Not my fault
Jun 9, 2014 10:33:55 GMT -5
Post by captainspaulding on Jun 9, 2014 10:33:55 GMT -5
Back in March during that last brutal cold snap, I was getting ready to practice my violin when a phenomena occurred that wasn’t my fault. I want to repeat the last part, it wasn’t my fault. I was in my violin corner which was cool but not nearly as cold as practicing in the basement. As usual I started off doing scales. I’m hoping someday that I can actually recognize the correct notes. I’m sawing away when my E string let go completely taking me unawares. It didn’t break it just flopped down on the fingerboard. I had made the assumption that I was putting too much pressure on the strings with my bow. I do have a titanium tipped, space-aged polymer Flexbow 2000 and I can actually play a quadruple stop even though it does sound like a banshee wailing in the night. So while the string giving way was unexpected it wasn’t a cause for alarm.
I grabbed the peg like I’ve seen Ms L do and gave it a twist and hammered it back into place. As for tuning, I don’t have one of those tuning apps so I played ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’. It didn’t sound quite right but it was good enough for me. I settled in to begin the scales all over again when the other three strings let loose, literally they just wobbled all over the fingerboard like a broken clothesline. That’s when I went into Guy Panic Mode.
Since most of our ensemble consists of women, you probably aren’t aware of Guy Panic Mode. That is a condition where we, as guys, realize that something is about to happen that is clearly not our fault and what is worse we are going to get blamed for it. This is ingrained in us at a very early age. When I was eight years old standing behind the garage with a cigar and some matches, there suddenly out of nowhere appeared Mom. She starts by yelling my whole name; first, middle and last which immediately puts you in Guy Panic Mode. I hadn’t done anything wrong. She assumed I was going to smoke but I hadn’t and what was she doing slinking around behind the garage anyway? Fast forward to junior high, there I am in the boy’s bathroom with a cherry bomb and some matches when in walks a teacher. He starts by yelling and dragging me to the principal’s office. He assumed I was going to light the cherry bomb and put it in the toilet but I hadn’t and what was he doing in the boy’s bathroom anyway, don’t they have bathrooms in the teacher’s lounge?
The conditioning of Guy Panic Mode doesn’t stop just because you grow up. I was in my mid twenties when I went back to college and to support myself I would roof houses when I was home on breaks. One of the houses I roofed at the end of summer had developed a leak near the chimney so when I came home at Thanksgiving time my brother and I went out to fix it. The thing with roofing tar is that even in mid-summer it has the consistency of peanut butter and in forty degree weather it is like a rock. We showed up at the house which just happened to be in the country when I noticed a junk pile by the side of the garage and had a great idea. I found a metal dishpan and some coffee cans. I told my brother we could start a small fire in the mouth of the garage and place a coffee can full of tar in the dishpan with water. The tar can only get to the temperature of boiling water and it will smear like butter. We go up on the roof, pour it on and Bob’s your uncle.
Have you ever smelled burning tar? What a stench. To speed things along I took the gasoline can and poured some on the fire. WOW, I never expected this to happen. The fire came right up the gas to the spout. I am now holding a lit gasoline can. Thinking it might explode I jerked the can to the left and spread flames all over the garage wall. I jerked it right and spread flames all along the concrete floor. I jerked back again to the left and missed the wall only because my brother had stepped in to put out the flames and now he was on fire. I threw the can out into the driveway and that snuffed out the can. I then went to put my brother out and except for the missing eyebrows, singed hair and soot marks all over his coat no harm was done. We fixed the roof and headed to my parents where upon pulling in the driveway out comes Mom. Doesn’t this woman have anything else to do? Upon seeing my brother and me holding the gas can she assumes it’s my fault and we start all over with my whole name, etcetera just further reinforcing the Guy Panic Mode.
Back to the present, I know what you are saying. This is completely different mainly because you don’t have matches. Ah ha, not true. I am standing alone, in the house with a violin that has strings flopping like my grandmother’s bra straps. I will get blamed for this and why were her bra straps always down on the sides of her arms anyway?
Not knowing what to do at this point I called Ms L. and left a message. Fortunately she called right back and she didn’t use my whole name (probably because she doesn’t know it). First thing she said is the Sounding Peg upright. I’m an engineer, it isn’t a Sounding Peg it’s a dowel. That’s all it is just a dowel. I’m pretty sure the name Sounding Peg came from Bob Stradivari, younger and goofy brother to Antonio. He would go to the local pubs and try picking up women with the line, ‘want to come home and see my Sounding Peg’, because we all have nicknames for it. As it turns out my Sounding Peg was upright, the dowel not….never mind. Ms L then proceeded to tune my violin over two cell phones by proxy. I was amazed but it wasn’t my fault.
