Last Week, At Music Camp

11-yr-old girl was away one week because she was on music camp - one that requires an audition, and the honours camp gets to go away to music camp for a whole week.  It's exciting.  She also just got a new violin, about 4 weeks beforehand.  The week after camp, in her lesson:

Girl: Oh yeah, last week at music camp-
Me: Oh!  I forgot!  How was it?
Girl [smiling]: It was really good... But, my peg... broke.  Like, um... [demonstrates a really stiff tuning peg being moved] yeah.  Snapped.
Me: Wow.  That doesn't happen often.
Girl: I asked the guy if he could fix it, but [disdainfully] he said he couldn't, we'd have to take it back to the shop we bought it from, so they could... get me a new one?
Me: Yep.  They'll have to take it out and - well, you can't really fix them.  Once they're snapped, they're snapped.  You'll need a new one.  How many weeks have you had this violin, anyway?
Girl: Like, four. ... Or so.
Me: Will your mum be able to take it in this afternoon?
Girl [raised eyebrow, shaking head]: No.  Um, no.  Oh, and then, the day of the concert, my chin rest fell off.  But that was easy to fix.
Me: Oh.  So, apart from your violin falling apart, was the rest of it okay?
Girl: Yeah, it was really good.  Well, actually...  It was a bit boring.  All we did was play, and eat.  But the playing bit was good.
Me: What music did you play?
Girl: Well, we played this piece by Adele... And a thing from Carmen... Arra-jonny-aze [actually, Aragonaise]
Me: Can you sing it for me?
Girl [singing and humming]: Da da da da da [etc - I almost picked up the tune].... [faster, in time, head bopping] nn pluck pluck nn pluck pluck nn pluck pluck

I guess she was in second violins.

Random Comment #1 - Chin Rests

Continuing Quartet this morning.  We stopped playing for something, and before anything could be said, we had this:

Viola [sniffing her chin rest]: Ooh, my chin rest smells really nice.
Me [a bit stunned]: Um... Okay... Random comment number one for the day...
Violin 2: Ooh, mine smells nice too.  Like wood.
Violin 1: So does mine.  Well, of course they all do, really.
Cello [with her nose at the shoulder of her cello]: That's not fair.  I don't have one!
Viola: You don't have anywhere to put it.
Cello: I guess ... It would have to go here [points to the shoulder of the cello].  Can you imagine that??

Cello then puts her chin on the imaginary chin rest and pretends to play.  She looked like she was trying to sniff the bridge of the cello, with her left hand above her hair and bow arm sticking out like a broken wing.  It didn't last long, of course, as the giggles turned to hilarity.