My Obi Bun loved classical music. Occasionally, while I was playing something or listening to classical music, she would come from the hallway up to my closed door and start scratching frantically at it, demanding to be let in. After I opened the door, she would just sit there and wait politely for the music to resume. She loved Vivaldi in particular, whether it was the Suzuki book Violin Concertos or Spring from the Four Seasons. More than once, she would come and pound my door down until I let her in.
Bunbun, on the other hand, had strong opinions on stringed instruments. He didn’t share Obi’s enthusiasm for classical music. To him, classical music was just highbrow fluff and the violin a vessel of said bourgeoisie snobbery. He saw my violin as an enemy to be dispatched, and my playing as a disturbance to the public peace. In his rabbit eyes, it was a personal injustice that my two hands should be playing the violin for hours at a time, instead of petting him and dispensing yummy treats.
So, I had recently bought an upright floor stand for my violin and bow so I could just pick it up and play whenever the mood struck. I was trying to break out of a plateau in my playing. I was correct in thinking that my hours of practice would shoot up if my violin was more readily accessible, compared to when I had to take it out from the case every time, unhook the bow, affix the shoulder rest, and then do the whole song and dance again in reverse after playing.
At the beginning, Bunbun did inspect the violin when I started leaving it on its new stand on the floor (there was no space on my work desk), but he would always quickly move on to more interesting things. He would spend hours in my room and my violin would remain undisturbed. Days passed. Little did I know, this was a ruse to lull me into a false sense of security. A month passed without incident. I was relieved that he showed no interest in the violin, despite historical evidence to the contrary of him inflicting damage on several other wooden fixtures around our home. As the saying goes: those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
One month later, he decided that my guard was lowered enough for his diabolical plan to be able to come to fruition. I was in my room as usual, but my back was turned to the violin. I heard a loud scrape: the unmistakeable sound of rabbit teeth on wood. I turned my head, fearing the worst, knowing before I looked that something terrible had happened to my violin.
Sure enough, there Bunbun was, parked incriminatingly next to the violin. I shooed him away to inspect the damage. He had taken a bite out of my beloved Sebastian (yes, I named my violin). I had bought it in 2013 in Malaysia with my allowance, during my undergraduate days. I’ve had this violin for 11 years before Bunbun was even born. It wasn’t in mint condition anymore – the varnish bore various scratches accumulated over years of playing, but what violin didn’t? What most violins don’t have is a rabbit-bite-sized chunk missing from the lower bout.
I shared his crimes on a Rabbits Are A-holes FB group. I got an interesting range of perspectives (some of them very poignant) and was surprised by the number of people who were rabbit-owning violinists like myself and all the different types of instruments that had fallen victim to pet rabbits. Someone said their cello still bore rabbit bite marks from many years ago that they, for sentimental reasons, could not bring themselves to repair (mine is shut safely in its case whenever my bunnies are in my room, knock on wood).
Someone shared that his rabbits had chewed on his guitars, giving them a beautiful and distinct patina, which prompted me to observe my violin over the next few days to see if there were any new developments in the graining. Sure enough, the exposed part of the wood appeared to have aged differently since the attack. Whether it was an improvement to the overall aesthetic of the instrument remains debatable.
Bunbun, you are many things. Professional luthier isn’t one of them.