Being an engineer I have to get to the root cause for the peg failure and I think it is because of thermal expansion. The violin was cold and my hand heated the neck faster than the pegs which caused the wood to expand allowing the slippage. The countermeasure to prevent this from happening again is to glue those suckers in. As I got the glue for some reason I can already feel the Guy Panic Mode setting in.
I grabbed the peg like I’ve seen Ms L do and gave it a twist and hammered it back into place. As for tuning, I don’t have one of those tuning apps so I played ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’. It didn’t sound quite right but it was good enough for me. I settled in to begin the scales all over again when the other three strings let loose, literally they just wobbled all over the fingerboard like a broken clothesline. That’s when I went into Guy Panic Mode.
Since most of our ensemble consists of women, you probably aren’t aware of Guy Panic Mode. That is a condition where we, as guys, realize that something is about to happen that is clearly not our fault and what is worse we are going to get blamed for it. This is ingrained in us at a very early age. When I was eight years old standing behind the garage with a cigar and some matches, there suddenly out of nowhere appeared Mom. She starts by yelling my whole name; first, middle and last which immediately puts you in Guy Panic Mode. I hadn’t done anything wrong. She assumed I was going to smoke but I hadn’t and what was she doing slinking around behind the garage anyway? Fast forward to junior high, there I am in the boy’s bathroom with a cherry bomb and some matches when in walks a teacher. He starts by yelling and dragging me to the principal’s office. He assumed I was going to light the cherry bomb and put it in the toilet but I hadn’t and what was he doing in the boy’s bathroom anyway, don’t they have bathrooms in the teacher’s lounge?
The conditioning of Guy Panic Mode doesn’t stop just because you grow up. I was in my mid twenties when I went back to college and to support myself I would roof houses when I was home on breaks. One of the houses I roofed at the end of summer had developed a leak near the chimney so when I came home at Thanksgiving time my brother and I went out to fix it. The thing with roofing tar is that even in mid-summer it has the consistency of peanut butter and in forty degree weather it is like a rock. We showed up at the house which just happened to be in the country when I noticed a junk pile by the side of the garage and had a great idea. I found a metal dishpan and some coffee cans. I told my brother we could start a small fire in the mouth of the garage and place a coffee can full of tar in the dishpan with water. The tar can only get to the temperature of boiling water and it will smear like butter. We go up on the roof, pour it on and Bob’s your uncle.
Have you ever smelled burning tar? What a stench. To speed things along I took the gasoline can and poured some on the fire. WOW, I never expected this to happen. The fire came right up the gas to the spout. I am now holding a lit gasoline can. Thinking it might explode I jerked the can to the left and spread flames all over the garage wall. I jerked it right and spread flames all along the concrete floor. I jerked back again to the left and missed the wall only because my brother had stepped in to put out the flames and now he was on fire. I threw the can out into the driveway and that snuffed out the can. I then went to put my brother out and except for the missing eyebrows, singed hair and soot marks all over his coat no harm was done. We fixed the roof and headed to my parents where upon pulling in the driveway out comes Mom. Doesn’t this woman have anything else to do? Upon seeing my brother and me holding the gas can she assumes it’s my fault and we start all over with my whole name, etcetera just further reinforcing the Guy Panic Mode.
Back to the present, I know what you are saying. This is completely different mainly because you don’t have matches. Ah ha, not true. I am standing alone, in the house with a violin that has strings flopping like my grandmother’s bra straps. I will get blamed for this and why were her bra straps always down on the sides of her arms anyway?
Not knowing what to do at this point I called Ms L. and left a message. Fortunately she called right back and she didn’t use my whole name (probably because she doesn’t know it). First thing she said is the Sounding Peg upright. I’m an engineer, it isn’t a Sounding Peg it’s a dowel. That’s all it is just a dowel. I’m pretty sure the name Sounding Peg came from Bob Stradivari, younger and goofy brother to Antonio. He would go to the local pubs and try picking up women with the line, ‘want to come home and see my Sounding Peg’, because we all have nicknames for it. As it turns out my Sounding Peg was upright, the dowel not….never mind. Ms L then proceeded to tune my violin over two cell phones by proxy. I was amazed but it wasn’t my fault.
Being an engineer I have to get to the root cause for the peg failure and I think it is because of thermal expansion. The violin was cold and my hand heated the neck faster than the pegs which caused the wood to expand allowing the slippage. The countermeasure to prevent this from happening again is to glue those suckers in. As I got the glue for some reason I can already feel the Guy Panic Mode setting in.