0:14

Pushkin.

0:30

It's always about the music. Music

0:32

is everything to me. Music is

0:34

the food I eat, it's the blood

0:37

in my veins. Without

0:39

music, I'm not here. I'm

0:41

actually not here.

0:43

When world renowned musician Nin Kim

0:45

first picked up a violin, she knew

0:47

immediately that it would define her, and

0:49

it did until one day in

0:52

a London train station, everything

0:54

changed.

0:56

I didn't know if I was ever going to play the violin

0:58

again. I didn't know if I could ever listen

1:00

to music again. I didn't listen to

1:02

music, even if it was the most healing

1:05

music. I just couldn't process

1:07

it. And in that my life

1:10

as I knew it ended.

1:15

On today's episode, a different

1:18

kind of identity theft, I'm

1:23

Maya Shunker and this is a slight change

1:25

of plans, a show about who we are

1:27

and who we become in the face of a

1:29

big change.

1:50

I felt an immediate and close connection

1:52

to me and Kim the first time I heard her story.

1:56

We both began playing the violin at a young

1:58

age, and it quickly became the center

2:00

of our identities. And then

2:02

we both experienced a plot twist.

2:05

Many of you know what happened in my musical career

2:08

when I was fifteen, an injury to

2:10

my hand left me unable to play. Min's

2:13

slight change of plans arrived a little later

2:15

in her life, but we'll get to that in a

2:17

bit. For now, let's start

2:19

with Min's love story with music. She

2:22

says it began before she was even born.

2:25

Min's uncle would often send Min's mom

2:27

classical music records in the mail. Her

2:30

mom loved these recordings, especially

2:32

the ones that featured the violin, and

2:35

when she became pregnant with men, listening

2:37

to these records became a sort of pregnancy

2:39

craving.

2:41

It was sort of the highlight of her

2:43

week to get these records. And

2:45

my parents had a very sort of traditional

2:47

career and marriage where my

2:49

father would come home pay his wages on

2:51

the kitchen table. My mother would budget for the week,

2:53

but she'd always put some money aside because

2:55

she just so desperately wanted a high

2:58

fight system, and they were terribly

3:00

expensive in those days. But she

3:02

managed it, and she didn't know she was pregnant

3:04

with me at the time, but she just had

3:06

this yearning to

3:09

listened to as much classical music as possible. She

3:12

eventually got this hi Fi system

3:14

and she was listening to things like Sibelia's Violin

3:16

Concerto, Mozart, violin

3:18

concertos, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovski,

3:21

and I'm sure that exposure in my

3:23

mother's womb. Yeah,

3:25

was my first violin lesson.

3:28

Wow, amazing, What is your

3:30

first memory of the violin?

3:33

So my best friend

3:35

at the time, we were both six, she

3:38

had started learning the trumpet for the

3:40

Salvation Army and her sister

3:43

was playing the violin, and she had a quarter sized

3:45

violin, and I would look at this viol and I

3:47

just felt this sort of pang of feeling

3:50

like I'm at home. It's really difficult

3:52

to describe that sense

3:54

of wow, everything

3:56

makes sense. And I

3:59

think that is possibly as a result

4:01

of we'd actually come to England three

4:03

years before that, and I know it was

4:05

tough. I know it was tough for my parents, coming

4:08

from you know, very Korean culture,

4:10

not really speaking English, learning

4:12

a new language. So language

4:15

became really really important in

4:18

my mind at the time, And all

4:20

of a sudden, seeing this violin, I realized

4:22

that it's actually another vessel for language

4:25

and music, being the you know, the

4:27

universal language. I sort

4:29

of realized that actually everything

4:31

that can be expressed can be done through

4:34

music. And I actually taught myself

4:36

to play the violin before I had my first violin

4:38

lesson via my friend's

4:41

instrument. I mean, it

4:43

was just twiggled to good. Little style wasn't

4:47

but it was just so exciting. You

4:49

know that the sounds that

4:51

the violin was capable of making. I

4:53

think, the freedom of having this. You

4:56

know, you put your finger down and it makes a

4:58

different note. I mean, for a six year

5:00

old, it just absolutely blew my mind.

5:02

It's really delightful for me to hear this story

5:05

because I also started playing the violin at age six,

5:07

and so we must have been an very similar

5:09

stage of development.

5:11

Oh, I just away of that.

5:13

I remember they would put little pieces of colored

5:16

tape onto the fingerboard to

5:18

help q where it is that we were supposed

5:20

to put our fingers, and so yeah, I think I

5:22

had a similar level of intrigue and like,

5:24

ooh, this is really cool. Okay,

5:27

so you had this moment at six where you're

5:30

looking at your friend's violin and

5:32

you feel a sense of home and then I'm presuming

5:34

you ask your mom for your own

5:36

violin. Can you describe me your

5:39

early relationship once you began playing

5:41

the violin. What was that like? Like, what were you drawn

5:43

to? What did it make you feel?

