August 4, 2003 at 7:06 PM

Practice:

Yesterday I finished the d min sarabande, I can now play the whole thing by memory but its still a bit rusty and awkward in the most recently learned sections. The sections that were new to me a few weeks ago now sound good. When I practice I tend to play a few bars over and over until it sounds right, sometimes I have alot of trouble with doublestops and when I do Ill play all the notes of the scale and then the 2 notes, one at a time and in tune, before I play both of them at the same time, it seems to help. I was playing a few sections over and over yesterday when I heard birds siging outside my window and I began to play the slow movement of vivaldis spring and adding many trills to making my violin sound like a bird, it was a great moment: feeling like I was talking to the birds.

For the first time I feel like I have some degree of control over my bow and I have recently been playing with a better tone and more of a sence of dynamics and control over volume. My intonation has improved massively and I am beginning to feel like a violinist for the first time because I feel like I know where everything is, and what comes out usually sounds like music and the bow doesnt jump anymore. One of the biggest things I noticed recently is not to press down hard with your left hand especially in the high positions, its really hard to bow a note in the middle two strings if your pressing downhard with your left hand, kind of a major discovery for me, how exciting.

Since I finished learning the d min sarabande, I have begun memorizing the b minor sarabande and Im able to play the first section from the work I have done so far. I already know the b minor sarabande becase I learned it last year on guitar. I put the b minor sarabande away for playing on the violin for a while before because the first chord looked impossible to play but when I came back to it again and re-read it, I discovered I read the notes of the chord wrong the first time.

I also tried playing with no shoulder rest and actually did ok with it, it seems the violin is feeling more comfortable for me to hold.

After getting bored playing the same things over and over, I turned on the radio and started to play along to some pop and rock tunes by ear which is always fun and is a good exercise for intonation and quality of tone as well as the challange of trying to phrase melodies like a singer.

After a while, I had to let my fingers rest and spent a little time listening to Zukerman play the Mendelssohn Octet & e min violin concerto, also listened to the naxos cd of the mendelssohn d min violin concerto and concerto for violin and piano, great stuff. I also listened to some of the corelli op5 sonatas and some of telemann's tafflemusic, and some other random vivaldi violin concertos performed by zukerman. I love baroque so much!

I am satisfied with my progress of the last few weeks, I get an incredible sence of accomplishment when I teach myself to play bach. Violin is hard but fun when you work hard and improve your abilities.

Most of you know I have a background in jazz, I played part of blue in green by miles davis a few weeks ago and may practice a few more jazz tunes soon. I want to play naima by john coltrane also. Both of these songs I already know on guitar and hope to record them soon, I really seem to be attracted to the balads.

Back to practice, talk to you soon.
:)

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August 4, 2003 at 7:06 PM

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