Post-Halloween musical musings...

So, in a former life, I was a violinist. Well, I guess it's not really a former life, but I certainly don't play as much as I used to! Anyway, I definitely am a former Suzuki kid, and as such, when I ran across an article about the sale of a violin which once belonged to the virtuoso Paganini today on abcnews.com, it caught my eye...for a couple of reasons. Growing up, I took group lessons with other Suzuki students every Tuesday, and I always looked forward to playing the Paganini piece "Witches' Dance" in the weeks leading up to Halloween. At any rate, I was reading the abcnews.com article and reminiscing about playing Pagaini's tune about this time of year, every year as a kid. And then something else caught my eye: the article's author says that Paganini's virtuoso playing "made people believe he had struck a deal with the devil." Hmm...okay, that's not doing much to loosen my childhood association of Paganini with all things spooky! You can find the article here: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1270562 Hope you had a treat-filled, trick-free holiday...I did, too!