5:47

It made me feel free. So

5:50

when I was talking about language and things

5:52

like that, it just felt like

5:55

there were no barriers. I mean, I look back

5:57

now, I did have this sense of destiny.

6:01

It was like, I remember there was a moment

6:03

around the time that I started playing the violin and it

6:05

starts to rain and I

6:08

didn't have a number. I was in the playground

6:11

and I was looking up into the sky and seeing

6:13

these rain drops falling, and

6:16

I just knew there was a god and

6:19

I knew that I was supposed to play the violin. Right.

6:24

It's kind of I mean I think that now, and I

6:26

put myself back into that six year old

6:28

mind, and I was deadly

6:30

serious. Do you know what. I think I was

6:32

more serious as a six year old. Now.

6:35

I was going to say, then you were a very precocious

6:38

six year old, because I think my six year old brain

6:40

was like, I love the violin. Also, how

6:42

do I convince my mom to give me more cookies?

6:45

Like that was the level of sophistication that

6:47

I had.

6:48

Oh well, yeah, yeah, you know, I love cheese

6:50

sawagy.

6:51

Wow, it's quite extraordinary that

6:53

you had such a deep attachment

6:56

from such an early age. So

6:59

how quickly did you realize min that you had

7:01

this incredible gift? And I'll

7:03

say it for you so that you don't have to, but you

7:05

were deemed a child prodigy? So

7:08

when did that happen?

7:09

So actually, one of the reasons why

7:13

I think it was recognized very

7:15

quickly that I did

7:17

have an unusual talent was

7:19

because I was actually allergic to rosin.

7:21

It's a substance that you used to oil

7:24

the bow. That the bow is made

7:26

from horse hair, and so in

7:28

order to make it slightly sticky and

7:30

produce the sound so it's not sort of sliding

7:33

everywhere, you put this rosin on the hair. And

7:36

in those days, I had really really

7:38

terrible asthma. I was being hospitalized

7:41

every other month. I

7:43

was allergic to everything, including

7:45

rosin, and so that meant

7:47

that I couldn't actually practice more than half

7:49

an hour at a time before

7:52

I would start wheezing, and so

7:54

my mother would have to monitor me, like the first

7:57

sign of the wheezing should make me stop.

8:00

But what it.

8:01

Actually did show was

8:03

with half an hour practice a day,

8:05

I was still able to progress at a pace

8:08

that was, you know, outside of the norm, and

8:10

I think that's why people called me a

8:12

prodigy. I mean, I remember actually

8:15

going to the awards ceremony picking

8:17

up this prize that i'd won because I'd got

8:19

the highest mark in the country or something like that, and

8:21

I'm looking around and everybody else is

8:24

sort of you know, in their late teens, and I'm

8:26

like a child, and

8:31

yeah, I'm thinking, well, I guess

8:33

that's my life.

8:35

How did your devotion to the violin and your relationship

8:37

with the violin evolve during your

8:39

teenage years? So, I mean, was there

8:41

a moment in particular where you decided I

8:43

want to be a professional or was that always

8:45

in the cards for you that you knew?

8:47

No, it was actually So that's the bit I suppose

8:50

of my life where I look back now

8:52

and I realized that I really didn't have any control

8:54

over it was already decided by

8:56

the time I was eight, by my teachers,

8:58

by the school, that I was going to be

9:00

a violinist. I mean, I had no choice in

9:02

the matter. I wasn't complaining because I think

9:05

I'd always felt that that was the case.

9:07

But I think it make

9:09

me develop a

9:11

sort of love hate relationship with the violin,

9:14

not music, but with the violin, because

9:16

I think when that kind of

9:18

expectation is

9:22

on very young shoulders, it

9:25

does cause a sense of

9:29

responsibility. I mean

9:31

one of the things that I would hear constantly

9:34

was the word potential. And

9:38

what a loaded word that is. Expectation.

9:43

Yeah, you can't help but

9:45

pick up the subtext

9:48

behind the word potential, which

9:50

is that the saddest thing is

9:53

unfulfilled potential. And

9:55

to deal with that as a child, you

9:58

know, not even in double figures.

10:00

By that we were talking eight nine years old. It

10:02

was Yeah, it was daunting. And I remember

10:04

saying to my mother, I don't

10:06

think I want to play the violin anymore if I'm not going

10:08

to enjoy it. And

10:10

that was a really strong message for her to

10:13

hear. And she did sit me down

10:16

and say, look, if

10:18

you don't want to do this, you don't have to. And

10:23

that was the moment that I decided that that's what I

10:25

wanted to do.

