Time & Perspective Quote by Kevin Eubanks

Eubanks lands the joke like a well-timed rimshot: the violin isn’t just an instrument, it’s a household event. “It takes a while” works as both instruction and gentle warning, the kind you only earn after years of scraping through beginner passages. The line about “very patient people in your house” shifts the focus from solo discipline to collateral damage. Practice isn’t romantic here; it’s domestic diplomacy.

As a working musician who built a public persona on warmth and quick wit, Eubanks frames the grind in a way non-musicians instantly recognize: talent is noisy before it’s beautiful. The subtext is a small rebellion against the myth of effortless virtuosity. Six years isn’t presented as a heroic odyssey, just a long stretch of incremental improvement, where the people around you become unwilling stakeholders in your ambition. That’s a quietly generous way to talk about education and privilege, too: sustained practice presumes time, space, and family or roommates who can tolerate the learning curve.

The violin, culturally, carries a special kind of pressure. It’s associated with elegance and precision, which makes its early-stage sound especially unforgiving. By naming that gap, Eubanks humanizes the path from beginner to professional: behind every polished performance is a history of unglamorous repetition and someone, somewhere, who didn’t complain too much through the squeaks. The humor softens the truth, but it doesn’t dilute it: becoming good takes time, and it rarely happens in isolation.