We haven't been the most musical family. It just seemed that playing an instrument was something that other people got to do. I was raised in Scotland in a pretty poor family, maybe the belief came from being in that situation.

My grandfather loved to sing and he was good at it. People would say, "Albert, sing us a song." And he would. Singing is free so anyone can do it, but not everyone is good at it. I am not one of them.

My great uncle played piano for the silent movies. One story about him was when he went to visit my grandmother and someone asked him to play the piano. My grandmother had one in her home. He played into the wee early hours of the morning. My grandmother was really worried about that because she had the kind of neighbors that would regularly complain about the slightest noise. And here was this music playing through the night.

The next morning when my grandmother went outside to tend the garden, the neighbor approached her. She knew she was going to hear about the piano playing. But to her surprise, the neighbor asked who the wonderful piano player was and said that she had stayed up as long as my great uncle had played, enjoying his music.

We had two pianos in our home when we were growing up. That doesn't seem very poor to even me at this point in my life. But lessons cost money, so we didn't get lessons. My sister, brother and I would play children's songs on them but it never went any further than that.

A year and 1/2 ago I decided to learn the violin. I chose to rent them just in case it didn't go well. I rented two, one full size violin for Keaton, 16 at the time, and I, and a 1/2 size violin for Kiyah, 8 at the time. At first none of them wanted to play, not really anyway. Kiyah loved the idea of playing, but didn't want to actually put the effort into it. Keaton had a whatever kind of reaction. I was excited beyond excited! I couldn't believe I was going to learn to play an instrument!

We've come a long way, Keaton and I. We have so, so far to go. Keaton now loves it as much as I do. We traded in those first rentals and purchased better violins. We're on our fifth upgrade now, the most recent upgrade was purchased yesterday. I'll make a photo of it so you can see it. She's a beauty and sings like an angel:)

Kiyah completely backed out of playing. It's just not her thing. She might change her mind one day, but I'm fine if she doesn't. Her passions is drawing and she's good at it. She does love to listen to classical music, Keaton and I do too. We were listening to "Air" by Bach when I made this photo.

Well, back to practicing. Keaton and I practice about 3 hours a day each. We sure love it!