it for so long. After getting a new set of strings, and then proceeding to break a few of them with my inexperienced tuning, I was on my way again with Julia as my instructor.
Now, seven months later with lessons and practice, Don and Vera can hear the old violin sing again. It was a challenge resuming lessons as an adult student. Some things take longer to learn than they did when I was a youngster. I also feel a bit more stiff and sore after playing than I remember; however, the joy of fulfilling that long-time wish for my very dear friends has made every minute worthwhile. I will never have to look back in years to come and wish they could have heard me play again. Now they can hear me all the time thanks to Headwaters Music & Arts’ recordings of my playing for their ease of viewing. Thank you, Headwaters Music & Arts! I am eternally grateful and look forward to many more years of music ahead.
Headwaters Music & Arts has been celebrating brighter days with recent lighting projects at their downtown Bemidji campus. Having been the recipient of a 2022 Clean Energy Resource Teams Seed Grant for community-based clean energy efforts Headwaters has been doing their part with automated light switches and more efficient LED lighting throughout their building. In this eleventh round of CERT’s Seed Grants the group says, “CERT’s awarded seed grants to 74 innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy projects — over twice as many as last round — in communities from Warren to Winona, Morton to Mountain Iron, Long Prairie to Lindstrom."