My Story as An Amateurish Self-taught (III)

January 19, 2014 at 02:28 AM · Greetings,

that was really great. thanks for sharing it with us.

This kind of piece is very difficult in terms of vibrato ad I think you need to make clear decisions about whether you want to use vibrato and how much on every note of the piece. You could experiment with changing which part of the finger tip touches the string to see what new tone colors you can find. A lot of times you play fourth finger notes and they dont have the same quality of vibrato as the rest. This is a problem for everyone and its a fact we have to live with but working on it pays dividends.

About halfway through you play a harmonic but you dont adjust the bow speed or go near enough to the bridge . Dont leave the finger down on a flagolet. If the bow speed is fast enough then releasing the finger allows the note to ring.

You play an awkward shift from g to f high on the e sting using three and then four for the lower note. There may not be a better fingering but try to make it less obtrusive. Also, since it occurs twice you might consider doing a different fingering the second time. Doing the same thing twice is boring .

The fast run nearer the end seems to blurt out a little for my taste. You might try and integrate ore into the melodic line.

Very good playing.

Cheers,

Buri

January 19, 2014 at 04:58 AM · This is quite strange. Did you dub the music over a video of yourself playing, rather than record the audio together with the video? The motions don't look synchronized with the audio. This is particularly noticeable with bow changes and shifts, but I'm noticing that the bow distribution especially doesn't coincide with sound intensity. What my ears hear and what my eyes tell me I should be hearing aren't matching.

January 19, 2014 at 06:18 AM · dear Buri, thank you so much for your detailed comment! That's exactly what I need since nobody here can't tell me such things and I have no teacher. I will keep practicing.

dear Lydia, thanks for noticing it. Yes I did that. I struggled so hard producing the best sound I can. And It took like 10-15 takes of recordings and unfortunately both my looks/visual and the sound weren’t always good. E.g. one take looks quite nice but the sound was awful or the other one looks awful but sound better. (Although mostly I looked scary.. lol). I’ve never known it’s so hard to make a good video/audio…

however, I'm so very sorry if this came out to cause pain in ears and eyes! but at least it's still me playing :D

January 19, 2014 at 08:30 AM · Hello Riz, So much damage can be done by uninformed teachers. Perhaps some people see music as an easy way of earning a living, so one becomes a 'professional', as you say, after only a few steps. This is fine up to a point, and if you are only playing, but once you start teaching, it becomes a problem, because your students will be taught the wrong things. And so it spreads. Keep up the good work, Riz. If you are self taught, you are on the right path. You are gifted- you obviously have a good ear for intonation and tone- so follow your instincts. It's a shame you're not a professional! Yours, Ibrahim Aziz. London.

January 19, 2014 at 08:35 AM · semangat ya, bang riz! terus berkarya dan jangan pernah berhenti belajar. :)

-Shasha

January 19, 2014 at 10:33 AM · Salam kenal dear Shasha! and thank so much for the encouragement.. I wish I could live around professional guys like you :)

January 19, 2014 at 06:14 PM · Thanks so much dear Ibrahim!

Yeah I certainly agree with you

btw your comment just showed up.. it's weird it appeared quite late as I notice there was no any comment before Shasha's.. maybe it's an error on my internet or browser or something...

January 19, 2014 at 06:41 PM · I loved your interpretation of this music -- very direct, open, simple -- letting the melody convey all the meaning and emotion. I wouldn't have guessed that you are "self-taught" by hearing this music. In a sense, of course, everyone is self-taught at last since the real study of an instrument happens in practice and is between you and the instrument and the music.

In regard to criticisms, I can't offer any (full disclosure, I'm self-taught too and you play better than I do). As a listener, hearing the piece twice, I think you could experiment with subtleties in the dynamics. Particularly as the theme is repeated, I thought there was opportunity for a delicate restatement -- something softer and even more lonely, having the melody say something a little bit different with each repetition. But it is quite lovely as it is.

A further point, though, about criticism. You have made a very definite statement with this piece and it really comes down to what you think about it. If there is something that you feel you could've done, that "should've" been different in some aspect -- you could ask more experienced violinists how to move toward whatever difference in sound exists between what you played, and something that you aspire toward. Otherwise people will be essentially just telling you how they would have played it, something that might not address your goals at all.

The real question is does this form accomplish what you felt?

Part of the artistry is in deciding what you want, what sounds need to be there to get what you want, and afterwards determining whether the piece as you played it accomplished your goals and arrived at that musical idea.

All I can say is your playing would have accomplished my goals. It is really so very lovely.

January 20, 2014 at 11:07 PM · Excellent! You should be very proud of what you have been able to accomplish on your own!

January 22, 2014 at 11:47 PM · Greetings,

I really appreciate that you are trying to be honest about that! It takes courage, though :)

I feel the same way also goes to some of the new "professional singers" pops all around. Haha.

Thanks for sharing with us!

About your playing, I watched your video several times and I can't say anything, your playing is awesome! Mainly because I can't play as good as you do :( and I want to learn that song so bad!

Anyway, don't let them discourage you to continue playing and learning!! Semangat kak Riz!! :-)

January 23, 2014 at 03:08 AM · Your performance was very beautiful and I liked how you presented it overall. It would have been good if the video and audio were synched better, but I know how hard that is!

I'm just a student like you but I sometimes felt that you weren't giving enough attention to some of the lower notes. I agree with the others in saying that it might be good to try and add a bit more variety. Follow the principal that you never play the same part the same way again. Also the fast parts stood out too much, maybe that was because you were trying to fit them into the piano.

Otherwise the overall performance is very lovely and I enjoyed listening to it. I liked you vibrato. Keep it up.