Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps by Lari Don Read Free Book Online

asked.
    “Nothing as fancy as a wolf note. I just call it ‘that horrid note!’ If your wolf note is caused by the violin, not by your playing, why don’t you just get a new violin?”
    Helen laid her hand protectively on her fiddle case. “When my grandfather bought me this for my tenth birthday, he told me it was made in Perthshire, two hundred years ago, by a fiddle-maker called Duncan Gow, who claimed he was a direct descendant of Ossian, the great Celtic bard. There are only a dozen of his fiddles left in the world.”
    Juliet laughed. “Do you believe that?”
    Helen grinned. “Not really, but it’s a good story… and it’s a great violin. My wolf note is a high B on the G string, which isn’t that common, and I’m pretty good at avoiding it by using the D string, when the melody allows. Anyway, I love my fiddle, I don’t want a different one.”
    The music in the study stopped. The two girls fell silent. The door creaked open and a girl with a wide smile and a narrow blue flute case came out. Juliet put an arm round her friend’s shoulders as they walked up the corridor.
    Helen faced the open door. Her first summer school lesson. The reason she’d worked so hard.
    “Come in,” said a soft warm voice.
    Helen had only seen Professor Greenhill twice before. Once, when she auditioned last winter, when she had been so nervous she’d hardly looked up from her music stand; and then again last night, when the Professor had balanced on a dining room table to welcome them all to the summer school and tell them a few details about the midsummer concert.
    The Professor was famous for her teaching rather than her playing. She had discovered and taught some of the best violinists, flautists, pipers and drummers in the last thirty years, several of whom were attending the summer school as teachers. She was also famous for her books on musical traditions and her popular compositions for small orchestral groups.
    As Helen unpacked her fiddle and tightened her bow, the Professor looked up from her notes.
    “Oh! You’re the girl from …” She glanced at her red leather folder again and smiled. “Of course,you’re the girl from the Borders. I remember how enchantingly you played at your audition. Why don’t you warm up for me with a nice jaunty hornpipe ?”
    Helen sighed with relief. She could choose a tune that went nowhere near her wolf note.
    Professor Greenhill was tall and wore a tight tweed skirt and jacket, with a pair of high, spiky, patent-black shoes. A narrow scarf of many swirly colours was tied neatly round her neck and a pair of silver-framed glasses perched on the middle of her nose. Everything about her was neat and polished except her long white hair, which kept falling out of its bun as she nodded enthusiastically at Helen’s playing. She seemed content to listen, encourage and appreciate. She was the perfect audience and, because of that, Helen played her best.
    Helen felt the tension of last night slip away. This was why she was here; to learn and to play. To be a musician was the most wonderful gift in the world. Nothing else mattered.
    “Now you’ve warmed up, Helen,” the Professor said, as she knotted her hair in a bun again, “why don’t you try the midsummer solo sections?”
    Helen had been rehearsing this music for weeks. Every time she had played it, her little sister Nicola had danced around the kitchen. Even though she knew this was a mini-audition, her chance to impress before Zoe and the other violinists had their lessons, she still grinned the whole time she played, as the music flowed perfectly from her bow.
    The Professor nodded joyfully, shaking her hair loose again, and made gentle helpful suggestions.
    When Helen had finished, the Professor smiled. “You are a very skilled player, with lots of passion too. Lovely. Now, off you go. I will hear your wonderful interpretation of my humble tune again soon.”
    Helen stepped slowly into the corridor. She could have played in