December 2004

December 28, 2004 10:13

From the liner of Itzhak Perlman's Great Romantic Concertos set:

...between which Clement entertained the audience with a sonata of his own, played on one string with the violin upside-down.

I didn't know they did that sort of thing in those days. Last summer I saw a performance of a modern piece that called on the bassist to bow in the pegbox and between the bridge and the tailpiece, but I hadn't heard of a violin being played upside-down before this. I should like to have seen it!

Archive link

December 28, 2004 08:20

Perhaps this week is my violin inspiration week. Yesterday I took my violin to the doctor's office because I wanted to get a new, centered chinrest (I have a left-sided Guanieri rest now, but my arms are too short) afterwards. My mother was looking after Nicolá while I had bloodwork done and showed her to a couple of women in the waiting room. When the women saw me again, they both effusively informed me of my violin's beauty. It was nice. I think I have a tendency to take some things for granted, so I need to be reminded of my blessings sometimes.

Yesterday I also picked up a mysterious little book with the title "The Black Violin", a book by Maxence Fermine. It took me mere hours to read, but I found myself enchanted by the romantic and magical premise. I think I might transcribe the book onto my computer so that I can read it again later. It's a mere 133 pages, not all filled with the rather largish type. The prose is remarkable for its bluntness and simplicity. I think the main character was modelled after Paganini in the description of his childhood and I don't think the author knew very much about violins, but the story is charming nonetheless.

I also picked up lots of CDs from the library. I'll have a lot to listen to while I finish sewing my new winter coat.

On the other hand, I feel a little disabled from practicing today. I know I should, but between the bruised inner elbow from yesterday's bloodwork (that's the second time that nurse has left me hurting) and the cuts I sustained on my left hand when the safety pin holding my skirts up popped open while I was dancing last night, I don't feel so good. I'm sure I'm going to have scars from the cuts, and there's one for every finger one presses on a string. That's okay, I'll heal.

Today I want to finish my new winter coat. I'm basically recycling an old winter coat of mine for the outside fabric and lining it with a brocade. I'd like to do some busking someday when I'm good enough, so I want to put gussets or something on the sleeves to allow me the flexibility to play violin with the coat on. Once upon a time I was going to be a fashion designer...

There are lots of buskers in Budapest, particularly around the Basilica and Vörösmarty Tér. I don't think most of them are very good, although I like the one who plays at the lamppost at the Basilica for his personality (He let me try playing his violin once when I asked to see it. I didn't like it very much, I remember thinking, "My god, why goes he have such an expensive case for such a violin?" I think he really enjoys busking though.) There was one guy that I saw busking in the early morning in the underground walkway at Örs Vezer Tér. I thought he was wonderful, but I have not seen him since.

If/When I ever take up busking, I doubt that it will be for money. At the moment I am incredibly shy about my lack of skill (those interested, I think I'm about a Level 3 in the Sassmanhaus system, maybe 3 1/2 if you want to stretch), but I hope that someday I'll be as fluent in playing the violin as I am in singing (I harmonize extemporaneously to Tori Amos and the Cranberries; it drove my Dad crazy when I was a kid because he though I was tone deaf, particularly in harmonizing with the Cranberries because I would imitate the Irish style) and when I am, I want to share it with the whole world. Wouldn't the 24 Caprices or the Solo Partitas and Sonatas be wonderful things to hear in the morning on your way to work? And the acoustics of metro architecture can seriously rival those of some of the best concert halls.

I think it would be fun, but first, the coat and practice.

Unrelated: Does anyone know if Joshua Bell's "Romance of the Violin" is encrypted in a strange way? My computer seems to refuse to play it.

1 reply | Archive link

December 22, 2004 09:14

Ah-choo! Well, feel's like I'm back in Massachusetts. Did I mention that I'm allergic to cats? I love Jinx, our all-black kitty, but---ah-aah-AAH-choooooo!

Anyway... To a post in the ViolinStudents community at LiveJournal I made the following reply:

Eh-heh-heh-heh...

For the first part of your question, I have heard that Leopold Mozart's n-hundred-year-old book is still the definitive guide to violin technique and has some truly excellent descriptions of what is going on. In fact, I'll be getting this book from amazon soon, so I'll tell y'all more about it when I've had the chance to look it over.

If you want more in-depth discussion of technique, try violinist.com where there are a lot of articles.