10:27

Wow, what a nice pressure test. Yeah,

10:30

So I'd like to fast forward over a

10:32

decade to when you're twenty one,

10:34

and from the perspective

10:36

of a violinist, you have this once in

10:38

a lifetime opportunity when it comes to

10:41

the violin that you play. Do you mind

10:43

bringing us back to that moment.

10:46

So I'd actually been borrowing violins

10:49

since I was, oh gosh,

10:51

twelve years old from this dealership, but

10:53

you know, I always wanted to have my own

10:55

instrument. It's a little bit like a house,

10:57

I suppose, or a home. When you own

11:00

your home, you feel like it's your home. You can't

11:02

be kicked out at any point. I mean, the thing about borrowing

11:04

a violin is that there's always that sort of sense

11:06

at the back of your mind that it can be taken away

11:09

times. So it became very important for

11:11

me to actually own my own instrument, and

11:13

so I asked the dealership if they

11:15

wouldn't mind just keeping an eye out for

11:18

any instrument. They knew my playing very well, and

11:20

so I just asked them to just, you know, to

11:22

keep an ear to the ground if they hear of any

11:25

instruments that they might feel suited me.

11:27

And as it happened, after

11:30

a few years of nothing, two came along

11:32

at the same time, and so

11:35

I got the phone call saying, well, we've got two violins

11:37

that we think might suit your playing. They're

11:39

both strads, and I'm thinking, wow,

11:42

okay, this is very unusual.

11:45

Yeah, tell us what makes the strad so

11:47

spectacular in the world of violinists.

11:51

So, Stradivarius was

11:56

an incredibly prolific violin

11:58

maker in the sixteen hundreds

12:00

all the way to the seventeen hundreds. He actually lived

12:02

unti a very ripe old age. He basically

12:04

revolutionized how violins

12:07

were made. And I think it is a real

12:09

testament to his genius. That's

12:12

how he visualized

12:14

the violin, how he understood

12:17

the physics of the violin has never

12:20

been improved. I mean that is

12:23

incredible. And you

12:25

know, there's no wonder that they're going for millions

12:27

of dollars. So a really

12:29

quality instrument like a strad,

12:33

it shows you how to play, It

12:35

teaches you how to play,

12:39

It makes you better, you know, and the

12:41

magic and you feel like, you

12:43

know how when you listen to great

12:45

singing and it sends shivers down your

12:48

spine. And that's what a top

12:50

violin playing on the top violin does. You

12:52

feel these electricity,

12:55

it's magic, you know, and you feel alive.

12:59

So I was presented with

13:01

two strads. I mean, can you imagine

13:03

two stratavirus is. You know, we

13:06

were actually in my parents' home. The

13:08

dealer actually with a double case, and

13:11

in that case are two

13:13

violins that's worth more than the

13:15

house was standing in. I mean, it's just it's

13:19

insane, right, And

13:22

he opens the case and I

13:25

can feel everybody willing me

13:27

to choose the one that has the better pedigree.

13:30

Gorgeous looking instrument, I mean, was just

13:32

so handsome, had

13:35

a kind of amber, dark amber

13:38

hue to it. And I picked it up, and I

13:40

mean the sound was just incredible. It

13:42

sounded like Pavarotti. Okay, it

13:45

had this incredibly rich, rich,

13:48

vibrant just tingles,

13:50

you know, but you know what didn't

13:53

feel like me. It didn't sound like me.

13:56

It was like I was wearing the

13:59

most beautiful gown and

14:02

it just didn't suit me. So

14:04

the other one was smaller, It had

14:07

a much more slender body and neck.

14:09

It was made in sixteen ninety six, it'd

14:12

been through the walls, it had a hole in the top, and

14:15

you know, it didn't come from such a great

14:17

pedigree year. But I picked it up, and

14:20

you know, I just knew it was the one.

14:24

It felt like you

14:26

know, when you meet someone and

14:30

you on paper, you wouldn't necessarily

14:32

say this is the perfect fit for

14:34

me, this is this is you know, you might not

14:36

necessarily know that it's your match.

14:39

But the chemistry, and I know it sounds

14:42

so strange talking about a chemistry with a violin,

14:44

but it was the chemistry was just right.

14:47

It just felt right. It felt it felt

14:50

like it completed me.

14:52

You know, it's I

14:54

don't know if you're a fan of Harry Potter, but it does

14:57

remind me. Okay, so it does remind

14:59

me of the you know, the one chooses

15:01

the wizard. And what I'm hearing in your story

15:04

is this particular strat of areas

15:06

chose you.

