Practice Notes
Over the past several days, including the weekend: Average practice time was 2 hours. I started applying portamento hinged to vibrato on each end of the effect to "The Lord's Prayer", which I learned last week (around Thursday). I discussed with Ms. McGuire the dynamics of shifting downard from 3rd to first, when the shift begins with 1st finger landing on 2nd finger. We got to the point in this respect of compromising on a 2-1 pattern. Though my main instructor continues to lead boldly, Ms. McGuire has been more than invaluable and I will love her forever for it.
Ms. McGuire has been a sounding board, a perspective builder, has helped me cut through some of the peripheral things, is a true musical giant, and has shared long meaningful informed conversations in areas of appreciation. She has furthered my quest to understand Mahler in subtle but distinctive ways, especially coupled with my instructor's explanation of some of the subtle technical contributions Mahler made to note and phrasing dynamics (think extensive, complex portamento). I also found sound clips of Mahler's 5th, and was surprised--it was nothing that I really expected. I found what I've heard of Mahler's 5th fresh, dynamic and shadowed with modernity yet retaining a distinctive classical flavor. My imagination told me that Mahler would be dark, long, boring--far from true. I had indexed my understanding of Mahler by reading the history of symphony, which in my memory simply focused on how one of his contributions was the long long movements he created. And, in that his work has not really been elevated to the greats in popular classical--or so it seems, I 'assumed' the worst. The exposure to themes from his 5th pleasantly corrected my error in thinking.
I started applying the martele to the etudes as requested. I also began playing up through number nine or ten in Suzuki 1 in third position. While still leaving alot to be desired, the 3rd position practice is evolving if not nicely yet, at least steadily--little steps of improvment in technique etc. I also at least to some extent, started focusing on reading the notes for every note in 3rd position. I mentioned to Ms. McGuire that it will be odd that I will be more technically astute notewise in 3rd than 1st. I think however, that there will be a reverse understanding in 1st that will evolve concerning notes and position in 1st.
I accompanied Ms. McGuire on "The Lord's Prayer" on piano. We tinkled around with doing "The Lord'sPrayer" in b-flat though only briefly.. Nonetheless, I experienced b-flat semantically. Ideally, a chromatic understanding transferring from piano to violin would occur.
After fiddling around with it in several keys, we finally discovered that I had learned it in Dmaj; and, I just realized that I will be able to do some octave jumping as a result.
Ms. McGuire has been a sounding board, a perspective builder, has helped me cut through some of the peripheral things, is a true musical giant, and has shared long meaningful informed conversations in areas of appreciation. She has furthered my quest to understand Mahler in subtle but distinctive ways, especially coupled with my instructor's explanation of some of the subtle technical contributions Mahler made to note and phrasing dynamics (think extensive, complex portamento). I also found sound clips of Mahler's 5th, and was surprised--it was nothing that I really expected. I found what I've heard of Mahler's 5th fresh, dynamic and shadowed with modernity yet retaining a distinctive classical flavor. My imagination told me that Mahler would be dark, long, boring--far from true. I had indexed my understanding of Mahler by reading the history of symphony, which in my memory simply focused on how one of his contributions was the long long movements he created. And, in that his work has not really been elevated to the greats in popular classical--or so it seems, I 'assumed' the worst. The exposure to themes from his 5th pleasantly corrected my error in thinking.
I started applying the martele to the etudes as requested. I also began playing up through number nine or ten in Suzuki 1 in third position. While still leaving alot to be desired, the 3rd position practice is evolving if not nicely yet, at least steadily--little steps of improvment in technique etc. I also at least to some extent, started focusing on reading the notes for every note in 3rd position. I mentioned to Ms. McGuire that it will be odd that I will be more technically astute notewise in 3rd than 1st. I think however, that there will be a reverse understanding in 1st that will evolve concerning notes and position in 1st.
I accompanied Ms. McGuire on "The Lord's Prayer" on piano. We tinkled around with doing "The Lord'sPrayer" in b-flat though only briefly.. Nonetheless, I experienced b-flat semantically. Ideally, a chromatic understanding transferring from piano to violin would occur.
After fiddling around with it in several keys, we finally discovered that I had learned it in Dmaj; and, I just realized that I will be able to do some octave jumping as a result.
posted by al justice | 6:00 AM
<< Home