Anna Meyer on Violinist.com

Why I Love Bach A Minor Concerto 2nd. mvt

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:29:14 GMT

The Bach A Minor concerto is a very special concerto to me. It & acute;s one of the best pieces I have ever played and it & acute;s also the first major concerto I worked on. I love all 3 mvt. but the 2nd one holds a special place in my heart and here & acute;s why:

I played the 2nd, mvt in the spring of 2008 after my teacher assigned me to it. I sort of liked playing buit I struggled with vibrato at the time and I also greatly preferred the 3rd mvt. at that time because it was faster and more exciting. But I went through it all the same. I was originally going to perform the 3rd. mvt in recital and was really excited but then I got terribly sick and couldn & acute;t practise for a week. And as I had been playing the 2nd. mvt. longer my teacher decided it & acute;d be best for me to perform that mvt. Needless to say I was not very happy.

I first performed at my teacher & acute;s recital and frankly that performance didn & acute;t go alt that well. I was nervous and I didn & acute;t really like the piece so it was not one of my brigther days. Infact I kind of despised having to play it. But that was going to change.

Two weeks later I was set to perform it for the teachers at my music conservatory for evaluaiton. Unfortunaetly I had to perform it straight after an exam in school. The exam was math and I failed it epically and I knew it. So i arrived at my conservatory confused, angry, tearful and stressed. I whipped out the violin and proceeded to perform. I thought I performed terribly. My bow shook as if there was an earthquake and I missed an income and so many other things. I bawled my heart out afterwards and was in eveyr way in terrible spirit and determined that it was & nbsp; amistake form the start that I played the 2nd. mvt.

But I was wrong.

My teacher called me several days later and told me that he thought I did a much better performance in front of the teaher than I did at his recital and he said I played it well and it felt as if the knew the piece better. Then I got the comment from the teachers: & quot;Well prepared an a good performance & quot;. What i thought was a flop turned out to be a good performance. It was such a surprise!

Needless to say, after that I gained far more love for the piece than I had done before and when I got a CD with Anne Mutter playing it I played through the 2nd mvt. on the CD time and again and loved every second of it. It & acute;s now one of the best pieces i have ever played.

I did flop my math exam epically but I did not flop my violin performance and that instantly saw me through. So Bach turned put to be a true blessing for me.

And heree & acute;s my favourite recording of this wonderful piece

The many colors of intonation

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:08:58 GMT

Last lesson I had my teacher looking expertedly at me after "suffering" through me playing a part of Bach E Major really slowly for intonation (that concerto is really difficult intonation wise) and after explaining several details to me he said: "You know......there are many colors of intonation"

I have realized the truth of his statement only too well after spending chamber practise after chamber practise on tuning the the harmonies we are playing which is pretty difficult considering we are playing a Klezmer styled piece. We spend ages on figuring out what everyone is playing and then we spend ages on tuning the harmony so it sounds perfect. We are all equally guilty in the harmonies sounding untuned. I have certainetly done some great pondering over the last few weeks on where in the world to place my fingers on the string so that the intonation is right. Needless to say I have also improved my intonation a lot in that piece!

It�s been a journey disovering the colors of intonation with our odd combination of instruments (piano, clarinet and string quartet) but it�s been very educating and worthwhile. But there�s still a way to go. Last time we played we managed to mess up spetacularly the last few harmonies of our piece so we sounded like we were trying to play oddball modern music with no specific notes instead of a respectable piece by Prokofiev.

So the journey goes on...both in chamber, orchestra and individually.

The journey of discovering the many colors of intonation right with my tuner and my ears as my weapons.

Changing strings

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:25:16 GMT

After having discovered that my A and D strings had acquired a terrible metalic sound which made my whole violin sound as if it was a 10$ beginner violin, not my wonderful Chinese violin which I cherish, I decided to buy new strings. However I couldn & acute;t buy string till after my orchestra concerts so that I wouldn & acute;t play out of tune the whole time in the concerts, This sadly resulted in that my friend badgered me every 5 minuets to tune my strings and my strings were out of tune until just 5 minuets before we went on the stage. Thankfully my strings kept tune but the next time I practised my violin had the most terrible sound it had ever had. I felt as if I had been jolted back to my beginner days playing a squeaky beginners violin.

So off I went and bought new strings. I use Dominant strings and I was happy indeed to change my strings at last and get the wonderful sound from my violin again, But as the lesson goes, it turned out that after changing the strings I had to tune them every 5 minuets with the aid of my electronic tuner which was a rather tiring. But I gladly went through the ordeal of retuning again and again know that in just a few days time my violin will sound wonderful again. I & acute;ll probably spend most of my next violin lesson watching my teacher exasperatedly retuning my strings again and again (they have a flair for falling out of tune those new one & acute;s) but I know the reward will be great :)

And I love Dominant Strings. They are cheap and have a wonderful sound!

