[traffic, outdoor sounds]
[slow classical violin music]
- Music.
? ?
It's considered the universal language.
? ?
- If you can communicate something
without saying anything at all,
it's just a magical world, I guess.
[notes on violin]
- A world Rose Vincent's been in tune with
for most of her life.
- I was 12 years old, and my parents said,
"Well, you get to choose your instrument."
I thought violin sounded pretty cool.
But after a couple days, I told my mom, I said,
"This is what I want to do for a living."
She laughed.
? ?
- It was the start of a lifelong dialogue for Rose.
- I wanted to be a performer,
and I wanted to learn to improvise.
- Even if the conversation is always changing.
[ending notes of violin music]
[scraping sounds]
[sweeping sound]
[ting as brush hits glass]
[soft guitar music]
- I got started in violin restoration
when my violin in college
started to have some structural problems,
and a very kind person offered to teach me how to fix it.
- Rose is a luthier.
Someone who restores and rebuilds string instruments.
- They have to function,
not just, you know, paint a pretty picture.
So they have to be able to express when they're done.
That is the goal.
[sound of friction as drawer is pulled open]
[sound of friction as drawer is pushed closed]
[scraping sound]
- She works alongside her husband John
at their shop in downtown Eau Claire.
Together they've restored hundreds of violins,
some centuries old.
- One of the oldest we've got rolling right now
is 1711 Georg Arman from Augsburg.
That's a really neat instrument, and it's really messed up.
[tsh, tsh sound of bristles]
- For Rose, it's like lending an ear to an old friend.
- It never gets old when you hear them for the first time.
I can be the first one to hear it in maybe 100 years.
And that's pretty cool.
[mid tempo guitar music]
- But what happens
when what you're hearing suddenly changes tone.
- ? Stay away from me ?
? You're causing me trouble ?
? It's been that way since from the start ?
- Bluegrass is like playing Bach at two hundred miles an hour
and composing it on the spot.
[fast tempo bluegrass music]
- Rose was recruited from the chamber orchestra
by a local bluegrass band.
? ?
- Bluegrass was an absolutely new experience.
I had never done anything like that before.
It scared the heck out of me.
? ?
It's extremely complex.
It's extremely difficult.
It was, in a way, more difficult than playing classical music
because it was set out there to react that quickly
and interact with the harmonies that other people are creating.
It's just a real complex dance,
which was really, really neat.
? ?
- When she's not mending violins,
Rose travels the country now playing bluegrass.
- I found out I loved being on the road.
Absolutely loved it.
We've met so many people along the way.
Also it made me a better violinist in general
because there's such an emphasis on rhythm and collaboration
that it just rounded everything out.
[classical violin music]
- Even when the tempo keeps changing for Rose...
[scraping sound]
...the language stays the same.
- I think the best thing you can feel is that
you've completely emptied everything out of yourself
to give to the people listening.
[clapping in rhythm to music]
- Sometimes it's just, it just knocks you over,
like, "Wow, this is really awesome."
[ending notes of bluegrass music]
[cheers and applause]