15:07

Yeah.

15:08

You know a lot of people might meet their

15:10

life partner at that age,

15:12

and I'd never felt like that about another person. I

15:14

was twenty one. You're kind of

15:17

you know, you're on the cusp of leaving

15:20

childhood, you know, youth and

15:23

really becoming an adult. I was becoming

15:25

a woman, and I think, yeah,

15:28

it just came at that point that I was ready

15:30

for a new life, and this violin

15:32

really fulfilled that new life.

15:35

I mean I basically invested everything

15:37

I had in that violin. I had

15:39

been earning since I was ten eleven years

15:41

old. I won a competition when

15:44

I was eleven which the prize

15:46

money was a lot, which my parents

15:48

actually invested for me. So by

15:51

the time I actually reached twenty one, I actually

15:53

had enough money to buy a flat. And

15:56

I think the normal thing would be

15:59

you upgrade your flat and

16:02

buy a bigger place, you know, and

16:04

so on and so forth. Well for me, it was a no brainer.

16:07

I didn't care about my flat. I just need did

16:09

this violin for everything?

16:10

So rather than the flat upgrade, you were like

16:13

going all in and eventually wanting

16:15

to own this violin.

16:16

Yeah.

16:16

I had loans, I had mortgages, but yeah,

16:19

I mean, you know, it.

16:20

Was my life. Wow.

16:21

But actually also I don't know, it was just it

16:24

gave me a sense of home. It gave me sense stability.

16:27

The thing about the violin as well. And I was

16:29

traveling a lot as well in those days, and

16:32

whenever I felt homesick or whenever I

16:34

felt like a culture shock or anything

16:36

like that, and I felt like, oh gosh,

16:38

I'm you know, a bit anxious. I don't know

16:40

where I am. If I got

16:43

out my violin, I played a few scales and I

16:45

would just sort of get lost in the violin

16:47

world. I just felt at home so effectively,

16:50

you know, you're sort of carrying your home

16:52

around with you wherever you go.

16:54

And I loved it.

16:55

It was just it meant everything

16:57

to me.

16:59

Now, let's fast forward ten years

17:01

to this called

17:03

November Day. It's twenty ten. You're

17:05

thirty one years old at the time, and

17:09

everything changed for you. In a London

17:11

train station.

17:13

So it was actually particularly cold

17:15

November. I had

17:17

actually been in hospital a few days

17:19

before with asthma. I

17:22

actually collapsed in the street. I

17:24

was sort of on these heavy duty steroids,

17:27

you know, head all over the place, and

17:29

I was heading off to Manchester. So

17:33

got to the train station. I was with

17:35

my boyfriend Matt. We

17:37

got there a little bit early, decided to get

17:39

something to eat. We were

17:41

in prit Mages, which is our Sandward

17:44

shop, and because I wasn't feeling

17:46

well, Matt

17:49

wanted to look after my violin. My

17:51

default position sitting down with

17:54

my violin was to tie the strap around

17:56

my ankle and I would never let anybody

17:58

carry my violin for me. So

18:01

my response was absolutely no way, and

18:05

we had an argument. We actually had an argument

18:07

about it, and you know, the thing

18:09

is I'm the kind of person I just really

18:12

don't like creating any kind of

18:14

scene in public. And

18:17

he was very insistent on

18:19

looking off my violin, and I said, promise

18:21

me, you'll look after it. And

18:24

then about ten minutes later he

18:30

said, oh my god, where's your violin? And

18:33

it had gone.

18:40

And in that moment, my

18:43

life as I knew it ended.

18:49

We'll be back in a moment with a slight change

18:51

of plans. Min

19:03

Kim's beloved violin was gone.

19:07

Here's what happened in the London trains that

19:09

day. Min had reluctantly

19:12

let her boyfriend watch over her instrument while

19:14

she grabbed a quick sandwich. He

19:16

got distracted for a moment, and someone

19:18

snatched the violin. Security

19:21

footage later revealed that three men were

19:23

behind the theft. The violin

19:25

was valued at one point two million pounds.

19:28

As police began a search, Min tried

19:31

to adjust to life without her violin.

19:33

I was sort of struggling between

19:36

feeling a sense of, you

19:39

know, just needing to be very practical, dealing

19:42

with the practicalities of it, like the assurance stuff

19:44

like that, and also feeling very guilty about

19:47

feeling so devastated and got it

19:49

almost like you

19:52

know, it was there

19:55

were some very well meaning people who

19:58

loved me and were basically just trying to help, and they,

20:00

you know that, they were saying, man, it's just a violin.