That said, even if you're quite confident that "If only you would show me the technique, then I'll get it," I would still recommend getting a traditional book that has lots of songs. It's one thing to be able to do the techniques, it's a whole other thing to do it in a song, in tune, and in rhythm--particularly for fontos stuff like bow division.

That, and violin is one of those instruments where if you start doing a technique wrong, such as letting your left wrist bend or get too tense, you can seriously injure yourself over time. Take it easy. There's a reason why virutally every 25-year-old virtuoso has been playing for at least 20 years.

On the other hand, clearly you're a smart guy and I cheer you on heartily as you delve into the pursuit of these skills. Just remember to love the instrument very much for a violin can be like a maiden sometimes: If she thinks you're playing her just to conquer her, she'll spite you as you well deserve, but if you try to play her as if you truly love her, she'll reciprocate as best as the mechanics of the situation allow.

As W. A. Mozart once said, "Love! Love! Love! That is the soul of genius!"

Then again, that's coming from me, the chick who occasionally cuddles with her violin.

I don't know, the post reminded me of me "when I was young and stupid" (that is, about 5 months ago). In my opinion, an adult student, handled badly or left to his or her own misguided devices has the potential to become the musical equivalent of a mathematical crank. There are reasons why both brilliant 25-year-old mathematicians and brilliant 25-year-old violinists have been both been working at what they do for 20 years or so.

And don't think that math is any safer than violin. In mathematics, if you get into the bad habit that, say, there exists a solution (x,y,z) all integers such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n>2, you're in for a world of pain. It could be the equivalent of making vibrato come from your elbow. Sure, ignorant people don't care, but people who know will call you on it.

As for love... I don't think I've ever known a mathematician who didn't love mathematics on some level. Like being a professional violinist, it's just too time-consuming to do if you don't already love it. So far as I can glean by observing my teacher, when you reach a certain point, it's all you do, all you think about. Hours disappear in the mathematics library and a poster of a Stradivarius can attract your attention from a shop window across the street...

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Now, if only I could get my hands to feel the same, I might actually be able to practice today. I was very tempted to try practicing while I was at Heathrow, but I can very shy sometimes.

1 reply | Archive link

December 19, 2004 13:27

Oh well, capitalists are smart, so the bank didn't actually end up giving me books for Christmas...in fact, I think they charged another 1000 forints or so to make the correction about my stipend. Grr.

In other news... Oh gosh, my lesson went terribly today. I don't know what happened. At three o'clock my pieces were perfect, but by five (after I'd been waiting for my teacher about 2 hours, talking to his parents) they'd turned into...how can I say this without offending anyone...ah, mush? Yes, mush. It was as equivalent to having dropped my math homework into a puddle such that the ink disappeared. A pile of wet paper with no trace of having done anything at all. I was very upset.

I think my teacher was upset too. He's very patient most of the time, but I can tell when he's disappointed with my performance. *sigh* How can a student make it up to a teacher when the lesson goes so badly? I mean, this was beyond "practice the homework for next time" bad. This was really bad.

Or at least that's the way I feel.

On the other hand, I'm really looking forward to having lots of time in the next few weeks for practicing. With Mr. Mozart as a semiteacher, maybe I'll be able to teach myself some new tricks.

Hmm... Back to the practice/lesson thoughts... I can't get the timing right if I don't hear the song as a whole in my head. I'm not to the point yet where I can just look at the music and sing/hear it in my head. With the piano gone from the apartment (they took it away to be restored on Friday) I can't even play the notes anymore. This is a problem. Sightreading may be something that comes with time, but is there some way to speed up the training for it? My idea-factory says "find the sheet music to pieces of which you have recordings and follow along with it." How do they do it in the academies?

Math, yes, that's what I'm really supposed to be doing in Budapest, but I have the urge to put myself on the fast track for violin. I suppose that's a rant for my other blog, though.

FYI, I use this blog just for violin thoughts. If you want to read about the rest of my life, you can check out my other journal. It isn't very exciting, but I often feel that I need to have content in my posts here, whereas at livejournal I don't.

Archive link

December 18, 2004 10:21

Is there something wrong with the fact that when I saw that a tree had fallen on Andrassy street between Oktogon and the Opera House I thought, "Gosh! A pity I can't drag that log home, I'll bet the knots from those growths would make the wood exquisite for a violin's back!"?

