I had some good practice days this week, especially Sunday night where I even had time for mucking about after all of my practice. During the week I managed to track down the Middle Eastern / Balkan music lessons. Check out Waziz. I plan on attending the gathering on June 18 so expect a post then - unless something happens and I can't make it.
Sirisha is back this week. She had been in Sydney and is the first person I know of who has been in a nuclear reactor. Her trip away sounded very busy and just as fascinating. We talked about that and stories about GPS adventures until it was time for the lesson.
Sirisha's violin was tuned first so she had the first lesson. She said she had played very little over the last two or three weeks so Laura started her off on scales. Sirisha then played some of her pieces and they sounded pretty good given her sporadic practice.
Soon enough it was my turn. I played my scales. Laura employs a "baseball" style system: if it takes me three times to get my scale right I have it for another week. Frustrating perhaps, but there won't be any excuses for me not knowing them. Laura also admitted that she is a bit of a nag, but totally in a good way, and that her boyfriend Dave is happy because by the time she gets home after lessons she is nagged out and he gets no nagging! As long as Laura uses her nag powers for good instead of evil I'll accept it.
Something that became evident today is that my upstroke is not as fast as my downstroke. Stop giggling you lot - I'm talking about my violin bow stroke. Sheesh. It is something I need to work on to improve my playing. Laura is able to tell without looking which bow stroke I am doing by hearing it. It should be indistinguishable. I have an exercise for that so I will be working on that at home.
There was even time for two pieces this week. Air In G was first. Some parts have improved but there is still a fair way to go. This is one of the places where the up-stroke issue was obvious. It is frustrating for me because some parts can sound so good while other parts are still ordinary. I suppose I just have to be patient and apply Laura's advice so the whole piece can sound great. I am often my own worst critic and that doesn't help either.
I finished with Minuet. Oh my goodness the trouble I can get into with a sniff! I have blogged before that professional string players will often start off a piece with a sniff to indicate when to start, rather than counting in. I had to sniff to start this piece. One sniff indicated a faster tempo than I intended (I didn't know about that). Another time I sighed instead of sniffed and Laura started without me. Then I started giggling because it was absurd to me that I could not sniff correctly - how will I ever be concertmaster or part of an ensemble if I can't get that right? The upstroke problem plagued this piece too. And it didn't help that I the timing for my first bar was incorrect. Eventually we managed to play through the whole piece. Laura gave me some more advice for finishing the piece - I should trail off the last note. I know what she means but couldn't quite get it right today.
There won't be a lesson next week since Laura is off to music camp with some of the school kids she is teaching. It will feel a little awkward skipping a week but it can't be helped, and it will give me more time to get my scales, exercises and pieces in better shape.
For now I am looking forward to Waziz tomorrow night. It should be exciting.
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