sherron0: (Default)
sherron0 ([personal profile] sherron0) wrote2008-04-01 01:38 pm

Music City, USA

The Mouse and I drove up to Nashville yesterday, to check out Hatch Show Prints for  field trip.  A very interesting place, but small and very busy and loud.  Maybe not the best idea.  And it's very Downtown (Broadway and 6th).  Little parking, and what there is is expensive.   But if you happen to be downtown, you should drop in.  Very friendly people, and an intriguing place.

 We had a terrific lunch, in Merchants Restaurant, in the old Merchants Building on Broadway.  It used to be half hotel, half pharmacy.  They've tried to keep faith with the original architecture and character o the building and have done a pretty good job. 

Then we drove around making lots of U-turns trying to get to a Violin shop we haven't been to.  Very nice place.  Thomas found two he really loved.  One of them I also loved.  It was old, and beautifully made, and when he played it, it was like stepping up from a regular to a grand piano.  Of course, cost as much as a piano -- $5000.  The other was a 5 string violin (say vee oh linn, like viola+ violin).  It is basically a violin plus the lower C string that a viola has, or if you're a viola player, a viola plus that high E string.  The two instruments share the D, G, & A. So anyway, it was a lot of fun to play, and would make transposing some of that medieval music he's been playing a fifth lower very easy.  (Makes for great harmonies).  Of course, it was $5500.  We decided he needed to be closer to perfect before we invest in one of those. The violin he owns right now is in the $300 - $500 range, except that it has a small, barely noticeable cosmetic ding, so we got it for $145.  It's better than the rental he was playing (which was still a nice instrument -- sold for about $300), but probably not the last fiddle he'll want to own.

We got home around 8pm.  A good day.

Of course, between our little outing and Saturday's migraine, I'm now about 4 days behind.  Yes, that's right. for every day of vacation you take, you get 2 days behind -- Law of the Universe. 

[identity profile] phantomminuet.livejournal.com 2008-04-01 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
You were coming to town, and you didn't tell me?!?

[identity profile] sherron0.livejournal.com 2008-04-01 08:32 pm (UTC)(link)
It was sort of a last minute decision, we woke up and said "let's do it." I did think of you, but assumed you were already at work. Next time, I'll post a pre-trip! I'm in your neighborhood "right reglur." the violin shop was just less than 2 hours from our driveway, on Music Square East (16th, just beyond where Broadway become West End.) See, now I sound just like I knew exactly where we were going. The truth is, there are a lot of surprise one way streets, and roads that don't connect, and such. There was a LOT of U-turning before I got Thomas properly trained on exactly what a navigator does. My mother lives in Paris, so Nashville is more or less halfway. Cool Springs mall is closer to me than any Birmingham Mall.