Ah, Days Gone By

July 9, 2006 at 2:07 AM

Hello everyone, I'm back and feeling much better. I had a very severe sunburn on my shoulders making it nearly impossible to practice this last week but now I'm back and feeling better than ever. I'm trying to keep a more positive attitude right now. I took the time off from violin to completely forget about violin for a week and it did wonders. Yesterday, I yearning to play violin in a way I haven't experienced for nearly a year. I haven't had a lesson in 4 weeks but this Thursday, there is no way I'm going to miss my lesson. I only have 7 weeks left before I audition for Symphony again at Luther and I have a lot of work to do. Plus, I'm planning on auditioning for the semi-professional LaCrosse Symphony. Actually, Luther's orchestra is better but I'll get money to play with LaCrosse, so that'll be a good thing. I have some music for it now, but the auditin excerpts may have changed since last year. If it has changed I will recieve the music the first week of August.

I have a lot on my plate for the rest of summer. I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. I have to basically start from scratch on almost everything but that's ok. I wasn't too far along to begin with. So with clear head a new found love the playing the violin, I can begin to tackle vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 4, Bach Sonata in C-Major (Largo and Allegro Assai), Bach's Double Violin Concerto, Czardas, 2 sets of orchestral excerpts and of course, a healthy diet of etudes and scale exercises. Will I be able to do this every night, we'll see. If I can't I will probably stop playing the Czardas and the Bach. Those are mostly for fun and I'm learning them completely on my own. I'm hoping I can get back up to 5 hours of practice a night, hopefully with about 2 hours of technique. I've decided that many of my problems stem from holes in my technique that came up during my 2 years of rapid progress without many etudes or scales. So, I'm going to attemp to do a Kreutzer every week. Maybe not every etude if I don't need it, but one that I do need. Thankfully, my teacher, before I left for college, marked off the ones she thought would be of most use to me. I think that, even with the progress I made this last year, many of those marked off are the ones I will need to practice.

I have some emails to write tonight. I'm going to go practice for another hour and then I'm going to write those emails. I need to write one for a lesson with Dr. John Thomson. I think it would be good to have 2 or 3 lessons with him on my orchestral excerpts and my concerto before I leave for Luther. He really is a brilliant pedagouge and I really enjoy my lessons with him. They are always so useful and informative, not to mention uplifting. I also need to write to some people at Luther so I can find a job this coming year. Well, that's all for tonight.

HAPPY PRACTICING!!!

From Terez Mertes
Posted on July 12, 2006 at 11:02 PM

A newfound love of playing the violin goes a long way, doesn't it? That's why breaks are good.

Good luck to you here!

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Ah, Days Gone By

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