12/12/07

December 13, 2007 at 2:08 AM

Thanks everyone for the comments yesterday. It was a friendly welcome.

Today was one of those days at work where I spent about six hours pipetting. I was wondering how it was going to affect my practice and sure enough I was bouncing the bow all over the place with some slipping thrown in.

Buri- thanks for your thoughts on metronomes. to some extent I've noticed what you were talking about and found myself mangling the rhythm to stay on the beat. I'll watch carefully for that and develop my internal rhythm as I go along. However, I'm going to keep using the metronome because 1) my teacher asked me to and 2) it's really very hard for me. That second point makes me think that it might be a good idea in my case, in the sense that since it's so hard it must be something I need to work on. Rhythm has always been a weak point with me.

Today: 30 minutes
scales G, D, A
PM in Dmaj trying to push the tempo while keeping a clean delivery.
Allegretto, Etude.
The etude is starting to flow a bit better as the fingerings get ingrained. At the next lesson I want to get some feedback on my posture and my left hand in particular, that inward forearm rotation is tough.

From Albert Justice
Posted on December 13, 2007 at 5:36 AM

You are welcome Tim.. And again, welcome. I think you are wise to use the metronome until you can get that internal thing going. Both are important.

One thing you can do along these lines is to spend a couple weeks a few minutes a day watching the hand of a clock that has a sweeping second hand. Go ahead and practice the accepted --one one thousand, two one thousand--until you can stay with it a minute.

Then sometime like on your commute or something if you have one, practice it in your mind until you can get up to five minutes without losing focused--5 minutes ==300 clicks. They can be broken down into whatever groupings you wiseh--10's, 8's--whatever. Tap your finger on the steering wheel or something to make it both an internal and external part of your "internal clock". This is very very effective over time.

Secondly, on the etudes and perpetual motions in Suzuki one, yep--one one thousand, two one thousand. Then two notes per bow counting.

And like once a week--watch the clock mentioned to tune your clock.

The 60bpm--the upper end of Largo, has really cool and far reaching implications beyond music--and these remarks.

Al.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on December 13, 2007 at 6:27 AM

Are you a chemist? I was a biochemist in a previous life.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on December 13, 2007 at 11:54 AM

Aaaaah! Pipetting! Don't get pipetter's thumb! (I almost did when I was finishing up some experiments for my PhD thesis. But it's fine now, and I actually don't pipet anymore, I work at a computer). There are a few of us on the site who are or were scientists, it's a great match with a stringed instrument.

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12/12/07

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