My forth lesson as an adult beginner

January 19, 2008 at 11:32 PM

I've been reading the discussion and blog of v.com for a few weeks and decided to start blogging about my lessons and practices, hopefully a few years from now I'll look back and say... wow, I really improved!!!

Today, I finished my 4th violin lesson, so I can officially say that I've been learning for month!!

I played my assignment from last week:

G major scale, the hanon like exercise from the scale book (I use William Starr's Scales Plus!). I told my violin teacher that I enjoy them very much because they don't sound like nursery rhymes, she laughed but said I will still have to go thru them (them meaning those pieces in Suzuki).

Promenade by Alexander Gretchninov. This is a duet piece. A little history of why she made me play this. While I was playing the Suzuki songs, she found out that I was completely relying on my ears (predictable melody), I wasn't reading the music at all!! So she pulls out this book out of her rack and said since this piece's melody is not as preditable, I will not be able to play by ear as much. She's right. This piece also has the low two positions (G on E string and C on A string), so it's something new for me.

Twinkle twinkle Variation C (i'm glad this is over!)

Go Tell auntie Rhudy (done with this as well!)

Song of the wind (still having some trouble with the 3rd measure), will have to repeat next week)

Beginning as an adult, I think the hardest thing at the beginning was to stay completely relax. I'm getting better though. I have to concentrate on relaxing my bow arm, so that it's not pressing down so much and causes the wobbling sound.
She also want me to play the scales in more legato way, dude, it sounds so much nicer!!

So.... my assignment this week:
1. G major scale (3 other finger exercises based on the G Maj scale)
2. Papini Op57 no 1 (again, not so predictable melody for me to work on my sight reading skills) I also get started on some very simple slurs. (YAY!!!) My teacher pointed out to me that this is Papini, not Paganini :P
3. Song of the Wind repeat, concentrate on the string crossing on measure 3.
4. Promenade ( I really sound kinda horrible on that one... so...I'm not surprised!)

Wow.... that sounds like alot of work!! Does this sound like alot for a beginner? I do have years of piano playing from 6-15ish.

I find reading other's experiences learning as an adult really encourges me, so I hope I can update this at least weekly, hopefully this will be somewhat beneficial to others!

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on January 20, 2008 at 2:24 AM

First, welcome to v.com.

Second, your experiences sound exactly like those of my adult beginner students. You're right on course. One of my adult beginners calls Suzuki "beginner friendly." It is written so that each piece is just a little harder than the preceding one. Keep your enthusiasm up, practice regularly, and you'll be able to see and hear your own progress.

From Jasmine Reese
Posted on January 20, 2008 at 2:52 AM

Welcome!

I love reading people's blog post because they bring a wide array of culture and experience to this site. So, thank you for adding yourself to that legacy....

From sharelle taylor
Posted on January 20, 2008 at 5:28 AM

Keep it up, and look to the long term Its great that you know soem things to improve your playing - you often show that you have good abiities to analyse your playing rather than relying on your teacher's feedback.
Yes, you may look back in a few years time and see how far you've come. the getting of progress is so incremental - my own experience at least. I mentioned to my teacher this week, that i have put everything I could into lessons and practise and focussing for the two years she has been teaching me, and I know that I couldn't have learnt any faster and she couldn't have taught any faster. I said I still feel like a beginner. she said I will feel like that until I get through 7th or 8th grade. thats the way it is.
Reassuringly, she said that if she hasn't been practising much, and has a gig coming up, she's back to the mirror to check the straight bow, and she still has angst over her finger strength. she reminded me that Menuhin said something to the effect that there is no such thing as A violin hold - that there is a moment of balance and control and then everything must readjust when that moment becomes the next one. I suppose that is where the reputation of violin being a difficult instrument comes in.
We look froward to hearing more from you.

From Mendy Smith
Posted on January 21, 2008 at 5:56 AM

Head-up, chin-down. You will see incremental improvements over time. Its like gong from crawling, to walking and then to running over a period of time. Don't get discouraged!

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My forth lesson as an adult beginner

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