February 2005

February 26, 2005 04:55

Although I have been playing for only six months I still feel ashamed of having nothing particularly interesting to play when someone says "Play something!"

The first time this happened to me, I was playing in my room at the Collej Kajetanka in Prague with the window open. An Asian man who was standing on the entrance stairs yelled up at me, "PLAY SOMETHING!" Until then I'd been happily experimenting with "sirens" on my student violin and found myself quite flustered at the request. I didn't know anything to play; I'd had my violin for less than a week. At this point I hadn't even mastered Twinkle-Twinkle.

"Play something!"

A great deal of my practice, when I'm not practicing the homework out of the Violin ABC book, is just me making up a one or twoing theme and then seeing how I can expand on it using what vocabulary is available to my hands. The point of this is, in my mind, to build fluency with the vocabulary of the violin.

To me, notes with bowings are like words, but since I haven't had any music theory or composition training, I haven't a clue what the grammar is. The only thing that helps me is my ear. Which, like a native speaker, can at least tell me if what I'm babbling makes sense, sounds pretty, is accurate, etc..

"Play something!"

It's like asking for a poet to make an instant poem, or for a debater to come up with an interesting argument for whatever is on his mind...or worse, for a mathematician to come up with an interesting conjecture on the spot. Unless the poet, debater, or mathematician already has a stock thing that they whip out on such occassions...

...and so since I know nothing, I need to know everything.

The happy and amusing news from this weekend is that I think I caught one of my flatmates listening to me in my fluency practice. I put an end to my extemporaneous composition, put my violin down, thought for a minute, and burst out of my room, only to find my flatmate scampering into his room. At first I thought he'd been doing some cleaning, but everything was still a mess. Was he snacking? No... So either he was heading back from the bathroom (but the toilet wasn't running), or he had been listening to me.

...or I'm the vainest adult student in the universe, of which there is also a good chance. Still, it tickles me to think that my playing around is interesting for other people to hear.

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February 26, 2005 04:55

Practice slowly!

This is the one piece of advice that I can't seem to reliably carry out. It came as a sort of double-edged compliment when my teacher told me yesterday that he can tell when I've practiced slowly and when I haven't.

I mean, it means that I don't suck so much such that I sound just as bad whether I practice slowly or not. It means that practicing slowly makes a big difference for me.

Of course, from what I understand, my teacher has a sort of logarithmic scale for the goodness of a violinist. It's a big like the learning curve: It takes a lot more to get very high on the curve than it does to get to mediocrity.

But he notices, which is good. I still don't think he understands why I can be so teary at some lessons. I'm not even sure that I understand, although it seems to be proportional to the amount of time I was supposed to have spent practicing, divided by the amount of quality practice I actually put in.

This week we chose some pieces to help me work on my rhythm. I think this might just be the week where I get the hang (a pun, by the way, the Hungarian for "noise" is "hang", pronounced "hauhn-g") of the dotted quarter-note, a concept which has eluded my rhythmic abilities ever since music classes in middle school. So this is very exciting!

In the meantime, I am continuing my experimental bowing studies. Today I discovered that something I've been practicing is called "spiccato." I'd heard people talk about it before, and it sounded very difficult, although I had no idea what it was. Now that the connection is made, perhaps I'll be able to learn more about sculpting the technique. I also watched a little online video of staccato; now that I understand that staccato is not slurred spiccato (although the idea brought interesting results), I'll try to practice the right thing.

Slowly.

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February 18, 2005 12:58

Let's do this chronologically.

Last night: I met an interesting violinist from the Zeneakademia. His name is Gábor Kis (last name first in the Hungarian manner) and he will be performing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto on June 16 at 4:00pm in the Nagyterem of the Zeneakademia. The way that we met was that we both wanted to attend a violin & piano concert at the Magyar Rádió Marvyterem, but figuring out how to get into the building with both of the exits closed clearly took more than a 174 I.Q.. I was standing at the end of Múseum kor., wondering what the h*ll I was supposed to do with my night when he came up to me and hazzarded a correct guess as to my situation, which happened to be the same situation he was in. So we went to a kavehaz and killed some time. He's a very interesting fellow, I hope we get to be friends.

I met another student today at Darius Music where I was picking up a Leopold carbon-fiber bow for a trial. I think his name is Etienne. He was very nice in offering to let me try the bow on his violin, but, my dears, I have vowed not to perform in public until I can rightfully demand, "Which Caprice?" That, and I didn't particularly feel like embarassing myself. And I was late for my violin lesson.

I haven't had enough time to evaluate the new bow. I will be using String Magazine's 16-point checklist to compare it to my other two bows (Mr. Straight Pernamuco and Mr. Crappy Student Bow). Quite honestly, though, I love it already. Not only does it piss off my violin teacher's father (a strict traditionalist who also hated my Warchal strings at first, just because they were Slovakian), but it feels just perfect on my hand. Yet, my first impression is that it's a little soft... We'll see.

Today's lesson went well. I told my teacher that I needed more time with the homework, so instead we worked on my left hand, violin placement, and bowing. I also gave him, as a Christmas/Birthday/Sorry Your Teacher is Dead present, the sheet music for Ravel's "Tzigane." He looked as if I'd given him a death sentence. The look on his face and tone of his voice said, "Oh my God, who does she think I am, Itzhak Perlman?"

