This weekend, the beautiful Rhys bravely recorded herself while she whispered sweet nothings into my ear. By sweet nothings, I actually mean a vile joke about a penguin and his ice cream misfortunes. And by my ear, I mean the ears of all her listeners. Whatever.

Right-O. It got me thinking. I don’t have much to offer myself — no animal jokes, sadly — but wouldn’t it be nice if I could record a little something on my violin?

Never again.

Within half an hour, I had managed to take one of my favourite pieces for violin and piano: the famous Meditation from Thais, an opera by Jules Massennet, and rip it to shreds.

Creaky notes, bad rhythm, throw in a howling dog and an obese elephant, and you’ll only have scratched the surface of my dismal performance.

I only included about a tenth of the piece because beyond that point you’ll start hearing some strange things. Things like the booing of my neighbours, the sound of rotten eggs pounding against my window, and my own eloquent cussing.

I swear, it sounds better with the piano. And with a better violinist.

And because at this point I can’t possibly humiliate myself any further, I’ve decided let you guys have a listen to how the piece should actually sound at the hands of a competent musician.

It’s truly wonderful, n’est-ce pas? But the bastard gets a full orchestra backing him up — honestly, nobody can sound shitty with that much musical support.

Give me a fuckin’ triangle, and I’ll own this piece.

For those of you who are interested, I played this piece about half a decade ago at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Ottawa, accompanied by my lovely sister on piano. I took first place and also won a musical scholarship that year.

Sadly, it’s all gone downhill from then.