Rebecca Raney - The Reckless Violinist

Good afternoon! I’m happy to report that I’m still playing the violin. But I’m definitely pursuing my playing in a way that my teachers would not have liked. Earlier this year, I abandoned plans to dissect two of the major violin concertos – the Khachaturian and the Mendelssohn. If I had pushed...

Good morning! At this moment, it feels like we’re living in a constant state of national mourning in the United States. We mourn our lost children, we mourn our sense of progress, and we mourn the shared values that once made this nation seem undefeatable. For me, the larger losses of society...

During the last few weeks, I’ve been drafting, scripting, cutting clips and laying down the backing tracks for my one-year violin progress reel. The “violin progress” genre is a big deal on YouTube, so I wanted to get it right. As I pieced together a narrative, I thought about all the factors...

January was awful. The soundtrack: Hissing and howling, broken only by the heavenly melodies of Mozart. The month started with the uncomfortable decision to send a child to school during a COVID surge, just after he had recovered from major surgery. It continued with a barrage of traumatic...

This time last year, I was getting ready to play the violin again. Just after the election, the local violin maker refurbished the instrument. During the weeks after that, I learned how to tune again. It took me at least a half-hour to tune, every time. My neck was not ready for the challenge....

Good morning! When I sat down this month to work up the overture for the Nutcracker, it felt like a big moment. This time last year, I had just gotten my violin back from the shop, and I thought I would sit down and kick out the Nutcracker after 25 years away. Well . . . it didn't work out that...

Today I’m asking myself this question: Which idea came first? Was it the desire to mock all the advice I received about my attire as a competitive musician from the wrong side of town? Or was it the desire to play silly songs from Die Fledermaus? It’s hard to say, really, but both wishes came...

Good morning! It’s fall in California, and the cool weather reminds me of one thing: Youth Symphony. The auditions. The challenge system. The constant jockeying for position. It’s the place where I learned how to compete. Here's what I didn't learn: That the real white-collar world didn’t...