July 2005

July 31, 2005 10:09

This week has been great, Monday started with an invitation for an interview for a teaching job. They wanted to hear me play, direct an ensemble, and have a formal interview. It was very short notice (they wanted me the day after), but the whole thing went great and they rang me up later on to offer me the job. Result!
Anyway I have had some comments about my picture, let me clear some things up. I dont usually play like that. What do you think I am, crazy? What I am doing is called the Paganini stretch, where you play 4 A's with 4 fingers. There was a thread on it a while ago and some people didnt believe that it was possible. Well it is! That's if you are lucky enough to be blessed with large hands like I am. It doesnt really mean anything though, its not like, 'if you cant do that then you cant play Paganini', its just a curious little oddity that looks pretty neat, well, neater than some lo-res portrait of me anyway.

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July 18, 2005 03:12

Ahh, what a pain. I should be practicing now but im in town waiting while my car is being fixed. Im so excited about learning Paganinis Moto Perpetuo, I have the whole thing memorised, now I just need to implant it solidly into my muscle memory so that I can play it at any speed. At the moment I can play it at 150+ bpm up to the repeat, but I havent worked the rest up to that speed yet. My teachers advice has worked a treat - play it with a metronome and different speeds, in the same part of the bow that you would use up to tempo. I cant wait to play this peice in public. I can just imagine the devillish facial expressions that you could pull while playing this, haha. I dont know what it is about this piece, it brings me so much joy to play. I have always loved the sound of semiquavers and it seems that this is my ideal piece seen as it contains about 5 minuites of them! Big smile 8-D

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July 2005

July 31, 2005 10:09

July 18, 2005 03:12

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