Ah, so I think I learned today that he teaches violin at the conservatory (musical high school) level. I'm not sure, however. This is not a problem right now, but I may need to find a new teacher when I reach the level of feeling like I can tackle the Caprices (3-5 years, I think)

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February 8, 2005 11:22

I wrote a poem for everybody. I posted it in the "Life in General" section.

My teacher was very pleased with me this week. I was a little bit "másnapos" (hungover) from a party the night before, but he had no complaints but for my lack of syncopated rhythm, which was quickly corrected. I then attempted to play the "Ode to Joy" for him, which seemed to make him even happier.

I am learning to practice slooooooooooowly. And in front of a mirror. And with/without my tuner. As tragically curious as I am, however, I am still playing around with what might be termed "advanced bowing."

With my teacher beaming at me, I finally felt comfortable asking him about something with which I've been experimenting:

Me: Uh... I've been meaning to ask you... Uhhh... It's about technique...

Him: Technique?

Me: Uhhh... Well, I can almost do this: [I attempt the bastard child of a double-stop and a louré/spiccatto which is meant to produce a smooth whole note on the Ging and a bip-bip-bip on the D.]

Him: [He tries it himself.] Where did you see this?

Me: Errr...nowhere I--

Him: It's very hard, try this:
[Louré on alternating strings.]

Me: [I try it.]

Him: No, try again.

Me: [Again.]

Him: Uh-huh.

Me: Yes, but that's not what I'm trying to do. See, it's with the big note on the Ging like this: [I repeat what I did before.] But I can't do it when the big note's on the Ding: [I attempt and fail miserably, my violin emits a fearful PRRREEEEEP!]

Him: ... Why do you want to know?

Me: I'm...just...curious!

Him: [Gives me the 'I don't know that English word' look.]

Me: [Digging out the Angol-Magyar dictionary.] I'm-- I'm-- [flip-flip-flip] Kíváncsi! Kíváncsi vagyok!

Him: [Looks at me like I have three heads.] Uh-huuuh!

Well, at least he didn't yell at me like the time I tried shifting (I was barely past my three-month mark, he had every right to stop me from cultivating bad technique). My teacher and I have a sort of strange relationship as far as I can tell. He's a good, strong string of tradition, structure, and technique so that my experimental kite doesn't fly away, but at the same time I can hardly wait until the day when I become advanced enough that he allows me to develop a playing stance in my own style.

I'm waxing ecstatic because this weekend I was given a reminder of just how good my teacher is (at both performing and teaching) when a friend of mine from college came for brunch. After brunch we went over to my teacher's apartment so I could introduce them. This friend, G., also plays the violin and to introduce himself he played a part of a Bach solo sonata for K., my teacher. K. listened patiently and then retreated to his bedroom, reemerging a minute later with the appropriate sheet music and his violin and bow. He proceeded to give my friend an impromptu lesson, after which my friend sounded amazingly better.

It seems to me that my teacher was excited to work with a more advanced student, which made me jealous in a way, but at the same time I realized that the faults that G. had--a stiff and heavy right elbow, intonation and timing which were rather off at times, and a bobbing violin--are faults that I will never have so long as do what my teacher tells me. For this reason, I consider myself lucky that fate made me wait so long until I was guaranteed to become a student the teacher who would be perfect for me (I'm 23 now and have been playing for a little over 6 months. No sh*t, I'll never play the Ernst concerto, but I would like to busk with the Paganini Caprices someday).

It's not that no other teacher could have taught me what I have learned, but somehow I feel that the psychological experience I have had with my teacher is more fulfilling than any I could have had if I had started to play violin in the third grade. Judging from other people's stories about their teachers, I think my relationship with my teacher is just wierd, but I wouldn't have it any other way. From the way he asks for payment, to the quiet approval when I do something right, to the patient, gentle but strict way in which he corrects my faults, my teacher is beloved to me, as much as my violin is beloved to me. If I had to really explain the relationship to anyone, I would probably say, "You know those Kung-Fu movies where the rash young kid is taken on by the kung-fu master and goes through an utterly grueling training, requiring him/her to swallow his/her vanity and learn psychologically as well as physically, like when the Bride goes to Pai Mei for training in Kill Bill 2? Or perhaps the kind of relationship between a Zen master and a student in the koans? That is my relationship with my teacher."

It's not the kind of relationship that every student should have with his or her teacher, nor is it the kind of relationship that every teacher should have with his or her student(s), but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I could go on to describe how it makes me feel, but then I'd push all the other journal entries off the page and bore you all, so I think I'll stop here so I can go home and eat.

And practice.

Slowly.

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February 1, 2005 08:45

Well, don't I feel stupid, lacking an "s" from my contact's email address. Ah well. Plenty of time. I would like the bow trial to end March 7, which gives me plenty of time for my stipend to come in to cover the remainder of the cost.

So far so good with quitting smoking.

Yesterday's test, not so great. B+ for the course, meh. Not so great for a graduate student.

Realized yesterday that singing into my electronic tuner will give me the notes to songs I like...as long as I sing on-key.

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