20:03

You know there are other violins, And of

20:05

course they're right, there

20:07

are other violins. But I think for

20:10

me it was like it

20:13

was akin to say, you've lived somewhere

20:15

since you're twenty one, you've lived

20:17

somewhere that you've really made

20:19

your home, You've tended the garden,

20:21

and you know everything is your home. You

20:24

know it's your safe place, it's everything, and

20:26

then all of a sudden it's

20:28

destroyed. So that's how

20:30

it felt like for me, and

20:34

well, I suppose it was a sense of loss of

20:36

identity. It was a sense of a loss

20:38

of everything that i'd actually it

20:41

was my life earnings as well. And

20:43

at this point I'm not even sure

20:45

what's happening with the insurance, so I don't

20:47

even know if I've actually

20:50

lost my entire life

20:53

earnings, my savings, my pension,

20:55

everything. I didn't know if

20:57

I was ever going to play the violin again. I

20:59

didn't know if I could ever listen to music again.

21:02

I didn't listen to music actually, for gosh,

21:05

the best part of six months. I couldn't it

21:07

was too painful. And this is, you know,

21:09

having been someone who's basically

21:12

been in love with music since I was born, well,

21:14

so as I was in the woomb to

21:17

all of a sudden actually reject music.

21:19

I had to reject music because it was just so

21:22

painful. I didn't want to feel. I

21:24

didn't want, I couldn't feel. I couldn't

21:26

cry. To cry meant

21:28

that I had to feel, and

21:31

to feel meant that I

21:33

was human, and I just

21:36

felt like I was going through

21:39

the motions. I slept.

21:41

I was just all I wanted to do

21:43

was sleep. I didn't want to get

21:45

out of bed, just wanted to sleep.

21:49

You mentioned that for a long time after

21:51

your violin was stolen, you

21:53

were not even able to listen to music.

21:55

Yeah, tell me about when

21:58

that changed for you and what cracked

22:00

you open again and made music an

22:02

option for you once again.

22:04

So I needed silence,

22:08

I felt so immediately after the

22:10

theft. I

22:12

just needed silence. I

22:14

couldn't process.

22:17

I couldn't process noise

22:21

or sounds. Everything just

22:23

sounded like noise and

22:26

I couldn't deal with it. You

22:28

know how when you listen to a song

22:31

and they have very specific

22:33

lyrics, very meaningful lyrics

22:35

to something maybe that you've experienced, and

22:38

it's just so exactly

22:41

what you're going through, and you're just like, get it

22:43

away from me. I can't deal with it, you

22:45

know. And every single piece of music

22:47

sounded like that to me. It was like a dagger to

22:49

my heart. Even if it was the most

22:52

healing music, I just couldn't

22:54

process it. I certainly couldn't

22:56

play. And I really

22:58

didn't want to be self indulgent about

23:01

grieving, and I think that's why I denied

23:04

myself the grieving process for so long.

23:07

I felt guilty that maybe

23:09

I'm being massively self indulgent. So

23:12

I kind of went into sort of soldier

23:14

mode, giving myself a massive

23:16

of doses of tough love, not actually

23:19

realizing that what I really needed

23:21

was to just take it easy, just you

23:24

know, say it's

23:26

okay to cry, It's okay to cry

23:28

over something so important

23:31

to me. And I think that delayed just

23:34

sort of reconnecting with my life.

23:37

And the moment actually came through

23:39

bach. I was

23:42

alone in the flat

23:45

in Manchester and I had this violin

23:47

that borrowed that

23:50

sort of be sitting unopened

23:52

for months. Took

23:54

it out, took out the boat. It felt like a golf

23:56

club in my hand, you know, just

23:59

felt soulless. But

24:03

I suddenly had

24:05

an urge to play Bach. And

24:08

the reason, I think is because I always think of Bach

24:10

has been the ultimate detox. You

24:12

know, it's so pure,

24:14

it's so clean, and

24:19

my soul felt ready

24:22

to let go of some of the of

24:24

the real darkness. I

24:26

didn't realize just how in such a dark

24:29

place that i'd been, I

24:31

hadn't laughed in months. I

24:34

hadn't cried either. So

24:37

I played a piece by Bach

24:40

called the Chakan, and I started

24:42

shaking, like my body actually started

24:44

shaking in voluntarily, like it

24:47

was trying to feel something, like it was trying

24:49

to connect with something. And I think it's

24:51

also because the Chakon being

24:53

such an incredibly powerful piece that he wrote

24:58

after learning that his wife had died,

25:01

and it's not a sentimental piece, but

25:04

it really does capture life.

