One summer when I was teaching violin and coaching chamber music at a music camp for middle school and high school kids, we decided amongst us faculty to award a “turkey prize” to the coach of the worst sounding group. Cruel as that sounds, it helped take away some of the competitive edge among us, as well as adding an injection of much needed humor. Having the best sounding group AND the worst sounding group became lofty goals to which to aspire. (Needless to say, this was a private prize – not something that we shared with our blossoming music students.)
I was reminded of the turkey prize as I worked on tonight’s rendering:
Interestingly, even though my eyes were tired as I rendered this design and I was convinced that I had created a real “turkey” of a pendant, taking the time to make it still look as good as possible resulted in a not-so disappointing finished artwork.
Much like the process of doing this rendering tonight, caring enough to try to transform music for some of the less naturally-gifted or interested students at the chamber music camp usually ended up giving decent results. I’m proud to say that I escaped being awarded the “turkey prize” that summer.
Oh, and by the way, the prize was a bottle of Wild Turkey Bourbon…maybe I missed out on a good thing?
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