The Hayes Valley violin teacher whose student of 23 years still comes weekly

Geraldine Sokol is 84. She has taught the violin in the front room of her one-bedroom apartment on Octavia Street in Hayes Valley since 1973. She has had, by her own count, somewhere over 400 students. The longest current one is a 38-year-old software engineer named Joseph Chen, who has come every Tuesday at 6 p.m. since 2002.

Joseph started at age 15. He is now 38. He is, in his own estimation and Geraldine’s, an intermediate-level player; he has not progressed substantially in fifteen years. He has, at various times, considered stopping. He has not stopped.

A lesson with Mrs. Sokol, she is “Mrs. Sokol” to every student, costs $90 in 2026. It was $30 in 1973 and has been adjusted, by her own internal logic, six times in 52 years. She does not raise the rate for existing students; new rates apply only to new students. Joseph still pays the 2002 rate of $50 a lesson.

Mrs. Sokol was a third-chair violinist in the SF Symphony from 1969 to 1973. She left when her son, who is now 56, was diagnosed at age 5 with autism. She has taught privately since.

The apartment’s front room has not been redecorated since 1981. A small Persian rug. A music stand that has had its joints reinforced with electrical tape twice. A 1968 Steinway upright she uses for accompaniment, tuned twice a year by the same tuner who used to tune for the Pacific Heights piano block. Two chairs. A framed photograph of her late husband, an architect, on the small table.

Joseph Chen lives in Mountain View now. He works for one of the large tech companies on a salary that, in 2024, he disclosed to Mrs. Sokol over a glass of red wine after a lesson, was over $400,000. He drives 38 miles up the peninsula every Tuesday, leaves work at 4:30, parks on Octavia by 5:50, and is upstairs by 5:58. He has missed three Tuesdays in 23 years: once for his wedding (Mrs. Sokol attended), once for his daughter’s birth (Mrs. Sokol mailed flowers), once for his mother’s funeral in 2019.

“A lesson is not a measurement,” Mrs. Sokol says. “A lesson is an hour. The hour is the thing. Whether Joseph plays better at the end of it is a question for somebody else. He is no worse. He is the same. He is here.”

Joseph says the lesson is what makes the rest of the week possible. He says it the way you would say something you have only recently figured out. He has, over twenty-three years, played the Bach Partita in D Minor at a level that would not pass a college audition but that Mrs. Sokol finds, in her phrase, “perfectly his.” He has played the partita at the same lesson, in pieces, about every eight months. He still finds new mistakes in it.

Mrs. Sokol’s son still lives at home. He is 56. He is mostly nonverbal. He sits at the kitchen table during Joseph’s lessons. He has, since 2008, brought Joseph a glass of water at the 30-minute mark, every Tuesday, without prompting. Joseph drinks the water and thanks him by name. The son nods.

On the Tuesday I observed at 6:14 p.m., Joseph played the opening of the partita. He missed the same note he has missed every Tuesday for nineteen months. Mrs. Sokol said: “Try again.” Joseph tried again. He missed it. Mrs. Sokol said, “Try again.” Joseph tried again. He got it. Mrs. Sokol said: “Better.” She said it the same way she has said it for twenty-three years. Joseph smiled. He played the next phrase.

I asked Joseph, after the lesson, why he keeps coming. He thought about it for a long time. He said: “I have a CEO. I have a manager. I have a wife. I have a daughter. I have a mortgage. I have a 401(k). I have a Tuesday.”