At the three-month mark in my violin training, I had a period where I was utterly obsessed with the idea of building my own violin out of woods that I found and would mean something to me. For example, I've probably walked by this tree on Andrassy many times and I'm pretty sure it was some sort of maple, so if I made a violin from it, it would always remind me of Budapest and if I were really good I might even be able to shape the voice of the instrument to remind me of Hungarian. Unfortunately I have no tools here and certainly no way to transport the log I liked back to my apartment (and even if I did, I don't think my flatmates would be too happy with me--living with me for four years is one thing, living with me and my log for four years would be another).

Still, the thought of building an instrument out of the spruce and maple in my parent's front yard in Massachusetts really appeals to me. It might not be a good violin and it wouldn't be Nicolá, but... Yeah.

Time to eat!

Archive link

December 18, 2004 09:51

Two concerts in two days! This is my reward for working so hard this week.

Last night the Renyi Institute held a sort of Christmas/mathematical event which involved a lot of food and a concert by the Hungarian group "Musica Profana" which specializes in ancient music. Not only was I fascinated by seeing the Viola de Gamba and Viola de Amore live, but the two baroque violins were very intriging! I don't think I had ever heard the ancient-style gut strings live, but...goodness, it was like being transported back to the 17th and 18th centuries! They played a number of selections from their new CD and some Christmas songs. I think my favorite is the fantasia, it strikes me as being somewhere between a fugue and a Shakespearean sonnet.

This morning was a treat too. At the Liszt Ferenc Museum, Michael Hsu, a musician from Germany performed. Hsu is an exceptional performer on both the violin (which I was expecting to hear) and the piano (which I was not expecting to hear). The program (in Hungarian, sorry) is as follows:

Hindemith: Szólószonáta hegedûre, op. 31/2
Chopin: Polonéz-Fantázia, op. 61
Bloch: Baal Shem
Grieg: c-moll hegedû-zongora szonáta, op. 45/3

I'm afraid the Hindemith did not exactly enrapture me; but I think that's because I kept thinking it was Mozart and I became confused when it sounded like Bartok. I can be silly that way. I'm still not sure how I felt about the other two, but the Grieg was exquisite even thought the accompianist messed up once (in a way I'm very proud of myself when I catch a boo-boo in a performance; to me it means that my ear is training up).

Tonight at the Matyas Templom there will be a concert, but it probably isn't free and I don't expect it to be cheap. I also don't really like Szentmihaly as a violinist. The last time I saw him live, I found his stage presence...I don't know...he seemed to be harassing the orchestra members or dancing around like a jackbum at the times when he wasn't occupied with the solo in the Beethoven D-major Violin Concerto (and even when he was playing, I think my violin teacher did a better job of it when he played the Concerto's solo for his graduation from the Zeneakademia). Still, I don't think I have heard a violin played in a church before and anyhow, maybe I should give Szentmihaly a second chance at proving that he's a good performer. The concert is at 8:00pm. That gives me time to feed myself and practice a little before going. The playlist proclaims "D'Aquin, Bach, Händel, Corelli, Esterházy Pál, Schubert, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Reger, Hiller, C. Franck és Dvorak mûvei" so I think it should be good. I hope there are still seats left!

Archive link

December 16, 2004 04:38

Oh, I'm going home for Christmas! I'll be in Massachusetts starting December 22. :)

Archive link

December 16, 2004 03:36

Well, it looks like I'm getting Leopold Mozart's treatise on playing the violin and the Strings Backstage "Violin Virtosos" book for Christmas. I meant to pay for them, but then there was a mix-up with my account, so the bank cancelled the transaction, but the books have already been delivered, and amazon.com doesn't care or something. It's times like this when I wish I knew more about the inner workings of electronic finance. I'm going to try to contact my bank, but I have a feeling they'll just say, "Well, damn, I wish you hadn't jumped the gun, there's really nothing we can do about it now." Uhhhh... Right, someone up there must really want me to play violin.

Jézus, kérek, szeretem jól hegedûlni, nagyon jól...kösönöm szépen!

In other news, it's times like this when I'm glad I'm in the math community in Hungary! Not only did we have a swell bubbly & sammich party yesterday evening, but tomorrow night there is going to be a free concert by Musica Profana at the Rényi Institute. I'm looking forward to it; I've never seen a viola de gamba played live!

