November 2009

Changing strings

November 28, 2009 05:25

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´t buy string till after my orchestra concerts so that I wouldn´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´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´s) but I know the reward will be great :)

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

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We did it!

November 22, 2009 13:47

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!"

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What to play at Christmas Recital?

November 3, 2009 14:45

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

-Schön 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 Piéce en formde de Habanera: I have been playing this piece for about 2 months and it´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 :)

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More entries: September 2009

November 2009

Changing strings

We did it!

What to play at Christmas Recital?

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