Vibrato - Varnish

December 14, 2005 at 3:14 AM

Well, I've now been playing violin for almost half my life, and yet the whole vibrato-thing stays just out of my reach. I'll admit that out of that time I've only really been working on vibrato for about a year (since I started with my current teacher), but this year is feeling like a long time......... Why can't I get it to work? Its sorta frustrating... but in the past 2 months, I've gotten moments of vibrato!!! Not much, but still encouraging. (And moments of vibrato have been slipping their ways into my parts at orch rehearsals!!!)

There is a highschool on Thursday. And, I think that we might manage to avoid completly embarassing ourselves.... Today, after school, we had our first (and only) rehearsal with the percussion (they rehearse seperate from us, but under the same director).

On Monday-ish, I have a band audition (flute). Then, the second week of January, we do reseating in orchestra. Then, on Jan. 28th there are Regional Auditions. I think (hope) I'll do better this year (Freshman year 2nd violin 4th chair, sophomore 2nd violin 13th chair... I don't know how that works).

Also on January 28, I'm supposed to play in a Mozart festival. A friend and I are playing two of his table pieces. Its really fun, but I don't know about leaving school at 4 in the morning to go to an audition 2 hours away, be there all day, and hopefully get home for a 7:30pm performance............ yikes.........

One last thing before I go to bed, today I put new strings on my violin (G-A: Pirastro Synoxa, E: Pirastro Wondertone Solo), and while I have only played on them for about an hour, I really like them (except the G, it seemed kinda muted...).

Oh wait, one more thing... at the high school, we had some interesting adventures with peg compound in the past few weeks.... About two weeks ago, my G peg was slipping and I (reluctently) decided to put compound on the peg. Then, when I was tuning it, I guess the friction built up enough that it sparked. It was REALLY scary!!!!!! There was a flash, and a puff of smoke (???), and I almost dropped my violin... Anyway, today one of my friends was putting compound on one of the trashy school violins, and she noticed that the compound was made out of isopropyl alcohol... isn't that really flamable? Arn't violins really flamable? Varnish? Wood? Friction? Who had that bright idea?

Good night

From Jenna Potts
Posted on December 14, 2005 at 6:29 AM

Don't worry about the vibrato - just keep working on it. It took me like two and a half years of sweat and tears to make it actually sound halfway passible. I'm still working on getting colors and stuff with it.

From Jessica Smith
Posted on December 14, 2005 at 9:43 PM

Thanks. Someday..................................................................... I hope to have a nice vibrato

From Emily Grossman
Posted on December 15, 2005 at 4:49 AM

Jessica, I've never heard of spraking peg dope. Are you sure it wasn't spiked with something else?

From Jessica Smith
Posted on December 17, 2005 at 1:23 AM

At a public high school, who knows...

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