25:11

I'm a huge believer in the subconscious

25:13

mind, just knowing what it's going to

25:15

do, what you're going to do before you even

25:17

do it. And I clearly chose the

25:20

Bach on a very deep level

25:22

because I think it's the piece that I always go back

25:24

to if I ever feel like I

25:27

need to not

25:29

even have answers for anything, because I don't

25:32

have answers for anything really, but just

25:34

that feeling of something so much greater

25:36

that, you know, that wonderment.

25:38

Yeah.

25:38

So it was almost like going back to being

25:41

a child and that wonderment of

25:43

music and the awe that you feel

25:46

of oh, of discovering

25:48

music. You're thinking, wow,

25:51

this is nature, this is life.

25:53

You know.

25:54

It was almost like discovering music for the very first

25:56

time again and just realizing

25:59

that everything, every language

26:01

is in music, every emotion,

26:04

every thought, everything that's ever been

26:07

discovered is in music.

26:10

Yeah.

26:10

It just freed my mind to stop

26:12

being so closed. And you know, at

26:14

that point, I was actually living in

26:17

my head with so many walls. There

26:19

was just so many walls around my

26:21

thought process, and the bars chak on just somehow

26:24

just shattered those walls and

26:26

it helped me. It

26:29

was almost like I felt I felt

26:31

touch God.

26:34

I you know, I get really emotionalized remembering

26:36

that feeling of He

26:38

helped me live again, you

26:44

know, And that's the power of music.

26:48

I love that you use r to describe

26:50

this moment because it I'm just thinking

26:52

back to your childhood and how it

26:54

was music's are inspiring qualities

26:57

that led you to fall in love with it in the first place,

26:59

and now here you are in adulthood reclaiming

27:02

those are inspiring aspects of music

27:04

to help you heal from this traumatic

27:07

event in your life, and it's

27:10

just so beautiful. It's like you arde your way through this

27:12

heartbreak.

27:13

Yeah, I think that sense

27:16

of awe it led

27:18

me to understand

27:21

the importance of really getting out

27:23

of the way, you know. I think the

27:25

times that I felt the most blocked

27:28

was because I was kind of getting in the way

27:30

of myself. So when I

27:32

was blocking the music out, it was because I was

27:34

getting in the way of it and allowing

27:38

the music to wash

27:40

over, like being in a bath and

27:43

just letting it flow,

27:46

not trying to control it in any way. And I think

27:48

that's when whatever I'm doing, whether

27:50

it's practicing, performing, composing,

27:54

even listening, letting

27:57

go of control is key

27:59

for everything, you know.

28:01

I recently spoke with the psychologist dak

28:03

Or Keltner, and he talks about the

28:05

fact that one feeling we

28:08

have with art is perceived vastness

28:11

that we are in the presence of

28:13

something that is so great and big and

28:15

bigger than ourselves, and it can make us

28:17

feel like we are part

28:19

of a larger hole. They

28:21

think. When you said you

28:24

kind of got out of the way, it

28:26

aligned with my understanding of all, which is what all

28:28

can do to us is allow

28:31

us to see beyond ourselves. It diminishes

28:33

the self in a way that's actually quite powerful and

28:36

perspective giving.

28:37

What happened when I lost my violin was because

28:40

I had wrapped so much of my identity

28:42

with the violin. With the violin gone, suddenly

28:45

I'm left with just me. I

28:47

don't know what to do with it. So that

28:50

sense of awe, I sort of temporarily

28:52

lost it because I'm sort of dealing

28:54

with me as a human

28:57

being, and I'm thinking, well, there's nothing

28:59

awesome there, you know, and

29:03

finding that awe again, that

29:05

feeling of awe is forgetting

29:08

yourself and allowing

29:10

the music to take

29:13

shape to fill your

29:15

being, and it's for

29:17

gosh, it's so powerful, actually, and

29:19

I think that was the reason why I couldn't

29:22

actually let it in. It's such strong medicine

29:25

actually, that sometimes you've got to be a little

29:27

bit strong and I was so weak and

29:29

I needed to just get

29:31

a little bit stronger in order to

29:34

be able to receive the medicine of music.

29:39

I of course want to know, and I know listeners will

29:41

want to know, if investigators

29:43

ever found your strativarius.

29:47

Yes, after three very

29:50

long years, I

29:52

got the phone call and it

29:56

was elation,

30:00

followed by the bittersweet

30:02

realization that the

30:05

violin no longer belonged to me. Who

30:08

did to It belonged to the insurance

30:11

company within

30:13

that three years, in the normal protocol,

30:16

the normal way that these things are

30:18

dealt with. You know, my vinyl was insured.

30:21

I had collected the insurance money, and

30:24

the moment I did that, the violin belonged to the insurance

30:26

company. That's completely fair, that's

30:29

you know, and I

30:32

had to come to terms with that.

