Hello Community! Back to the instrument after a decade away
Hello Violinist community,After falling out of love with playing music a decade ago, as well as a few years of waffling about, I've decided to pick up lessons again and give the rep an honest try again.
This is all partly inspired by the local audiophile community where I live, and partly by TwoSet on youtube (although jokes on them, after paying for lessons and sheet music I can't afford to buy their merch anymore).
Nice to meet you all. Looking forward to exploring some of the knowledge here, and shitposting about acceptable intonation.
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I somewhat regret stopping lessons during such an important developmental phase in my life, but at the same time I don't because I've become quite a good oboist/English horn player. I'm glad I've returned to my first love though! I missed it tons!
I think we are all David in some way. My intonation is god awful, and even worse, I have a hard time hearing it unless it's really blatant. How I wish I could just shred it fast, but that's not the way the instrument works...
I took my first real lesson last week at a local Chicago studio. Still figuring out what to play with the teacher, so I did the only logical thing for a bright-eyed yappie...bought ALL the sheet music from Shar, and we'll figure it out as we go. I'm not very good at judging difficulty, and since I"m not really looking for professional/conservatory programs, I hope the study can be a little bit more free-form/self-directed.
A personal goal of mine is to get to the point where I can buy a really good instrument. As a data analyst in my day job, those "studies" about strads sounding like modern violins are done so poorly. But if you take the studies at face value, the solution for me is obvious...I should work towards buying a modern that "sounds like a Strad". I think learning about tone and acoustics is going to be a large part of this journey anyway.
@Paul
Yes they have merch, although thankfully most of the apparel is just clever(ish?) memes about practicing.
But really, it doesn't matter what Krakovich wants, does it? We can only change our own playing.
Also, it's only your first week back - cut yourself some slack. My intonation was probably crap too when I first started (I only remember a portion of my first lesson, quite a while ago).
And you're right about the studies conducted about Strads. They seem rather vague and I'm not sure how well controlled they were.
Anyways, good luck on your journey as a violinist! Don't forget to enjoy it.
But really, it doesn't matter what Krakovich wants, does it? We can only change our own playing.
Also, it's only your first week back - cut yourself some slack. My intonation was probably crap too when I first started (I only remember a portion of my first lesson, quite a while ago).
And you're right about the studies conducted about Strads. They seem rather vague and I'm not sure how well controlled they were.
Anyways, good luck on your journey as a violinist! Don't forget to enjoy it.
Getting back to your main topic: the return to the instrument -- what are your short and long term goals? Where do you want to play and what kind of music?
Just curious: how old are you now?
Short term goals are to play bach in tune. Long term goals are...well...to play bach in tune.
But in all seriousness, for the short term I'm still nailing down starting pieces with my teacher at the moment. At the moment it looks to be Partita 2, one movement + a couple pages of the chaconne (ciaconne?) at a time, and then one of the PG13 concertos (I've been dodging mendelssohn and mozart 5 since my teacher back in high school suggested them, don't know if I can run from them forever) and we're going to see how far I get down the Intro+Rondo.
Long term goals are to play all 3 of Tchaikovsky Beethoven and Brahms. I don't really care about performing or anything, I'd be pretty content just jamming all 3 out with a pianist. A long time ago I had already accepted that Brahms might be out of reach for my lifetime (and also, according to my teacher, finding somebody who can teach Brahms can be a little bit of a challenge on its own).
Chamber music also seems fun for me, but TBH I don't even know where I'd start finding people who have the time/energy/money/desire etc... to do that. Was going to make a post later asking people how to find chamber groups...
To answer your last question, I'm 29.
For me, the best way to find people to play chamber music with has been to join community orchestras. In fact, some of the people in my orchestras joined mainly in order to find chamber music partners. In the last two years, I've also found people through summer chamber music workshops where I went out of my way to try and meet everyone on the workshop roster who was listed as being from my city.
There is a studio called Chicago School of Music kind of near my office. I'm taking lessons there.
You obviously were pretty advanced when you quit, which is a big advantage too. Give some thoughts to doing summer camps - I found them invaluable as non-threatening playing opportunities - and also community orchestras. The latter has the big benefit of meeting others in the community for possible chamber music or repertoire play-throughs.
Welcome back! ee
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