We have thousands of human-written stories, discussions, interviews and reviews from today through the past 20+ years. Find them here:

Search the site Search

mm = 114

January 31, 2008 at 9:35 AM

So pedestrian!
What is the violinistic equivalent of E=mc2
That your andante?
No. I'm ashamed to admit, it's the tempo at which the Saint Saens' became difficult, with 44 beats still to go...
I had a mechanic friend who would install a lot of performance equipment. He said "Where's everybody going so fast?"
I'm thinking jogging (with one of those cool strollers).
"Where's everybody going so fast?"

Up to the top!

And back down again!

So what's your plan? You will have so much fun when you get there.
up
down
up
down
I want to perform it. I also want to find a new level of speed so I don't feel like such a dull-fingered fool when playing with the symphony.

Up to 120 tonight. She's starting to run a temperature!

Buri blogged something on this a couple days ago that was interesting.

With me, instead of creeping up the speed, I will play just below or right at my max speed for a few days, and then I can bump the metronome up by a large amount. If you did that twice, it would get you where you want to be. As for a new level of speed - I wish you well. I just know that most real orchestra parts are harder than most concertos.

What Saint-Saëns is this?
Sonata #1. What I've actually been doing that is working well so far is taking a whole section through at a moderate speed, pinpointing troublesome areas, and focusing my practice there. There's a particularly hairy diminished arpeggio section on the last page, for instance. With each measure, I play the 16ths as quarters, with robotic-quick motions, focusing on smooth, minuscule, economic effort. Three times perfect. Then three times as 8th notes. Then three times as 16th notes. After I've done this to each measure, I play the entire line through as 16th notes. Then I bump the metronome up 2 beats and repeat the process. I may do this ten times, which lasts about one practice session (45-50 min). Last night, I played that line over a hundred times easily just to get it to 120 bpm. But it runs nice and smooth now, and I think it can go faster today.

I do it different each day.

Emily,

Sounds like you are cooking.

Also intersperse varied rhythms — they develop quick, free and energized moves with time to think back and ahead during the slower notes, i.e., 4 note groups = 2-fast & 2-slow, then permutate them into various combinations. One of the more difficult is usually: fast, slow, slow, fast. Work these up with the metronome to the max. Similar varieties can be done in 3, 6 and other numbers of notes. Finally get it to where only 1 note in a group is long and the others fly, then switch locations of the long note — 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Have fun —
Drew

Oh yeah, I'm doing all of those, too! Up to 130 tonight, and all the tricky sections are beginning to turn into the smoothest ones now. They feel as though they move by themselves. I suppose if I had time to put the treatment to every single measure, it would all eventually be that easy.

Thanks, Drew. And thanks, Buri, for your last blog about speed. The insights I've gained here work like magic.