December 31, 2006 at 6:12 PM
Happy new year to everyone at v.com! :-)I haven't been playing in public much these days, largely because I've been working hard to get regularized at my PR job... which was just this past December!
Yay!
Now I hope to be able to focus more on performing... I've been practicing Czardas, but not quite there yet. I've also gotten a new (well, slightly used actually) electric violin that I'm looking forward to experimenting with:
Of course, I intend to keep things in perspective: classical foundation studies come first!
It's difficult without a coach, but I'm hoping to touch bases again with my friends' Baroque music group, the Rubato Ensemble, very soon. That should keep my muscles (and ears!) in shape, er, tune.
I'm going to see what I can do with my electric in terms of pedal effects and other electronica.
I read somewhere (and i agree)that there's a really big difference between an amplified acoustic violin and a fully electric violin... and not just in terms of sound quality!
The whole audio/tactile feedback system is different; whereas an acoustic speaks into your ear, an electric calls out to you from a distance (via a monitor or whatever amped speaker it's plugged into).
Classical purists and hardcore rockers alike keep asking me whether one is superior to the other. I keep telling them it's just apples and oranges... Or, more precisely, like tractors and sportscars: the basic operating principles are the same, but each machine is built to handle a completely different job.
I mean, who's to say which is "better," the brute force of a tractor or the lightning speed of a sportscar? Each is simply more suited to its own field (or road, as the case may be :-P).
By the by, I maintain a regular photoblog that I update whenever I find something interesting. It's meant to be a visual journal of sorts, so a lot of the stuff there doesn't have anything to do with violins. Feel free to drop by at http://wiverne.blogspot.com/
I've also been keeping myself busy by coordinating the PR of a local art spot, the Blueroom Art Gallery (you can see pictures of the place and snapshots from some of the events at my photoblog).
Between my regular PR work and the gallery, it's not uncommon for me to log as much as 15 hours of work a day! Fortunately, it's the kind of writing that I love to do, so I really don't mind. I like my job and I'm confident about the quality of my work, so I really feel that much more fulfilled and at ease compared with my previous job. I do hope to be able to publish at least one short story this year, though.
Anyway, I'm very enthusiastic about the upcoming year. Cheers to everyone and good luck to us all this 2007! :-)
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