With a natural ear for music and a passion for the soothing sounds of strings, music performance major Erika Johnson is pursuing her dream of becoming a violin virtuoso.

“Ever since I heard my middle school teacher Mr. LeFevre play the violin, I felt like that was what I wanted to do,” Johnson said.

“It sounded wonderful and I wanted to make other people feel like I was feeling right then,” she said.

The choice of picking up violin, Johnson said, was easy.

“When they asked me what I wanted to play, I said ‘give me a violin.'”

While most people might be daunted by the task of playing an instrument that most people can only coax screeches and squawks out of, Johnson said she has never felt that way.

“It wasn’t that hard for me because I was so dedicated,” she said. “I always loved it because it sounds so pretty. It was never that challenging until recently, when the music became harder,” she said.

Playing beautiful notes has always come easy to this 19-year-old music lover.

“If I can hear it, I can pick it up,” she said.

Johnson comes from a musical family.

Her grandfather played guitar, drums and the piano, and was enchanted by the big band sound emanating from New Orleans when he was growing up in Baton Rouge.

“Music made me a well-rounded person growing up,” Johnson said. “Some kids don’t have much exposure to music.”

Johnson likes to play all kinds of music, but said that her favorite types are classical, hip hop and R&B. Her favorite composers are Vivaldi and Brahms, and she said she wants to learn Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”

“But right now, I’m mastering the mechanical part of music, like learning theory and reading music,” she said. “I learned backward, because when I was young I would just hear a piece then play it.”

Enrolled in Applied Music and Music Fundamentals, she is also in the EC Orchestra. On Nov.3, she performed with the orchestra in Marsee Auditorium.

“My goal is to play in the New York Philharmonic so I can travel,” she said. “They go everywhere.”

With a schedule that requires four to five hours of practice a day, Johnson wants to pass on the joy that the violin has filled her life with.

“I want to get my master’s and teach,” she said.