December 2005

December 27, 2005 20:49

It was a nice Christmas. My husband gave me a new chair for my music room. Do most of you stand or sit when you practice? I stand during my lessons, but sit quite a bit when working on pieces at home. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or not. Anyway, I'm ready to take the holiday stuff down and get it all packed away again. I am determined to go through the boxes and weed out the decorations I no longer use. Having a basement for storage makes it easy to keep waaaay to much stuff.

I played through old books and random pieces today for fun. It was great to play easier stuff and concentrate on bowings and intonation. I am ready to get back to lessons and a more structured game plan for my practicing.

Symphony rehearsals start back next week. We are doing a children's concert - Peter and the Wolf- in February. My children had a recording of the piece and listened to it every night at bedtime for years. They are grown now and think it's neat that Mom will perform a favorite from thier childhoods.

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Happy HO HO HO to you!

December 23, 2005 22:40

Merry Christmas to all v.com bloggers. Working for the public school system has a few perks - 2 great weeks of vacation around the holidays is one. I've had a wonderful week shopping, doing lunch with friends and finishing up family Christmas stuff. I look forward to the Christmas Eve service tomorrow evening and have worked hard on the music this week. It is cold but sunny here in Georgia and I have enjoyed staying in my pjs til noon every day. Drinking coffee and reading the morning paper is one of my favorite things I don't get to do often during the school year.

The stockings are hung, presents wrapped and we have enough cookies, fudge and assorted goodies to last through the weekend. My friends are good cooks! We will mostly chill in front of the tv and watch cheesy Christmas movies the next two days. I hope all of you have a memory making holiday.

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December 14, 2005 08:49

The church orchestra performance last Sunday went well, although it was weird for me. I got nervous towards the end of each of the two string quartet pieces. I started out focused and confident, and then as the piece progressed, it was like "who are you trying to fool? You can't really play the violin" thoughts crept into my psyche. Hmmmm... I wonder what that is all about. I am normally a little overthetop with good self esteem. We received many great comments afterwards, so I think we must have pulled it off.

Our one rehearsal for the Christmas Eve service was last night. A small representation of our orchestra is accompanying the choir in Gloria Deo. Many orchestra members have family commitments and cannot play that evening. The strings are quite "exposed" in this piece - our director tends to normally choose works that are brass heavy, so this is a little unusual. I plowed through it the best I could last night and afterwards received a compliment on how great the strings sounded. Since that would be me on second violin and one first violinist, the comment made me feel like a real musician :)

muggle violino madre

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December 5, 2005 12:48

The holiday season is rushing by at a tremendously fast pace! I have had to struggle to maintain any sort of practice schedule. My oldest daughter had surgery last week and I spent 3 days playing nurse Mom. She is our high maintenance child and I was very glad to leave her loft and head home to my violin, cat and husband - in that order :)

The church orchestra performance is this Sunday and will be a delightful program of full orchestra and ensemble pieces along with appropriate Christmas narration. Practice for the string quartet pieces went well and I feel fairly confident that I can perform without embarrassing myself. The other members of the quartet have many years of experience and are very encouraging to this muggle violinist. No preaching - just music. How great is that for a Sunday morning service!?!

I'm thinking cookie baking will be next on my agenda. Our home is decorated, the 2 trees are beautiful and most of my shopping is done. My iPod has been great for organizing my numerous Christmas CDs and I love making playlists of my favorites. iCame, iSaw, iPod. Hope the Holiday spirit finds all of you.

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More entries: January 2006 • November 2005

December 2005

December 27, 2005 20:49

Happy HO HO HO to you!

December 14, 2005 08:49

December 5, 2005 12:48

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