We did it!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:47:18 GMT

Yesterday was one of the best orchestra experiences I have ever had. My youth orchestra performed Beethoven 9th symphony with a local choir and 4 professional singers. We had been practising the symphony since late September and we pushed ourselves a lot to get the symphony good. It means hours of practising, a good deal of shoulder aches and a great deal of listening to the symphony. We really worked ourselves over the limit. But we enjoyed the fruit of our labour yesterday!

Before the concert I had had certain difficulty with the counting in the symphony and in certain places I�d lose my place. But yesterday I managed to stay on track the whole time and I only made a few minor mistakes so I am personally greatly pleased with my part.

My youth orchestra performed Beethoven 9th almost in full tempo and we performed it with vigour and joy and put our hearts into the performance. And that resulted in that in the end we received a thunderous applause and a standing ovation from a group of 500 people. It felt nothing short of amazing.

So I can say now: "WE�DID IT!"

What to play at Christmas Recital?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:45:51 GMT

As to celebrate the beginning of November my teacher mentioned what I wanted to play at Christmas recital. He gave me a choice of 3 pieces:

-Bach E Major 1st, mvt: I have been working on this piece for about 2 and half months and I have got the basics down so now I am working on the finer points and bringing it all together

-Sch & ouml;n Rosmarin: I have been playing this piece on and off since last January. I have it down pretty well but there are some finer points I have to work on which I believe will take a short time to fix.

-Ravel Pi & eacute;ce en formde de Habanera: I have been playing this piece for about 2 months and it & acute;s coming along nicely

So what piece would be an ideal one to play? I find myself feeling very undecisive as I love all those pieces and want to play them all equaly as much :)

& nbsp;

A Tuner kind of AHA

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:51:38 GMT

Yesterday I fulfilled a life long violin dream and bought myself a tuner :-) I was of course exceptionally thrilled with my purchase and it definetly didn & acute;t hurt fhat my tuner is gold coulored. But as I happen to be exceptionaly clumzy and clueless when it comes to technology it didn & acute;t take long before I was sitting with the manual in front of me, trying to make sense of the tuner.

My problem was that I had no idea whether I had to plug the tuner with a microphone so that it could sense the pitch of my violin or whether it picked it up without a microphone. I & acute;d like to add that I had only once in my whole violin life used a tuner before that :-) But after careful reading through the manual I at last got a better sense of how it worked. And after setting it right I decided to try it out by playing my A string close to the tuner. And needless to say it worked! It turned out that I didn & acute;t need a microphone at all.

I have now fallen in love with my tuner and am lookin forward to using it further in my violin adventure. But I did realize after this experience that I & acute;ll always be a fool around technical things :) All violinist have a music kind of AHA. My AHA proved to be a tuner kind.

Other than that, I am right now negotiating with my teacher whether I should play Mozart 3 or Haydn 4. I want to jump into playing Bach E Major but I have to blend in some classical as I am waaaayyyy to much of a baroque nerd.

Welcome to the valley of violin frustration

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:44:51 GMT

Today I asked myself for the 100th and definetly not the last time why in the world I chose to play violin. I stil have yet ti find completely an answear to that question but stay tuned!

I happily skipped off to violin lesson today with Vivaldi Spring and Mozart 2nd concerto in my bag. I was looking forward to get cracking on those pieces, especialy Mozart. Well.....things never turned out the way we exactly want them to in our violin world. By the end of the lesson my teacher had announced to me flatly that he didn & acute;t think I should play Mozart. He said that he & acute;d heard that one should & acute;t really play Mozart unless one is world famous. Well I happen not to be. If anything I am world anonimous. So......Mozart 2nd flew out the window, at least for the time being.

Was I dissapointed? Well....yes! It & acute;s hard to explain but I want to improve so much in my repetoire. I have good technique and I know I can play & nbsp; harder pieces that I did last year .I want to play hard pieces (not talking Beethoven or anything).. I wil never be world famous but I want to play Mozart and I know I can play it with good practise.

My teacher said that he much rather wanted me to play Haydn G Major or C major. I use to love Haydn G Major but now I find it to be too simple. There & acute;s doesn & acute;t seem to be much to the music, it & acute;feel superficial for me. I want something real! So I flatly told my teacher that but told him I & acute;d rather play C Major. I took on the role of the obstinate violin student. Not something I like doing but....I want to have a say too.

So my teacher said then that he rather wanted me to play Mozart 3rd Concerto as he felt more comfortable with that one. So yet again I am going to be obstinate. I told my teacher I really wanted to play a real concerto not just short pieces as I did last year as much as I loved that. So I am going to be obstinate yet again and I determine to play Mozart 3rd. Even though it & acute;ll mean working my fingers till they near fall off, I am going to work on it .

I am a good violinist an I want to really try out my violin skills. I want to expand my repetoire and I want to learn, work and suceed. So playing something like Mozart is important to me. I want & nbsp; so much more from my private violin playing. I get so much from orchestra where we play really feisty music which really moves and is real and asks a great thing of the player and takes him on a journey of musical exploring. I want as much from my private pieces.

