February 2007
February 20, 2007 04:42
Essential
by Beverly Rollwagen
She just wants to keep her essential
sorrow. Everyone wants her to
be happy all the time, but she doesn't
want that for them. There is value in
the thread of sadness in each person.
The sobbing child on an airplane, the
unhappy woman waiting by the phone,
a man staring out the window past his
wife. A violin plays through all of them,
one long note held at the beginning and
the end.
(from She Just Wants © Nodin Press)
**
I've started collecting poems about the violin. I have two so far (see "The Violinist Learning the Fly" for #1).
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February 19, 2007 06:03
My grandmother, age 89, passed away on Saturday night. I've had a day to get used to it now, and her health was failing, so it wasn't unexpected. Still. She was my last living grandparent. One of the last things she did was to send sweet Valentine's cards to my kids, her great-grandchildren.
I followed the links from Laurie's most recent blog about her new instrument. I wasn't on v.com back then. She had a poigniant quote when she was thinking of buying the violin, something like "I'm just going to die anyway, whether I get the violin or not. Why not get it now, while I'm still playing, while it still makes a difference?"
Now that my kids aren't babies anymore I'm actually feeling like I have more time and energy than I did in my 20's and 30's rather than less. I'm exercising. I made a lateral career move and started a new job a year and a half ago. I bought a bottle of wine a few months ago, and was asked for ID . . . I'm not feeling old yet, physically.
But, when I turned 41 last year, I felt a similar sense of time passing and the urge to seize the day. It was one reason I took out my violin and started playing again, and rented a viola. The sense that nothing is forever.
To hold close the people and the things I love.
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February 14, 2007 06:48
I really liked Laurie's advice that it takes 21 days to form a habit, so you should practice 21 days in a row to form that habit. I looked back at my practice log since I started playing again last October and discovered that I did not have a single 21-day consecutive stretch in that time. This is not unusual for me. I've always had trouble with consistency and habits. I work out also, but I don't do that every day either. In fact, there's very little I do every day other than eat, sleep, and brush and floss my teeth (and I have perfect teeth, no cavities--maybe there's a lesson there!). A long time ago, however, I had about a 6-month long streak of practicing every day. It was when I was living in Germany. It started because I liked my teacher, and I wanted to please her. But then at some point, the streak took on its own momentum and I didn't want to break it. It lasted until I left Germany and came back to the U.S. for college.
So now, I'm on day 15, 2/3 of the way there. I don't see any reason why I can't make 21.
Except for this back, neck, and shoulder pain thing. Last night I read through an old shoulder rest thread on v.com and tried again to play without one. I put the instrument on my collarbone and kept my head and shoulder relaxed. My teacher in CA had already advised me to keep the instrument more to the front and center, so I do that naturally already. It still didn't work very well without the rest, but better than before and I didn't give up immediately. I found that after about 10 minutes or so I could actually play about as well as with the rest. But my left bicep got really, really tired from holding up the instrument. It was burning.
So then I put the shoulder rest back on but continued to use my left arm a little bit to hold up the instrument, and that seemed do-able. It took enough of the pressure off my left arm that it wasn't burning anymore. And I could continue to keep my head and neck straight. I realized just how automatically I was contracting my head and neck muscles as soon as I put up the instrument. So I stopped that. And I found that my vibrato was much looser, for a longer period of time. In fact, it never froze up in 35 minutes. And I think the Legende sounded better than it ever has. I feel much better about the prospect of performing it in church.
So, this seems promising. Maybe someday I'll even be able to practice vibrato an hour without freezing up ;-)
I don't need to dump the shoulder rest entirely, but it seems like I do need to give up this cherished idea that I should be supporting the instrument entirely with my chin and shoulder, without the help of the left hand, at all times. Where did that idea come from? I distinctly remember being shown and told that by some teacher or other, but I couldn't say which one it was, or when. And I even showed my daughter that recently, and made her do it too. Oops! Or maybe it's just an ideal, something you should be able to do for a few seconds, but not for hours on end.
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February 11, 2007 21:08
Ben Clapton's blog caught my eye when he wrote about having to prepare two audition pieces in contrasting styles. I am going to have to do that in the fall too, if I audition for the LSO. They also want two pieces in contrasting styles.
I'm pretty sure about the Courante from the Bach cello suite No. 1, but not so sure about the 2nd one. I've tried a few other things from Solos for Young Violists, and somehow or another they're not suitable. Stamitz is too difficult, the 1st and 3rd movements of Telemann just don't grab me hard enough, as much as I like the piece as a whole. So I'm still looking for something that contrasts with the Bach cello suite No. 1.
I have an interesting piece from Strad magazine 1999, called "Legende" by Louis Vierne. It's meditative, a little mournful, modern. I can't find a recording of it, not even on YouTube. I asked my church choir director to play through the piano part for me this morning, and she did. The piano part sounded a bit different from what I expected just from looking at it. I trust her judgement, she is good at choosing interesting and appropriate music for the choir to sing. She said she'd be happy for me to perform it next month along with the Bach.
