Violin lesson #90

Ha... I managed to post this a week after the last one =)

I tried to get as much time as I could for practice but it was a little difficult because of Multifest (primary school fete), my birthday (48) and a trip to Caloundra to buy drift trikes (for Prince Sage).

And today's lesson was at an unusual time because Laura had a school function on tonight. This means it was a Sirisha-less lesson too.

I started off with the bow hold. Yeah, I know how to hold it but there are subtleties that I need to know about to improve the hold and to, possibly, prepare for upcoming bow techniques that require a better hold than my current one. It felt a little odd and there was certainly some improvement.

Next came two technical exercises. I am still doing the one with the "Spock" grip, where the first and second finger are close, then a big gap to the close third and fourth fingers. Apparently this finger pattern is used in Balkan / world music so you just know I need to learn how to do it correctly. The first line sounded good and I almost nailed the second. The second exercise is the shift to third position. That's coming along quite nicely and will only improve when I learn to keep my palm down. Now that I have a better idea of how it should look in the mirror it will be easier.

And just on my fingers... I compared them to Itzhak Perlman's. Laura says his finger-tips tapered whereas mine are more square. It just means I have to practice a little bit more and take extra care. I have seen for myself it is possible, so I can't see why I can't get there one day too.

I had some time for one of my pieces. Today I was playing the Minuet. Laura said it was about 85% there. I need to slow down the passages with the double stops. That will a) make them easier to play and b) allow me to get a better sound from them. Amd there is a quiet passage that needs some practice with bowing so that I can get the bow to the correct position for some of the notes. This is the kind of thing I hope to work out for myself eventually. I know there are some pieces I have taught myself that would benefit from paying attention to the bow.

I really enjoyed my lesson this week and I look forward to the next one.