January 15, 2008 at 7:47 AM
DISCLAIMER: I am not permitted to share the actual scores and comments with anyone other than my teacher. I can only generalize what was noted and what I have blogged about before. The results were in-line with my own self-assessment.Lesson learned #1 was on my score card (tuning to the piano in the room). I blew it and know it. I'll NEVER make that mistake again! As a result, my intonation suffered and it showed. I realized my error when my opening A rang with my open A but was out of tune to the piano noticeably. I should have known that an unheated room (it was around 55 degrees) and having my viola in it for 30 minutes before I started playing would have made everything sharp. I'll stop beating myself up over that one for now. A lesson WELL learned!
Vibrato!!!! Like I've posted before, Bruch DEMANDS a lot of vibrato, which is still a developing skill for me. My dynamics need more work as well as bowing skills (esp. at the tip). Funny how my "bow tip" playing used to be strong and now it has weakened since I've focused playing at the frog.
On the up-side, the double stops were good. Those few measures are what I actually worried about the most! I went from horrible and totally out of tune to pretty good and slightly out of tune in two weeks. Also, I used to have a problem playing timidly and not projecting at all. That has now turned into the opposite problem by projecting too much. And based on my results, I think I've learned to apply the fundamentals of expression.
There weren't real any surprises for me on the results. I'm glad to know that my own assessment matches those of the judges. It has helped reinforce what I need to work on with my teacher. I expect that my vibrato study will get more attention now.
It was noticably sharp (even to my ears!) and I'm not good enough to compensate for it...
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