March 2006

Bowing in the right direction

March 28, 2006 18:08

This week I'm doing three things during practice:

1. Tuning Violin's Sister.
2. Doing Buri's exercises with the bow.
3. Bowing open strings.

I'm getting better at tuning with the pegs. AND Sister is staying more and more in tune. So tuning only takes a couple of minutes.

Once she's tuned, I can't practice long, maybe 5 or 8 minutes. But I have noticed that my bow arm is stronger than it was when I had to stop last summer. My bow used to bounce a lot because I was so weak; now it only bounces a little.

I've also realized that I don't mind doing the same barely musical things over and over again.

I'm happy bowing open strings.

Is it unusual to be happy doing simple exercises? I could bow open strings, right now at least, for an hour at a time. The mechanics are so interesting. The same goes for Buri's exercises, where one holds the bow still on a string, first at the middle of the bow, then the point, then the heel.

When I was taking lessons, I have to say that I sometimes felt rushed. I thought it was my own impatience to be making progress. But I think now, maybe, it was partly because deep inside I wanted to spend more time on the exercises, and I wasn't really ready to play a tune.

Even back then, I could spend five minutes fingering and bowing the same note, over and over, and be fascinated by what was happening.

Once our schedules line up, I'm going to begin lessons with my teacher again. Do you think I should mention my desire to spend more time mastering exercises to my teacher? On one hand, I don't want to interfere with her pedagogical approach; on the other, I think I'd be happier if I could do exercises longer between trying to learn new songs. I don't know.

Any thoughts?

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Violin's Sister

March 24, 2006 23:06

Today the stork brought Violin's Sister. Well, ok, it was really UPS, not the stork, but Violin's Sister showed up on our doorstep about 12:14 PM today.

Who is Violin's Sister, you ask? She is a Cardinal RED Yamaha SV-200 Silent Practice violin. Red Red Red. Ok, and black and a bit of natural maple. And RED.

So, I open up the box. Uhhh. The bridge isn't installed. But there are instructions. Well, ok. I'll give it a shot. So I loosen the strings, which are already pretty loose, and slip the bridge in.

Now to try to tune her...

Uhhh, Uhhh. She only has one fine tuner on the E string.

Now please don't laugh, but I've never even turned a peg, and it takes me 15 minutes to get Sister tuned. When I pick her up about an hour later, she's out of tune again. So I tune her again. This happens again about an hour later. Each time she's a bit less out-of-tune. Which is a good sign, I hope.

Do you think she is going out of tune because I need to use some peg dope (which I don't have, so I'll have to go to the music store.) Or could it be because the strings are new? Is it just that I don't know what I'm doing? I'm pushing in the pegs as I turn them.

Violin stays in tune, or close, all the time, so this is new for me.

Sister sounds very nice. Perfectly audible without electronics, but plug in the earphones and she has a much better sound than I expected. Not as beautiful as Violin, of course, but much better than the more inexpensive traditional violins I tried.

The other thing that surprised me was how light Sister is. I had expected her to be heavier than Violin, but she isn't. We'll be going to Europe this summer and she should travel well. It's a relief to have her; I won't have to worry about Violin getting damaged in transit.

Of course Violin's sister needed a case of her own, so I bought a gig bag from Yamaha...

a Red gig-bag.

(Did I mention that she's Red?)

(Red, Red, Red)

3 replies | Archive link

Back again

March 17, 2006 21:26

Hello!

After my last entry, bowing caused increasing pain in my broken shoulder, and I found out the action was causing the plate in my shoulder to rub against the main nerve bundle. So I had to give up the violin altogether. I was too heartbroken to write about it.

I still may have to have surgery. However, I've been working hard to rehabilitate the shoulder, and it has improved quite a bit. So it's back to the violin for me.

This time, I want to work by myself for awhile before I bring a teacher in. If I can get to the point where I can work for half an hour without pain or injury, then I'll arrange to take lessons again. It's too frustrating for me and the teacher otherwise.

So, if anyone has any suggestions about self-learning, I'd love to learn them.

Also, I'm getting a Yamaha SV-200 for an anniversary present, so I can practice without disturbing the neighborhood. Any advice around electric violins would be welcome, too.

8 replies | Archive link

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March 2006

Bowing in the right direction

Violin's Sister

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