Today, however--today I have a lot of writing to do about T-spaces, approximating continuous functions over a closed interval, the Haar theorem, and linear projections of functions. I want an A and my professor wants to give me an A; it's just a matter of producing something worthy of an A.

Ran into the henchman that severed Anne Boelyn,
He did it right quickly a merciful man,
She said one plus one is two,
But Henry said that it was three,
So it was,
Here I am.

1 reply | Archive link

December 11, 2004 08:07

Some people I've talked to, particularly those who have just started off on the violin late in life, have the attitude, "Oh, sure, a [Stradivarius/Amati/...] violin might cost $XXXXXXXX, but it doesn't sound any better than my [mass-manufactured] YYYYY." For the first three months of my time playing the violin, I felt the same way, although I always felt a flush of shame when a "real" violinist would ask me what kind of instrument I had. In my family we have a saying that, "It's a poor workman who blames his tools." In the violin context it means that if you don't sound good playing the violin, then it's you, not the violin, that sucks.

However, in the past month or so, I've come to realize that yes, the instrument does matter. I'm not sure if it was just all the concerts I've gone to or if it was being allowed to try playing Nicolá for the first time during a lesson, but eventually I realized that a violin's individual sound is something that a violinist just can't help. The cementing decision to buy Nicolá came when a violinist friend of mine visited and tried to play my first violin, a Strunal...and although she played a much more complicated song than I have the capacity to play right now with much more skill than I possess right now, the Strunal sounded just as bad in her hands as it did in mine. At that point I decided that it must not be me who sounds bad, it's the violin.

The first night with Nicolá as my own, I played the Strunal and her in turns, delving into the sound with all of my available hearing and intelligence (trying to convince myself that I had sold my soul for an equivalent increase in sound quality, frankly). The first thing that I noticed was Nicolá's resonance, how when another violin strikes a D, I can see it vibrate on her open Ding. Even my fourth-finger D on the Ging has this effect, which is something I may have to learn to play with in the future. The next thing took a little while.

The first time I played Nicolá was during a lesson and I found the sound from the open D so shocking (after having played with the Strunal for so long) that I was bewildered and speechless for an hour and would later describe it as sounding "like chocolate." (A violin, in my hands, making a sound like *that*?! Holy cow!) When I was comparing the two instruments in private, I had the time to figure out just what it was that had shocked me so...

It brought to mind the memory of sitting in the middle school auditorium at one of the "Winter Concerts" after having sung in the chorus. I remember thinking to myself, "Good God, they [the middle school orchestra] sound like a swarm of bees!" and wondering why this was so. At the time I'd pinned it on the out-of-phase bowing, but comparing Nicolá and the Strunal made me realize that if you played 30 Strunals in room on the Ging, you will get something resembling a swarm of bees, whereas if you put 30 Nicolás in one room, you will probably get a very clean, smooth, albeit flesh-penetrating sound (and an orgasm, if you're me).

Now that she's mine, it's not so much a question of how much better Nicolá sounds than the Strunal, but a question of what can I do with the sound? This little wobbly wooden box with strings has its own personality and shape and now the problem falls to me to dress it up so that I can induce spontaneous pleasurable muscle spasms in every other person who hears her voice.

Part of that is the question of Strings. The Warchals are great if only because they keep tune excellently and for the most part have a nice, smooth sound with excellent response (except for that darn Aing, when were they planning for me to receive the new metal Aing they promised?). I still find the Eing to be obnoxiously bright to the point where playing "Reflecting Images on the Waves" from the Hegedu ABC book is just painful. What I'd really love to try are Evah Pirazzis or Obligatos, something really warm and dark, like melting dark chocolate, like silk velvet... That's the sound I really want.

However, what will really make Nicolá's sound pleasurable is if I become a better violin player. Not that I'll ever become a virtuoso violinist--I've only been playing for... 4 1/2 months now, and I'm 23 years old--I accept that the fulfillment of my dreams of viruosity will probably have to wait for my reincarnation. Nevertheless, I spend about an hour or so before or after each practice just futzing around with the instrument, doing slides, scales, double stops, higher fingerings, trills, things my teacher hasn't told me about yet...just to learn what my baby can do. I told you about the resonance before, how the Ding sympathetically vibrates with the fourth-finger D (when I do it right). I see this as a neither a blessing nor a curse, just something I have to learn about my instrument. They say it can take a lifetime to learn to play a Guanieri beautifully, I think such may be the case with my violin. I never named the Strunal because I instinctively knew that it was, indeed, a generic instrument, which probably possesses virtually the same sound and problems of most of its siblings. Not that I didn't love the instrument, I slept with the violin by my bedside just as I do with Nicolá now, but there wasn't anything that made it my partner. It was a thing, a thing I needed to learn to play the violin.