The notes aren't too technically challenging; it has some treble clef and 4th and 5th position, but since violin was my first instrument, I still think treble clef is a relief not a burden . . . However, this piece really hits my own personal challenges right in the center. It needs round phrasing, vibrato, very legato bowings.
So I'm rediscovering how difficult it is to play without accenting bow changes. I just tend to accent naturally, maybe it's to keep the beat, I don't know.
And then I had a full vibrato meltdown, or maybe the opposite of a meltdown, a freeze-up. I tried rolling up a towel and sticking it under my left arm, but that didn't help, it may have made it worse. The tension then spread to my neck and shoulders and so I decided to stop practicing before I was in serious pain again. It's so hit or miss, some nights I'm fine, others I just freeze up and can't shake it or get out of it. I hate how it's not predictable or controllable. You're supposed to practice whether you "feel like it" or not. I'm feeling kind of discouraged.
The last time I felt this way was when I wrote about it two blogs ago. Since then, I've had more than a week without tension and pain. Of course, for most of that time I was working on the Bach and doing a style that's much more comfortable for me than this one. But then I do something new or challenging, and this happens again.
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February 7, 2007 19:44
My daughter named her violin "Lucy" and her bow "Rocky." I'm not sure what this means, but I think it's good.
She and Lucy are done with the first Adventures in Violinland book! Hooray! Even though we haven't been religious about doing it every week, it's nice to finish a milestone and move on to the next.
My son is only 3 and sometimes he wants to play too. I had been thinking that he might enjoy Suzuki violin next fall when he's 4. Although my daughter was intimidated by the performance aspect of Suzuki violin, I think my son would love it. He's kind of a ham and loves attention. His sister wants to "teach" him though, and that bugs him. A few days ago he got so mad he threw his violin (my daughter's old 1/4 size) on the ground. Fortunately it wasn't hurt and neither was he. Then he started crying and apologized profusely over and over. So clearly, he's not ready. (Yet? Or is this some kind of temperamental artist thing?)
Both my kids have been a real pain about Webkinz lately. All they want to do is play Webkinz on the computer. Finally, inspired by the "how do you motivate young kids to practice?" thread here, I decided to use that to advantage: they have to earn Webkinz time. For my daughter, 1 star= 5 minutes computer time. Practicing violin earns 2 stars. Practicing piano earns 1 star. The stars are multiplying, and I don't hear "mommy, can I play on the computer" as much anymore. And when I do hear it, I can just say "do you have enough stars? did you practice the violin or piano?"
Lucy and Rocky are now snuggled in their warm case. Good night.
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February 2, 2007 05:43
I'm enjoying reading the recent viola blogs (if that's the right word for commiserating about having the same sorts of problems).
I don't have a great handle on the C string resonance, but I'm noticing that my "accidentally" hitting the C string inappropriately during a string crossing is a bigger problem than I first realized, and that tuning a viola is different from tuning a violin. James Franco's suggestion was good, I wasn't paying enough attention to tuning down in that register. When I tune my violin it usually takes a few seconds and it's fine unless a peg has slipped from the weather or something, but it takes a bit more attention and time to tune the viola C string because I don't really have that sound in my ear yet.
Just slowing down is what I have to do in almost all areas of playing: slow down with tuning, slow down with the Bach, slow down with the string crossings in the Hasse. Play the piece slowly, and breathe. It even helps vibrato!
But now there's the bigger issue: shoulder and neck pain. I didn't have it in October and November, when I first rented this viola. I was also practicing only 20 minutes a day or thereabouts, and skipped days. Now it's closer to 35-40 minutes a day, and it's most days, and now my neck and shoulders are complaining. I don't have this pain any more with the violin. I used to in my teens and 20's, but it seems to be really gone, in December when I was playing violin I was fine.
Like Mendy, I've been wondering, is it because I have a 16-inch viola? I want to buy a viola, so I really need to decide on the size. I don't want to buy one that's too big. And I'm reconsidering my decision to play viola as a primary instrument. I'm probably going to keep on playing the violin now and then too, so I want to be able to switch back and forth comfortably. Someone on the viola list told me that Barbara Barber, who plays and teaches both instruments and whose sound I love, plays a 15-inch viola, in part to make switching back and forth easier. So, switching back and forth is another potential reason for a 15-inch viola.
I also adjusted the shoulder rest, and tried playing without a shoulder rest as many people on v.com suggest. Playing without a shoulder rest didn't work. I think I'm just one of those with a long neck and small, bony shoulders, who needs one. Otherwise I have too much tension in my shoulder and/or left arm from holding the thing up.
Adjusting its height, and raising the music stand, helped a little, but after I was done practicing, I still had to go and lay down on the floor with my knees bent and my head supported to relax my back for 5 minutes the way my Alexander Teacher suggested 10 years ago. Then I was getting too comfortable and almost fell asleep on the floor, so I went to bed.
All of this is arguing that I should get a teacher, and maybe an Alexander Teacher as well, and the sooner the better. But I can't afford either right now, mostly in terms of time, but also money, because I want to buy a viola and I want to spend $3-$5K and I have to save up. On the other hand, if I end up buying a viola that doesn't work for me, that's not money well spent either.
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