Violin lesson #65

This week the lesson started off with Laura's arrangement of Paploma (a song about a quilt). For ten minutes, until Sirisha arrived, Laura took me through the song. I have to admit it was pretty cool. Laura has arranged the song so that both parts play the melody at some point while the other part provides support. When Sirisha arrived she was asked to get straight into playing her part. It did not take her long to get up to speed. I think we are both going to struggle a little with the rhythm. It is 7/8 time so it will take a little while to get used to counting the odd beat 1-2 1-2 1-2-3.

I passed another bow style of my two-octave G Major scale. The rest of the exercises were okay. I am still struggling with the running up and down pattern and I am not sure why. I know I will get there in the end.

Strawberry Milkshake earned me a sticker this week. Toffee Nut Fudge Cake improved. I need to work on the dynamics, especially as they pertain to the staccato. Rum Bah Ba was better too even with Laura improvising on the piano to help keep me in time.

That was all there was time for this week for me. I didn't get to the two longer pieces. They needed more practice anyway, in my opinion. The next time I play them I want them to be performed well.

Speaking of performing, I play for Whiskers. Let me explain. An ex co-worker of mine asked me to mind his cat, Whiskers, while he and his family are away. This means I visit the cat every afternoon, check on him, feed him, pat him a little. You know, cat stuff. While he eats, I play, since I am doing nothing else at the time. I have since learned the lady next door looks after Whiskers in the morning. She can see the lights come on in the evening when I visit and she can hear the violin. I wonder if she will become part of my audience :) This is set to continue for about five weeks or so.

Sirisha was next. It might be that she was warmed up with her Paploma performance but she was on fire this week. I lost count of how many stickers she earned. I was really proud of her. And that is another plus for double lessons. We support and encourage each other. Sorrows shared are halved, joys shared are doubled. I think there is something like that in our lessons.

For next week I really want Paploma to sound good. I don't know if it will be necessary to practice with Sirisha outside of class or whether there is sufficient time during lessons to rehearse together. In any case, I want to do my best with this song so it will sound good with her part playing too.

That's it for now. I am excited about Paploma but I can't ignore the rest of my practice.