I hope and pray that I & acute;ll get rid of this frustration soon. And although I haven & acute;t dicovered the answer yet I sure will do one day :)

When playing gets tough, the tough play ABBA

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:04:48 GMT

I thought I might share this anecdote of mine :) When I was preparing for my grade exam last spring I was getting sooo tired of playing through the same program over and over again and it had gotten to a point of frustration and I didn�t enjoy playing my pieces and at th same time I had my teacher punctuating so much on intonation in Bach A-Minor I was rather fed up. But then I found the perfect solution!

I am a great ABBA fan and know most of their songs by heart and I was brought up with them, So for me the solution was to pop my ABBA CD in the radio and then have fun playing along. Needless to say I soon felt exhilerated and laughed a good deal over the sillynes of playing ABBA, me a serious violin student :-) But it turned out that playing ABBA made me feel restored again and ready to rumble with my pieces. My favourite ABBA song to play is "Mamma Mia" and "Lay all you love on me".

So I�ll be guaranteed to pop ABBA into my radio the next time my violin is driving me mad. So right now me pesonal violin motto is: When playing gets tough, the tough play ABBA!

Ready for Vocalise

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:50:03 GMT

here comes a & quot;shock & quot; announcement:

I am going to play Vocalise by Rachmaninov this year. I have somehow always resented playing this piece & nbsp;and hoped that my teacher wouldn & acute;t & nbsp;give it to me. I must admit that I felt offended when he handed it to & nbsp;me and said: & quot;I think & nbsp;you are ready to play this now & quot;. I felt he wasn & acute;t challening me enough since I considered Vocalise not to be advanced repetoire and I wanted a challenge. I had therefore decided no to play it. Now, after listening to it & nbsp;a countless & nbsp;times I have realized that it & acute;s an & nbsp;exquisite piece. It & acute;s such a powerful piece filled to the brim with emotions. It speaks without words, a beautiful, sometimes heart rendering but ultimately & nbsp; a hopeful message, Now, I can & acute;t wait to get started on this piece. I have played it through once and I realized that I just couldn & acute;t wait to get it beautiful.

So now I am ready to play Vocalise. I ve realized that when my teacher said that I was ready he meant that I had gotten good enoug in vibrato to play it (a huge achivement for me :) ) Also that I was ready to explore the beauty of really slow pieces (I ve always had a preference for fast one & acute;s). I have realized that Vocalise is advanced repetoire. After all...the biggest of masters have played it. I am looking forward to walking in their footsteps with this song. I happen to love Rachmaninov & acute;s 2nd piano concerto and now I am loving another piece of his. I & acute;ll come to love more and more soon I think.

So Vocalise, here I come armed with Mya (my violin), I am determined ot master you *background music again of Dvorak 9th, 4th mvt.*

You know you're an orchestra geek when...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:14:29 GMT

I am one of those insane violinists whom love orchestra and are willing to spend hours at ends in orchestra practise playing the same bars over and over and over again and don & acute;t get tired of it (well expect for when the conductor has the orchestra tuning the harmonies note after note after note). Orchestra has given me fantasic memories, fantastic concerts, wonderfully succesful practises, shoulder ache beyond imagination, frustration beyond imagination, a great lesson in patience (we & acute;ll get that bar right eventually) and greatly improved violin skills :) So all in all I & acute;m an orchestra geek.

There are always those signs which one can use to tell whether one is an orchestra geek or not.

1- You consider the day which has orchestra practise you & acute;r favourite day of the week

2-You listen to the orchestra piece you & acute;r playing up to 5 times a day (Dvorak 9th symphony is a wonderful & quot;easy & quot; listening)

3- You call your friend excitedly after confirming your participation in a youth orchestra project and you & acute;r both & nbsp;highly excited & nbsp;to begin

4- You Invite (i.e. drag) you & acute;r non classical music listening friends to your concerts and promise them that the music will be awesome (yet again Dvorak 9th never fails ;) )

5- You & acute;r chamber ensemble conductor gives you a massive guilt trip when told that you intend not to participate that term so because of guilt you decide after all to participate

6- Orchestra is one of your favourite topics of discussion

7- Your favourite treat pasttime is to attend symphony concerts

8- When attending symphony concerts where Dvorak 9th symhpony is being played you spend your time on analyzing the diffrence between the performance of your youth orchestra and the one your listening to.

9- When listening to symphonies you know well and/or have played you find yourself either imitating the violin movements of the music or find yourself conducting

10- You can answear in the blink of an eye whach your favourite symphonies are and why

I could come up with many more reasons but short in short I am an orchestra geek and proud of it :)

Feel free to add to the list if you want and I do apologize for all spelling mistakes, unfortunaetly spelling isn & acute;t my biggest strength in English (which is my 2nd language)