August 8, 2004 at 12:22 AM

Ever have those days when your bow seems incredibly smooth and silky across the strings, your bowarm has power and is relaxed and flows from tip to frog and for the first 20 min. of practicing, everything seems wonderful and perfect and clicks and you are Perlman or Oistrach or Hahn or Bell...the notes bow down in front of your eyes and you feel the sweet warmness and comfort and power of your articulations....then you realize that you are starting to rush everything and go really fast and you aren't practicing anymore you're just plowing through out of control. The right arm is still perfect, but your left...the fingers have a mind of their own. The vibrato gets way fast and your hand starts flopping and then you just don't care and want to do anything you want to do because for 20 min. you felt like VIOLIN GOD.? At the end of the hour you must take call and own up for the fact that this is pointless even though it feels so wonderful and that you will try again later. Some people call those "good playing days" when that feeling and comfort and power and warmness comes. I loose grip and get wild. And have to start over sometime later tonight. As for now I'm going to read the NYT and CNN and the local paper online and feel blessed that I am so, well, blessed. Though the paganini was a complete mess. Perhaps that is a good thing. Not sold to the devil as the story would go! Should definately cut down on the coffee consumption....
-Jennifer

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