June 6, 2004 at 1:43 AM

Took the SATs this morning. At 8am, which isn't bad. Except that the place I was testing is an hour away....

Oh well, in further news... I have finally officially decided on something to work on: Wieniawsky No.1. Just to add some more pyrotechnics to my repetiore. I have many things to work on (which I'm pretty sure I have already taken the time to complain about...) which, I'll admit, is a good thing. In the summer, it is my philosophy to stay completely busy at all times. Otherwise, who knows, I'm subject to show up at the mall or something without warning; that would not be a good thing. Or, even worse, watching TV. I made a bet with my best friend to see who could go without TV the longest about two years ago, and she caved in, but I found it so releiving and revitalizing that I just kept going. This doesn't count for my favorite movies, of course. But I find that by eliminating *most* distractions (ahem... violinist.com....) that I can manage to be so much more efficient in practicing and school, etc etc etc. Go figure!

So last night I played at my school's graduation. It was four hours long. (!). I ended up playing a bunch of Bach while things were in transitional phases. The coolest thing was, though, that it was being held in this HUGE arena, and I was being amplified of course. But there was some kind of wierd dely on the speakers, so when I did, for example, the preludio of Partita No.3, it had this really neat effect of two violins playing to one another. Ahh the simple pleasures of violin playing... Anyway I thought it was so cool that I ended up playing around with it; first I tried different bow strokes to see how they would sound in the fast movements, all in front of probably a couple thousand people (I have a humongous school, and there were about 600 graduates, so if 4 people came for each graduate, well... you do the math...)Then I tried the fugues, which were interesting indeed on delay. I doubt anyone actually found it as fascinating as I did, but it kept me entertained for a good while. Plus, I got to sit behind the stage and listen to Tchaikovsky, Bach, Ravel, and Gershwin while they handed out diplomas.

I guess that's about it for now. Happy practicing, and stay cool (unless you live somewhere like northern Canada or Greenland or Norway or something, in which case I have nothing really to say to you anyway...).

Ciao,
Elena

June 6, 2004 at 1:43 AM

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