Music, violin is a life long journey, that I never expect to complete. I hope to master as many of it's challenges and obstacles that it presents, but is there really ever an end to it? I don't think there is. Everyday is a new challenge, and a new adventure. I think that's part of my attraction to music, is that it's an ever changing experience. Never a dull moment and always something to conquer.
On Sunday I performed the Vitali Ciaccona. It went very well with only a couple of minor mistakes, but overall the whole thing held together and I was very confident in my approach and about what I wanted to do with the piece. Thanks to a violin lesson I had last Thursday, I had spent the two and a half days leading up to the performance really thinking about how I wanted to phrase things and the dynamics, and whether or not I agreed with the ones written in the score. It was a good lesson to have and it got me thinking about more then just the notes and what is there on the page, but to take it to another level. I decided to really dig in and figured out what I wanted to make the piece do for the listener and for myself and how to best go about acheiving that. I'm going to start taking that approach more, I think. It seemed to work well and I really felt a whole new sense of calm and joy in my playing that I had never felt before. I've always been comfortable and confident, but this was an entirely new level for me. It's a strange feeling. I really like it and don't want it to go away anytime soon.
My composition for violin and alto has a few more ideas and sketches down, but still no text yet. I'm almost to the point of thinking I'll leave out a text entirely and have it be similar to a vocalaise type of vocal work. We'll see...I'm going to keep hunting.
Yesterday I got the chance to play for some relatives here at my home, and so I played my concert group from the competition/festival. Different order, my piece, Vitali, then Eckhardt-Gramatte, and that worked pretty good. It was nice to get the chance to play them again, even if just for four people. I'm actually quite excited because I'll be performing the Vitali again on Sunday afternoon in a student recital. I have a couple of friends who are also supposed to be performing, so it should be great fun!!
Well time to get my butt off of this seat and away from the computer, and back to the practice room, or history books, or school or something more productive.
I did manage to get a bunch of history done. I haven't had the best of weeks, so I haven't gotten much done and am rather behind for this weeks lesson. I still have yet to define Alexina Louie's Distant Memories from her pieces for piano, and finish up a few things on Stravinksy and the ballet Petrushka and a couple of little things in Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a faun. After I get all that done, then I'm pretty much down to memorising everything from my list and notes for the exam.
Yesterday was a relatively good day, aside from an orthodontist appointment which has left my mouth rather sore. I had to do some stuff downtown, which I managed to mostly get done. I stopped in at the used bookstore for a bit, as I noticed some Beethoven and Schubert music sitting out, and I wanted to see what that was all about. I also looked through some of the vocal works to see if I could find any other ideas for a text for this vocal work I'm writing. I should have taken a look in the poetry section and seen what I could find, but didn't have the time as my ride was going to be coming soon, and I needed to get myself some breakfast, non the less, I did leave a very happy customer, with a brand new, hardcover, book called To Boulez and Beyond for only 13 dollars. I was very pleased with myself, and the book is proving to be very interesting! It discusses the musical style and various composers from Stravinsky on, and how music has evolved over the past 75 years. Being interested in composition and many of the composers in the book. I couldn't resist.
Currently I'm trying to decide on the text for a vocal work I'm writing. I'm trying to make up my mind as to if I should attempt to write my own text or find a poem or chose a text from the Bible. (If anyone has any brilliant insights as to what I should do, by all means feel free to contact me and let me know!)It's a hard thing to decide on a text. I had originally thought possibly the poem "Lark Ascending" by George Meredith might be a nice selection, but it is quite a lengthy poem, and the music isn't really terribly inspired around birds at all. The piece is still very much in the beginnning stages but I want to find a text before I have much more then that done, so as to write the music appropiatly for the text, and have it be more inspired by the text.
On with my hunt for the perfect text and hopefully some time spent in the practice room........
Well I got to scram. I have a music history lesson shortly.
My links section wasn't working before, I finally figured out why, and now all they all work!
Practicing. Well it's going fairly well overall! I haven't been able to do very much the past few days for a couple of reasons (which I won't go into here as it takes to long), but have still managed to get enough in to get some decent work on my competition pieces, if nothing else. I'm really enjoying seeing how my pieces are all finally coming together so nicely in these last few days leading up to the competition. I hope I can keep motivated, and have a great time when my turn to play comes!
I have a symphony tour coming up in a little over a week, which I am also looking forward to. It's always fun to try some new repertoire and getting to play with a big group. Despite playing second violin, I get a suprsingly huge amount of melody, which is nice for change! I don't mind being non-melodic, but sometimes there are just some gorgeous melodies that you just want to play and you can't play them because you are a second violinist not a first violinist this time around. There is something that's really fun and neat about being a second violinist though. I've always enjoyed it a great deal!
Well I've spent enough time here on the net so I think I'm going to go and practice a bit!
More entries: May 2004 March 2004
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