A VIOLIN, STUDENT II

Not long after the seeds of his fascination with the electric guitar were first sewn upon hearing Les Paul’s 1951 hit ‘How High The Moon’ on the home radio as a child, Jeff discovered the violin. ‘I broke into my uncle's cabinet and found six violins,’ Jeff told Charles Shaar Murray for Mojo in 2004. ‘Talk about rock'n'roll excess! I'd never even seen or touched a violin, and then to find six in cases! He caught me and said, "If you want to play I'll teach you, but otherwise leave it alone." It was so diabolical for him to listen to me scraping that he recommended I try the cello instead. Both were no go because I couldn't do anything. Couldn't play a chord, couldn't hit the thing or make the sound I wanted, so I wound up lifting the lid of my mum's piano and twanging the strings of that. I was eight, nine, tried piano lessons. Total waste of time.’ Evidently, Jeff returned to the instrument again in later life and would occasionally play this violin at home.