I was six years old when I walked into my first violin lesson, and for the twelve years that followed, I stood—posture erect—at dutiful attention to the staid technicalities and smug rectitude of classical music. 

I was a happy cadet and a relatively successful one, for what it’s worth. For a decade, I practiced just about every day, commanded by the despotic Ševčík, the melodramatic Beethoven, and the kind, forgiving Bach—as well as a similarly varied array of personal instructors. I learned to differentiate spiccato and staccato by bending my pinkie, to sightread anything short of Vivaldi on a first try, and to shift to third, fourth, and fifth position deftly enough to know that even in those upper strata of my fingerboard, I would hit high D. 

By junior year of high school, I was my orchestra’s concertmaster—the cadet had become the field marshall, reigning over the neat semicircle of chairs facing the conductor—and I felt contentedly indifferent. It’s not that joy and fun could not be found on the symphony’s stage, but rather that it existed only outside our music, which we saluted soberly, properly, and with well-trained technical accuracy. 

I’ve stopped playing violin formally since coming to university—for lack of time and a good opportunity to do so. But I have taken up the guitar. At first, I only picked up the instrument to learn “Landslide.” Then I spent a week learning the F-chord just so I could play “Bathroom Light.” I can play maybe twelve chords now—eight confidently—with just enough plucking dexterity to keep Stevie Nicks sounding presentable, and a persistent inflexibility in my strumming pattern that I keep promising I’ll do something about. 

But the little I do know was enough for my roommate and me to perch ourselves on our balcony one September evening and play Noah Kahan. She sings, I strum, and sometimes I sing with her. This evening, though, when we had finished playing, the singing didn’t stop. On the street below our balcony was a three-strong congregation of flashlights, swaying back and forth, as the voices behind the lights sang the chorus we had just finished. They stopped, turned off their flashlights, and called up to us through the dark to play the song again, “from the top.” 

This time I played guitar and we all sang—an earnest, multi-elevational chorus on rue Aylmer. When we were done, my roommate and I leaned over the balcony and learned that our backup singers were our neighbours, and that the one on the left was turning 21 that weekend. He invited us to the festivities, and we said goodnight, each party still unaware of what the other even looked like. 

We and our neighbours now play guitar regularly—on their balcony, in our kitchen, and in their living room. All three of them, it turns out, are far more talented with a guitar than I ever was on the violin, but when I do know the chords to a song, they let me play it: Me with my kindergarten-level strumming, absolutely giddy with happiness. 

I’ve never made friends with any across-the-street neighbours by practicing Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor for any of the three violin recitals in which I played it. And I’ve never played a partita in the kitchen. 

This is not a smear campaign against my violin. Like a strict aunt, classical music raised me (if not a little coldly), and for that I hold a familial fondness—and always will. But what I lack in technical skill on my acoustic guitar (almost everything, actually) is made up for twice over by the few chords I can claim. Like a tiny army of their own, these chords throw themselves unabashedly at anyone who comes their way—Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman, Simon and Garfunkel, and Beck—who themselves call to those around them to walk across the street, sing into the dark, and invite whoever is perched up there to a birthday party.