30:35

Did you use the insurance money to buy a new

30:37

violin?

30:38

I had?

30:38

Yes, Okay, yeah, Did

30:40

it ever feel like you were cheating on your strad

30:43

with this new violin? It's kind of a bizarre question,

30:45

but.

30:46

Oh yeah, well, I mean I think it says

30:48

everything that I resented

30:51

it. Oh interesting, I resented

30:53

this VI. I mean I know that sounds kind

30:55

of you know what what's

30:57

you're talking about? But yeah,

30:59

I mean I was being massively unfair, you know, I

31:01

mean, it's not It wasn't violence thought that was

31:03

the rebound instrument.

31:08

Absolutely out of I was trying its investment to

31:11

fill the void, you know what I mean.

31:13

And I never

31:15

really truly bonded with it though. And I didn't have enough

31:18

time though to you

31:22

know, to sell it and rebuy

31:24

my vine only. I only had ninety days, and because

31:27

I had actually purchased this other violin, it

31:30

just wasn't enough time.

31:32

Yeah, did you get

31:34

a chance to say goodbye

31:36

to your strad like? Were you ever physically

31:39

reunited with it? Once investigators found

31:41

it?

31:42

I did, I did, and it

31:44

was it was

31:46

painful. It was really really painful.

31:50

I played the last thing that I

31:52

had actually recorded on it, which was the Brahms

31:55

Concerto. I played the slow movement

31:58

because it seemed

32:00

to sum up. So

32:03

Brahms wrote this slow movement as

32:05

a love letter to his great unrequired

32:07

love Clara Schumann who

32:10

so Clara Schumann was married to

32:12

Brahms's best friend, Robert Schumann,

32:14

and he had

32:17

been in love with Clara forever and

32:20

then when Robert died everybody

32:22

expected, including Clara herself, that

32:25

Brahms would, you know, make

32:27

overtures and you know, and

32:30

he didn't. And it was almost as

32:32

though the pain of unrequirted

32:34

love was what drove

32:37

him more than the

32:39

possibility of a real relationship.

32:41

And you really feel that in the slow movement

32:43

of the Broms. It

33:00

just felt very just felt

33:02

very fitting to play

33:04

something that is so emotional

33:06

but in a very kind of painful way. You

33:09

know, how you have a relationship where

33:11

you do learn a lot about love, but you also

33:14

learn a lot about pain. And

33:16

I think that's what I associate the

33:18

relationship that I had with my strad with I

33:20

learned a lot about love, but I also learned

33:23

a lot about grief and a lot about pain. I'm

33:28

glad I said goodbye to it. I

33:30

think it was really important to

33:32

say goodbye. I don't want to

33:34

do it again again.

33:37

I don't want to sort of make too much of an analogy with

33:39

a human relationship, but it was, Yeah, it was kind

33:41

of like the final goodbye.

33:43

Wow, I'm glad you had that moment

33:45

of goodbye. So, in reflecting

33:47

back then, I'm wondering if you can tell

33:49

me what this lass

33:52

has taught you about yourself

33:55

and how you had defined yourself, how you had

33:57

defined your self identity.

34:00

What I learned mainly was

34:02

that I'm not in control

34:04

of anything. I can make all

34:06

the plans in the world, and control

34:09

of anything. You know, life is so much

34:11

bigger. But actually, what was quite

34:13

surprising that came out of it was that

34:15

I rediscovered my love of writing

34:18

music, which I'd always

34:20

had as a child, but you know, it was always on the

34:22

back burner. And I met a

34:25

wonderful composer called Drew Masters a

34:27

few years ago, and he's,

34:31

oh, gosh, I love his music so much, and I'd

34:33

always loved his music, and so when we met,

34:35

we just clicked and this

34:38

energy just suddenly emerged.

34:40

It was like this energy was born. And

34:43

so it was almost like this, So this

34:45

relationship that I had with my violin where we

34:47

were a unit, I discovered in

34:49

this partnership with Drew as a composer.

34:52

So we started writing, nothing

34:55

really serious, just sort of messing

34:57

around a little bit in the studio, and

34:59

we discovered, actually that we

35:01

almost have this telepathy with each other.

35:04

I'll have an idea, He'll have an idea, and we just

35:06

go. We just go with it. We just go with the

35:08

flow. I feel like my identity

35:11

as Minca, and that's the name of

35:13

the collaboration between Drew and me. I

35:16

feel like Minca is now

35:19

massively part of my identity.

