My Wondrous Life as a Violist

Expense $truggles as a Musician

             Like any profession you want to prepare for, it's undoubtedly going to be costly. If you are dedicated to your instrument (like me, +o+), then I'm (probably) sure that you spent hundreds of dollars on music-related items (unless you don't have much money and your parents don't support your music aspirations). About 5 years ago, I bought my first ever (12") viola. It was $200! I know that's not that much compared to others, but as a beginner, I was shocked. I was hesitant on choosing whether to play the viola or violin, since the violins were $100. Long story short, I chose the viola.

          After around 4 1/2 years later, my school's music teacher told me that my viola was too small for me. So after a LOT of persuading, I convinced my parents to allow me to purchase my own viola (with my money I saved from my previous birthdays and Chinese New Year). The original price was $300, but the owner of the store decreased it down it $250. Honestly, I was satisfied with the new price, but then my parents just had to bargain with him. I felt upset towards them, while really sorry for the owner. In the end, the total cost for the viola (with a new bow, instrument case, and decent strings) was $220. Despite the trouble to buy the viola, I'm very content its full, deep tone. But the owner didn't have another set of Red Label strings, so I had to buy a 14" set on Amazon for $29.

         Near 8 months later, I feel uncomfortable while playing the viola; it's as if I grew too big for it... again =_=. This means that I'll have to buy a bigger one *internally cries* (why I don't want to grow taller)!! Fortunately, the owner of the music store said that he'd take back the viola, if I wanted to exchange it for a bigger one (of course, it would still cost some money). Unfortunately, I haven't used the spare set of 14" strings, since I never broke the ones I still use. Now comes the (even more) challenging part...

~Telling My Parents~

Me: "My viola is too small for me."

Mom: "We just bought the one you have a couple of weeks ago."

Dad: "A couple of weeks ago? We bought that months ago."

Mom: "Well if you're going to keep buying more instruments, then why don't you just throw them all away and quit?"

Me: "I'll use my own money, though..."

~Conversation Ended~ T _ T

          Besides spending my money on my viola and equipment, I also used $150 from by birthday (that I got around 3 weeks ago!!) to pay for 1 more month of private viola lessons, including music theory class. I never expected that all of that money would be used so quickly. Therefore, I've decided to stop taking the private viola lessons and theory class, once the month ends and school starts again. *sigh*

A/N: I'll be writing another part for the rest of today. Basically, it's me trying to make money, when it's already 11PM. It's currently 1:39AM; I really need to sleep and wake up earlier.