Ever feel like a violin?

A maker of violins searched all his life for wood that would serve for making violins with a certain beautiful and haunting resonance. At last he succeeded when he came into possession of wood gathered from the timberline, the last stand of the trees of the Rockies, 12,000 feet above sea level. Up there where the winds blow so fiercely and steadily that the bark to windward has no chance to grow, where the branches all point one way, and where a tree to live must stay on its knees all through its life, that is where the world’s most resonant wood for violins is born and lives and dies.

Moral of the story, there is a lot more that goes into the wood of that fine violin? Part of the beauty of those assembled and crafted bits of tough-nut wood—come through the many difficult, rough and violent storms it faces in the wild and amongst the elements—sounds a bit like life doesn’t it? 🙂