Hello.

Now we're going to meet a violinist on our symphonic safari adventure.

Come with me, shall we?

Hello.

Hello, I'm Roger, Roger Rhythm and you are Taylor.

That's right.

Hi, Roger.

Hello, how are you today, Taylor?

I'm doing well.

Thank you.

And tell me I will get started because you have your violin with you today and we're going to hear it, which is fantastic.

Now, Taylor, I want to know how old were you when you first started playing the violin?

I was ten years old.

I had already been playing the piano and I saw all my friends in my elementary school orchestra starting to learn string instruments, and my grandparents happened to have my great grandfather's fiddle in their attic.

So I said, yeah, I would like to play that.

And so we got it restrung and off I went.

So music was a part of your childhood?

Absolutely.

Yes, my family loved music.

My grandma actually taught me piano lessons for a couple of years, but I really, really loved the violin.

It's a fascinating instrument.

Could you tell us the range of the lowest to the highest for us?

Yeah!

Perhaps even play it.

It is.

It's the highest instrument in the string family, so I'll show you with Mary had a little lamb.

You can go kind of in the middle.

It gets very high.

Oh that's very high.

Mary had a little lamb.

Speaking of, Mary had a little lamb.

Was that the first song you learned to play or is there another?

Well, a lot of violinists start with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

But I was really interested in all kinds of music, and I wanted to play something that everybody knew like.

So I loved Broadway musicals.

So for my first recital, I actually played, "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from Oklahoma.

Dressed in a jean skirt and cowboy boots, it was very West Virginia.

Could you play some of that for us, please?

Of course.

Bravo.

That was fantastic, I want to jump up and dance and sing afterwards.

Now this is a very unique instrument, the violin.

Could you tell us what's the most unique thing about it?

Well, there are so many things, but something that I think is especially interesting is that on our bow, which is what we use to make sound, we have a frog at the bottom.

Do you see it?

Is it moving?

It actually has two eyes on either side.

But we call it the frog.

And you know, it can make a little a little ribbit, but we do call it the frog.

Another interesting thing is that so these strings now are made out of metal, but they used to be made out of guts from animals.

It doesn't sound like a lot of fun for the animals.

No, not anymore.

Amazing.

Other parts of the violin?

Sure, we have the hair on the bow, which actually comes from a horse.

The horse gets a little haircut and it gets cleaned up and we put the bow, the hair on the bow, and that's how we make a sound.

Wow, that is amazing.

I know you love the violin, right?

Absolutely.

Tell me, what do you love most about it?

What do I love most?

I love the ability that I can get better every day of my life.

There's no end.

I can always learn and grow and teach others and kind of speak my own voice through the violin.

That's amazing.

Now when you practice, you practice alone.

Sometimes, correct?

What is that like practicing by yourself?

Sometimes it can be lonely, but it's good.

You know, I get everything in order so that when I play with other people, I'm prepared and ready to go.

Definitely have to make practice creative.

Sometimes, like today, I'm going to stand on one leg.

Today, I'm going to play it in a funky rhythm.

I'm going to stand in a different side of the room.

And, you know, just like anything, you have to keep it exciting and get creative with it.

It can be really fun.

Amazing.

And what is it like going from practicing alone to practicing with an orchestra?

It's very different to play in orchestra.

The violin is the biggest section in the orchestra, so they're the most of us of any instruments.

So we not only have to know our own parts, but blend with 25 to 30 people around us who are all playing the same part at the same time.

So it takes a lot of listening and adapting, and we all have to be like a big team together, which I really love.

That's what ultimately helped me choose the violin is that I loved orchestra the most amazing.

Now we've asked this question to most and all of the musicians.

If your instrument was an animal, then what sound would it make?

Oh, well, the violin can make lots of different sounds, but I particularly like a bird sound on violin because it can go so high.

You got to do that again.

That's amazing.

It sounds just like a bird.

I'll even go higher.

Oh, that is amazing.

Now your violin, I'm sure, has taken you all over the world and to perform.

What's the farthest place it has taken you away?

Well, so far because hopefully it will take me to every place in the world.

But I went to Austria a couple of summers ago.

I played in an orchestra in the Esterhazy palace, so there was a composer named Haydn.

He was Mozart's teacher and he lived and worked in this palace.

So I went there and we actually got to play his music in the place where he wrote it in the 1700s .

And it felt so magical, amazing, with that passionate to go there and be in that space.

Absolutely.

And there was also really good ice cream in Austria, which I also got on the way there every day.

Amazing.

Taylor passion is such a big part of being a musician, right?

Absolutely.

So could you play a piece for us that you feel passionate about?

Of course.

And there are so many great pieces for the violin.

That's why I love playing the violin, because there's kind of an endless supply of beautiful melodies.

But my favorite piece well, at the moment, is Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.

You might know Tchaikovsky, he wrote The Nutcracker.

Yes, I do.

But he also wrote only one violin concerto.

And personally, I think it's so beautiful he only needed to write one.

I think you are correct.

So it, I'll play you a little bit of the most beautiful melody.

Wow, that was amazing.

Thank you.

You were so committed to it and you're moving, and it was awesome to see that.

I love it.

I love it.

What motivates you to do that to play?

Well, I really enjoy sharing the intention of a composer mixed with what I want to share personally.

So what I think about the piece, so that really reminds me of love and happiness and friendship and warmth.

And so I get to project that through the music.

But sometimes you project angry and sad and different emotions, so that's what I connect with.

How to share music and connect with people in the audiences and in your career, still going, of course.

What is your inspiration, what inspires you?

Well, I like the idea that I get to choose kind of what I do in my career, right?

So it's not just a set path, there's lots of different exciting projects along the way.

Currently, I'm a middle school orchestra teacher, so I love starting everyone on their instruments for the first time and just seeing that joy of them like getting to play in their first concert, but also playing in the Tallahassee Symphony and getting to perform these really complicated and beautiful works in the orchestra.

And being a professional musician that gets all dressed up and goes to different concerts and travels.

So I like having the variety of a career in music.

It keeps everything exciting.

And yeah, it makes life go by fast.

Amazing.

Amazing, Taylor, when you're playing with an orchestra, of course, the violin have their part in the piece.

Could you play us a piece from a larger piece?

Of course, violins tend to have the melody, and we know it.

So we like to show that off.

Bravo, amazing, I love that it's so dramatic too.

All right.

Taylor a couple of things I tell our audience here is that the modern violin has been around for roughly 500 years.

That's right, and it has changed a little bit.

But truly, the shape and sound and everything about the violin has mostly stayed the same.

Amazing.

And I hear that the most expensive violin in the world was auctioned off for $18 million.

That's right.

Violins can get very pricey, especially those ones made back hundreds of years ago in Italy.

The Stradivarius, maybe some people, I've heard of that before.

Millions and millions of dollars.

You know, unfortunately, this is not a Stradivarius.

But I have gotten to play on one before, and it was really magical.

Oh, you're so passionate about that.

Now, before we go, there is a little thing that we do called rapid fire.

Oh, OK, it doesn't have a lot to do with music, but I think you'll like it.

I'll give you two choices and you choose the one just to get the load.

Right on the spot?

Yes.

OK. All right, here goes woodwind or strings?

Strings.

Alrighty Romantic comedy or sci-fi?

Romantic comedy.

Ah, Alaska or Hawaii?

Hawaii Oh, soccer or football?

Soccer.

And the last one Wyoming or Woodville?

Wyoming.

Definitely.

Thank you so much, Taylor.

And thank you for joining us.

Bye bye.