July 2006

July 24, 2006 16:24

Over the past three weeks, I've worked on my posture at the suggestion of a symphony player. She has helped me enormously and I will be indebted to her for the rest of my life. Playing is so much more comfortable now. It doesn't strain my neck or shoulders, so I can practice much longer now without getting tired.

And one of the strangest things I have discovered is that higher is not always better for shoulder rests. I have a long neck, and I thought having my shoulder rest at it's full 3inch height would be good, but I have found it actually puts stress of the back of my neck near where C1 meets the occipital bone, so it is high up the back of the neck.

So, I lowered my shoulder rest today. haha

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July 4, 2006 15:44

Does anyone know of any tall shoulder rests or chin rests? With my current set up, my shoulder rest, my body of violin, and my chin rest make up a total of 3 to 3.5 inches. I have a long neck, and I need about five inches of violin, shoulder rest, and chin rest to be comfortable.

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July 1, 2006 10:46

Ah, summer. Summer is good for lazy bums such as myself. I woke up around noon today, ate lunch, and watched videos of Mr. Szeryng on YouTube. I've been practicing scales a lot more often. I had always heard about Flesch from other people. they would say "Ugh, I hate these Flesch scales my teacher makes me practice every week." I had never had any experience with Flesch scales until the past month. My first encounter with Carl Flesch was when I played Haydn's Violin Concerto No. 1 in C. I bought the edition with Flesch's fingerings and cadenzas from C.F. Peters.

Well, ever since my teacher went over the scales with me, I've had a difficult time not practicing them. My intonation has even gotten a lot better. I think that is the greatest thing that I will take away from this book.

Anyways, I've been working on my quartet music, too. My quartet is playing the andante from Schubert's String Quartet No. 13 in a minor "Rosamunde" and Bartok's (arr. Tibor Sedley) "From the Diary of a Fly" from the Mikrokosmos studies for piano. My quartet is meeting tomorrow to go over the pieces again because last Monday didn;t go as well as it could have.

This Monday, we have a masterclass with Christopher Rex, the principal cellist for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I hope learn as much from this week's masterclass as I did from our masterclass with Robert Spano.

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More entries: August 2006 • June 2006

July 2006

July 24, 2006 16:24

July 4, 2006 15:44

July 1, 2006 10:46

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