May 21, 2004 at 6:05 PM

Schumann is starting to drive me a little bonkers. There is just so much stuff to cover and to get it up to speed isn't proving to be that easy of a task. Slowly, but surely I'm notching up the metronome. Everytime I come back to the piece to work on it, starting it a little bit below where I left off in the last practice session and trying to notch it up more. I have discovered that I have to be really careful when practicing that excerpt because I tend to tense up a bit and then make my arm really sore. I did that one day and I am now being really concious of what state my bow arm is in. I rarely have tension problems, but I guess just the stress of trying to get it up to speed and knowing it has to be up to speed by Tuesday is making my arm tense up.

I had a violin and a piano lesson yesterday. Both went well overall. It felt so good to sit down at a grand piano for over an hour and play again. We worked on my Beethoven sonata, No. 15 also known as the "Pastorale". I belive it is said to be Beethoven's favorite of his piano sonatas and that he was more then happy to play it for anyone who would listen. It is a beautiful sonata. I love the octaves with the inner voice accompaniment while the main line is on the outside. It's incrediably hard to voice, but when well voiced it's quite an amazing passage! The second movement is to die for in it's beauty as well. The last two movements I haven't tackled yet, but hopefully sooner or later that will be remedied.

My violin lesson was mostly focused on my audition repertoire. Which was good. My teacher I think could tell I was getting a little frustrated with myself and seemed to know the kind of lesson I needed yesterday. On top of working through the audition stuff, we went over some fiddle tunes for the International Children's Festival that we are doing two short concerts during the 4 day event. It should be fun! The pieces are pretty much sight-readable and there's going to be a highland dancer for at least one or two of the pieces.

YAY! A fun but exhausting couple of days I look forward to each year, have just been confirmed that they are happening again this year. A summer Pops orchestra concert. The repertoire isn't the most exciting all the time, though there have been some really fun pieces, but getting to play with 130 other people from all over is always great fun and I get to see a couple of my friends who I don't get to see often. The last couple of years I've had some friends and family come down from out of town for the concert, which is really nice, and it's just a fun couple of days! We rehearse right by the lake in the down-town core of the city, so break time is usually spent outside walking along the boardwalk, and getting some fresh air.

I think I hear Schumann mocking me from my music stand...maybe I should go and show him a thing or two.

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May 21, 2004 at 6:05 PM

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