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June 24, 2005 at 8:44 PM

I've had a hard time finding motivation practicing my violin. I was practicing three hours a day, but yesterday, I only practiced an hour. I changed out all my strings last night. My old dominants were nearly a year old. I know some people who suggest changing strings every 6 months, but my teacher always tells me it's up to me to decided when to change them. My old dominant strings had a nice warm sounds on the G and D strings, and a bright sound on A and E. But my new dominants sounds very metallic. I don't like the opening of the Bruch Concerto No. 1 sounds with my new strings. I must admit, though, my strings are easier to pull sound out of, and the clarity has improved. However, it gets anoying having to tune every few minutes. I tried playing Lalo's Symphony Espagnole with my new strings, and the 16th note runs sound A LOT cleaner.

But, Bruch's Concerto No. 1 just isn't the same. The sound really isn't inviting. But, the cleanliness in the high positions on the G string at the end of the first movement are so pleasent sounding.

I don't know, I guess that is just the pros and cons of new strings.

I haven't made much progress on the second movement of Bruch. It is pretty much sight-readable for me. But, It's not the technical aspects of the second movement that are giving me any problems. It's more of trying to find the musicality of it.

And my etude for this week... kreutzer 10, which has a lot of common arpeggios, and if you have the Galamian fingerings for it, then it covers just about every option of fingering these arpeggios as possible.

and for Bach... I am working on speeding up the Gigue from partita No. 2

My goal, is to be able to play the Ciaconne from Partita No. 2 by the end of my senior year. That'll give me two years.

And for my senior concerto... I would really like to play a major concerto like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, or Sibelius, or maybe some other composer, but I would be happy playing something like Bruch.

Well, those are all really good choices, and I recommend Tchaikovsky violin concerto, Sibelius isn't that great. In addition, the Ciaccona by Bach is a challenge to play, but it's good for skill building.