June 2008

In another month, I'll be playing the violin for 6 months! A milestone for me (mini one at least)! I can't believe in this short 6 months, the amount of information I learned!! I think it's silly for me to even going to the forum and ask, "I'm an adult, is it too late to learn the violin?". Well, if I just kept asking and lurking here instead of going to find a teacher, I won't be playing a single note. Now, I'm working on beautiful music and playing with a community orchestra.

I was reading some of the old post and the question of whether the violin is the most difficult instrument really enlighten me. I agree that it is difficult, but everyone's ability is different. To me, progessing on the piano is more difficult. In my opinion, it's finding the right instrument. To me, playing the violin is like fish in water (compared to piano anyways!!). I'm so glad I'm learning it!!

Back to my practice, I'm having a hard time doing perfect 5ths, i'm not even talking about double stops. Just doing for e.g a legato slur on B to F# where you have to bar your finger, this is SO hard, any tips? My fingers are small, so it's very difficult... i tried rolling, but i'm not stopping the 2nd string completely and it's buzzing. :(

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My first Concert!

June 15, 2008 08:35

In April, I blogged about how I have a burning desire to play in an orchestra, to make music with others. I had a slight problem, I have only played the violin for a grand total of 3 months then. Some of the folks here encouraged me to go sit at the rehearsal and check it out, never hurt to ask, right?

So, the conductor told me to bring my instrument to check it out. Fast forward to yesterday where we finished our concert for this quarter.

This is a very small community college chamber orchestra where we only have about 8 -10 violins, (that's first and 2nd),2 violas, 3 cellos, 2 double bases.

I had a very wonderful time with this group, people are extremely helpful. No one gave me a dirt look when I told them I've only played for 3 months, but they did try to hide their surprise expression.

We played a Haydn Symphony, Carnival of the Animals, a modern piece, and Double Piano Concerto with strings.

Things I learned from this orchestra experience:

1. 2nd violin parts are not necessarily easier than first. I agree that we don't play notes as high, but it's not as easy as I thought it would be! One of the reason being the speed the conductor took!!
2. Counting is very important, i can't rely just on my ears
3. Must listen to others
4. Watch the conductor (my eyes were glued to my music)
5. Make sure music on stand is in the right order before performance (someone accidentally took my music and she panicked and put it on the floor (THANK GOODNESS!!), I was playing page 2 and ready to look at page 3 and it says page 7!!), i'm so glad I looked down on the floor and there it was.
6. Enjoy the experience!!!

Thanks for reading! And thanks for everyone who encouraged me to stick with it. I seriously thought I was not going to make it because of the difficulty of the music (to me at least, maybe it is an easy repertoire), but it does get easier after a while.

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Mark O'Connor's method books -- released this week -- teach students using many styles of American music. Enter to win a set of the books this week, on Violinist.com. Photo: Deanna Rose