35:22

But then so was my violin. So

35:24

what happens when one identity

35:27

goes and another one is

35:29

born? What happens to the old identity? Is

35:32

it just part of my past? Am I bringing

35:34

part of that identity into Minca? There's

35:37

questions I ask myself every day, actually, because

35:40

I think there's room. I

35:42

think there's room for all of

35:44

these different identities. And

35:47

I'm not the same person that I

35:50

was. It's almost like there's

35:52

me pre violin, there's me. There

35:55

was me pre my violin. There was me

35:57

and my violin, and there's me post

36:00

my violin, and we are three

36:02

different people. I mean, obviously, you know,

36:04

the essence, the core of

36:07

a person doesn't change. My soul the

36:09

same, my heart is the same, but I

36:11

have changed. And I

36:14

look at those years with my

36:16

violin, like there were these sort

36:18

of ten technically years where

36:21

everything was just massively, massively vibrant.

36:24

I think I was scared. I was fearful

36:26

that I would never find joy,

36:29

real joy again. But

36:31

you know what, I feel so joyful

36:33

now.

36:34

Yeah, No, that's so wonderful, I really really

36:36

do. I can see it. I can see

36:38

it in your face. I can see it in your smile. I mean,

36:40

the joy is so evident. What I'm

36:42

hearing is that you found that there are many

36:46

mins you can be yes

36:48

when it comes to loving music.

36:50

Right.

36:50

So, I think before you had

36:52

a very tight grasp around Okay, min

36:54

is the concert violinist who plays this

36:56

strad and you're still

36:59

a musician, You're still a violinist. But

37:01

I sense that there's a greater capaciousness

37:04

there, like there's more space and more freedom

37:06

for you to be many things within that category.

37:08

Yeah. I actually feel as though what's

37:10

happening is I'm actually going

37:12

through what most people go through in their

37:15

adolescence, which is, you

37:17

know, experimenting, testing

37:19

the boundaries, pushing the boundaries,

37:21

you know, finding who you are,

37:25

and having done that, I accidentally realized

37:28

that there's this whole new world of music.

37:30

It's like I actually physically

37:33

feel something in me blossoming. I

37:35

feel every day I wake up

37:37

and I'm so happy. I'm

37:39

so happy to get out. I mean, I don't mean that I'm

37:41

kind of always ecstatic

37:43

or anything like that, but there's

37:46

always a point in the day where

37:48

I just have this massive sort of dopamine

37:51

hit because the music is just so beautiful

37:53

and I just can't bear it.

37:54

It's yeah,

37:57

so free.

38:15

This is Men playing an original song called

38:17

Queen's Gambit from her new project

38:19

Minka. Hey,

39:37

thanks so much for listening. Join

39:39

me next week when we finish our series on

39:41

AWE. In our first episode

39:43

of the series, psychologist Daker Keltner

39:46

spoke about a surprising source of AWE called

39:48

collective effervescence. It's

39:50

the feeling we get when we experience something

39:52

transcendent with other people. Next

39:55

week, I talked to doctor Shira Gabriel about

39:57

the science of collective effervescence and

40:00

how we can access it more in our everyday

40:02

lives. See you next week.

40:14

A Slight Change of Plans is created, written

40:16

and executive produced by me Maya Schunker.

40:19

The Slight Change family includes our showrunner

40:21

Tyler Green, our senior editor

40:24

Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound

40:26

engineer Andrew Bstola, and

40:28

our producer Tricia Bobita. Louis

40:30

Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and

40:33

Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.

40:35

Special thanks this week to Min Kim and

40:38

Drew Masters, who write and perform

40:40

as the musical duo Minca. You

40:42

heard part of their song Queens Gambit in

40:44

this episode. You can find more of their

40:47

music at sounds like ninca dot

40:49

com that's m I n Ka. We

40:52

also heard a bit of Min's performance of Brahms

40:54

from her album Gone, released

40:56

as a companion to her memoir by the same

40:59

name. Special thanks also to

41:01

my friend Rachel Lee, who I've known since

41:03

I was nine years old, for letting

41:05

us play a bit of her performance of the Mendelssohn

41:08

Violin Concerto. A Slight Change

41:10

of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industry,

41:12

so big thanks to everyone there, and

41:14

of course that's very special thanks

41:17

to Jimmy Wing. You can follow A

41:19

Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor

41:21

Maya Schunker.

41:46

I have that thing, what's it called earworm where

41:48

you hear music and it's constant, and even now

41:51

I'm always hearing music in my head and sometimes

41:53

it drives me mad because i can't sleep because

41:56

I've got music going on in my head and i can't

41:58

put ear plugs in block

42:01

out people snoring, but I can't block out the music.

42:03

I hear you, by the way, like every Taylor Swift

42:05

song eventually finds its way into my head

42:07

right right, So yeah,

42:10

I'm glad it's Beethoven for you. For me, it's

42:12

Tess

42:20

Mhm