Thank You

November 4, 2005 at 4:24 AM

Hello everyone, thanks to all of you who sent a reply to my rather desperate sounding blog entry. I have felt much better today all in all, I didn't have a headache, my violin lesson went rather well, and ear training stuff went decently today, at least I didn't completely freak out on the make-up quiz. I didn't practice as much as I had planned to, my mind just was kinda wondering after about an hour and a half tonight so I just gave up, although, I felt I accomplished some stuff. I did get about 2 hours of solid practice in spending about an hour just on scale work.

I have to say, I was giving myself a lack of credit when I said I wasn't good at anything. Obviously I'm good at something otherwise I wouldn't have recieved roughly $18,000.00 worth of grants and scholarships for college. Actually my greatest natural talent is my memory. I can easily memorize things, except music (but that's getting better). I am good at things I don't have a real interest to pursue such as biology and basically anything else that, if you have a good memory, you can do that a career, such as being a researcher. I am also good at writing, even though I really don't like to write. I am good at reading as well, after my strugle with it. I can pull things out of a book most people would never see in a million years. I can also remember facts from a book really, really well which helps a lot on quizes. So yeah, last night I was just looking at the bad side of things.

I love having verious vibrato speeds, amplitudes and types. That is one thing I always am complemented on, my very strong and natural use of vibrato. My teacher said that I have good taste when it comes to vibrato. Although I did practice much over the weekend it reset my bowgrip back to the one that liked but couldn't get back. Now my bow is only slightly pronated, I can use the entire length of it again and my stupendously big tone is back (some of this may be due to viola). I am likeing my violin more than ever as well, it has such a nice quality to it that makes it have a gorgeous tone and it responds well and oh my gosh, I've rediscovered the violin.

Right now I'm listening to Wieniawski Concerto No. 1. I love this concerto, it's full of passion and technical stuff up the wahzoo. I can't wait till next semester, I am playing Bruch movement 1 and then over the summer I'm going to try to do the entirety of Wieniawski's 2nd concerto. Next week actually is when I may be starting Bruch because I'm giving a performance of the de Beriot in my seminar and if it goes well I get to move onto new music next week. I'm for sure starting a Mozart Sonata and hopefully I will go over Liebesleid and Liebesfreud with her next Thursday. We will keep chugging away with the Bach and I think I'm just gonna try to finish up the entire first Sonata this year before moving on, I really want to play that Fugue in it, right now I'm learning the Presto and then I'm gonna do the Siciliano and then the Fugue. My teacher also thinks it would be a good idea for me to find a student accompanist for myself next semester so I can have more experience practicing with a piano since I have very rarely done that in the past. I am planning to do a lot of practice over the weekend on piano, violin, viola and ear training. It will be fairly dead around the music building because 3/4 of the choir people will be gone (that's probably 400+students, we have 7 choirs, 3 bands and 3 orchestras).

From Patty Rutins
Posted on November 4, 2005 at 3:52 PM

Glad you're feeling better! Here's hoping that headache stays away.

I've been working on the Bruch, finally; when I decided to take lessons again (after more than 15 years without!) my teacher suggested that we go back and do all that repetoire that I never got to, or bypassed, or whatever. She's into learning as much repetoire as possible, whereas my teacher growing up didn't stress it so much.

So I'm really enjoying the Bruch. It's enough of a challenge to my lazy fingers to wake me up out of my 15-year nap, but not so much that I don't make decent progress. And, I really haven't done much truly romantic stuff, so this is really rich! I've got the first mvmt mostly under my fingers now, so started getting the notes down in the 2nd... how beautiful! If you have the time and leisure, don't stop with the first movement. Sure, it's flashy, but the themes in the second are heartbreaking.

Good luck!

From Jonathan Law
Posted on November 4, 2005 at 4:11 PM

Good choice of your teacher on the Bruch, fantastic piece, the 1st movement is probably the hardest to pull off (also you have to be patient to get the double stop intune) but truly an amazing concerto, I did in the second semester of my first year at University too! Go Bruch!

From Peggy Beaudoin
Posted on November 4, 2005 at 5:05 PM

Andrew! So good to hear that you've "popped to the surface" and are ready to tackle the world of violin again. Hug. :0)

From Natasha Marsalli
Posted on November 5, 2005 at 1:12 AM

I'm so glad you're feeling better! We all go through those depressing slumps; the trick is to hold your head high and get out of 'em asap. :-)

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