Nicolá is different, she's a partner in making music, a companion when I'm lonely... When we're just messing around she sound speaks to me of the care her maker took in creating her, the centuries she has seen; when I look at the results of the restoration effort that went into making her playable, I see the wear of those centuries, I feel connected to the violinist(s) who made the rough place along the edge of the top.

*sniffle* I wonder if I'm the only one who feels so inordinately affectionate for her instrument. It's the personality and beauty of the instrument that makes me feel this way.

I'm so happy I could implode.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit, and a violin... indeed, what else does a person need to be happy?

Archive link

December 11, 2004 07:18

Customs... Well, crap, I forgot to include the country on the receipt for Nicolá, but you would think that the age of the violin was pretty obvious, so I shouldn't have to pay duty on her. Since the Strunal was under $400, I think it should be duty free too. However, I think travelling with two violins (one to be left in the U.S., the other is coming back with me to Hungary) will be, ah, challenging.

However, there is an alternative. I think Mr. Mata said that he might be able to show the Strunal around to some people to see if anyone would like to buy it. That would be nice, because I then I could use the money to buy a better violin case for Nicolá. (Right now I'm using the case I bought with the Strunal and wrapping Nicolá with a pashmina shawl to protect her.)

My other thought for the Strunal was to find a needy child who wants to learn the violin but can't afford one, or else donating the violin to a middle school rental program or something. It isn't a bad violin, really. In fact, from the top it's quite pretty. It's just that since it was manufactured nobody cared about the curl for the back, but the ribs are very faintly curled... As if the violin is trying very hard to overcome it's humble origins.

I should try playing the Strunal again today since I've been playing Nicolá for about a week now. Perhaps I'll be able to better hear the difference between the two instruments. Not that I couldn't hear it before.

I had a whole lot more entry right hear, but since it goes on forever, I think I'll separate it into it's own essay.

Archive link

December 8, 2004 04:17

Is anyone else annoyed that we can't comment on each other's entries? I was just reading Emily's entry and I wanted to say that it isn't that way everywhere. For example, here in Budapest there is a very strict concert etiquette. I was talking about this with one of my math profs yesterday: Why, in America, are there people who give standing ovations at every performance? We came to the conclusion that people in America simply don't go to very many classical music performances so every one of them is extraordinary. It just goes to show how our standards have shifted.

I think also, that the main noise offenders at concerts are those same people who don't go to concerts often enough to figure out what constitutes "good to hear" and "bad to hear" at the Liszt Ferenc Matinee concerts, I cannot tell you how many little old ladies I have wanted to, ahem, have for lunch with a big Amarone, because of their rustling plastic bags.

As for the stink? Ah, you see, *some* people don't go to concerts for the music. *Some* people go there to be seen (and, alas, smelled) so that they can have the reputation of being cultured and intelligent. *Some* poeple don't understand that going to watch a classical music concert for a date makes you about as cultured and intelligent as going to watch a football game during a date makes you athletic. I used to be one of those people, but then I figured out that the passive enjoyment of music is so passé.

Oh h*ll, go figure. In America opera and classical music are not so much about the sheer enjoyment of music anymore, it's about background noise for ulterior motives like dating and dressing up. *weep* That's not to say that it doesn't happen in other countries, lord knows it happens enough in Hungary too, but you just don't see the kind of experienced musical appreciation as much in America. *sob* Oh well.

Errr... Anyway...

Oh, goodness, look at the time, I have only 45 minutes left for lunch! That's 45 minutes that I could use to practice!

Archive link

December 2, 2004 09:15

Mine!

Nicolá is all mine! And a great bow came with her! Happy! Alas... When I tried her out seriously for the first time it made me realize how accustomed I've become to my Strunal. The tone qualities are so different, it's going to take me forever to relearn my fingerings on for this instrument. I also need to get/make a new shoulder pad. My old one tips Nicolá at a really bizarre angle and just doesn't feel as secure as it did on my Strunal. Oh, it's like married...except there's no registry for people to help you out with all of the accessories of the new union.

Archive link

More entries: January 2005 • November 2004