learn the violin

I never really realized how little encouragement was given to me growing up( or even now as an adult really) until I hear the praises of my instructor. I’ve been attending private lessons now for 3 months now. And I’ve progress remarkably fast as my teacher tells me. Alot of that is the fact that I’m an ‘adult’ and I can give more focus and appetite in my desire to play well. Sure you have to be progressing ‘at something’ to get praise…shrug. I guess for some…when it doesn’t come you get use to it not being there…how quietly sad that is.

The songs I’m currently working on are Farandole by Bizet and Autumn by Vivaldi(not so hard). We’ve (teacher and I) made great progress in my site reading; accompanied by my ‘great’ intimation, as he says. My C scale is the hardest with F & C being natural the finger position is awkward still.

He also said I can start working on a few more ‘advanced’ techniques like ‘barre’ing chords’. As a introduction to getting ‘use’ to the feeling of playing two strings at once.
My bow stroke needs work…”More bow” he says. :-)

Aside from that, I’m enjoying it more and more. But a faint reality slowly forms over head,...I have a 500 dollar instrument(decent)...but I’m already eyeing 2k violin at the string shop. ...what – back in the days I invested just under a 1k for my comp.

Remember, The more you practice the better you practice the better you practice the more you practice.!

So I up my practice length this week to over an hour, and tonight I reached a huge milestone. I actually quasi site read!!. My instructor has me working on ‘Ode to Joy’, and I’ve been determine not to memorize songs by tactile finger memorization. Its my goal to site read every step of the way; its the one of the main reason why I wonna learn to play an instrument so I can find/write cool pieces of music ya know?...
Anyways!...I actually made it smoothly through 3 bars!! Of course I’ve been playing the same thing over and over again..so it is memorized to a degree, but I am ‘reading’ the notes! Somewhere during practice it just clicked…my fingers synced up eyes….wow. yeah…this can be done ;-)

The more you play the better you play..the better you play the more you play!!

It was awesome, all that online learning paid off. He asked me a bunch of questions to test my knowledge and I knew them all. We addressed some of my concerns, mainly the slight pain I was feeling after play,...my assumptions were correct, I just need a shoulder rest. And he happily told me which one to get after we tested on one of his. He liked my form…etc..etc. hehe So my homework…master my D scale (only one octave..) a bunch of little starter songs..(twinkle twinkle little star, lol like the ‘hello world’ in programming)...I’ve been practing my scales for the past few months anyways,…and he assigned me sheet reading work. I really want to master sheet reading. The notes on the scale isn’t hard…its the translation to fingers is the tricky part…but I figure if I can memorize 101-keys on my keyboard…I should be able to do the same [one day] on my fingerboard[violin]

Its getting easier…last night I was really ‘hearing’ the notes.I still feel intimidated when I pick it up to practice. But that soon goes away. So I’ll be picking up my shoulder rest this weekend.

I could use some practice buddies…anyone in phx?

Note: People have been asking me ‘how much I’m paying’ its 20 bucks per 30-40 minutes session every saturday. He’s seem very knowledgeable, by no means so ‘grand master’ but he knows his shit. If anyone is looking in Phx..let me know..I’ll refer you.

Peace

This one has been going great with the help of my buddies that play other instruments. They are great motivators when it comes to practice time.

Lately I’ve been working on just scales, and ear training. My buddies tell me I should place markers on my neck for fingering. but in the end I can’t rely on them anyways, so its like of ‘do overs’. Nevertheless, the note reading is becoming easier, and I’m hitting notes the first time every once in a while. My next investment is a shoulder rest though. I can play for about 30 minutes at a time before my neck and wrist begin to hurt..and I know its because of how I hold it. ...Minor adjustments…bit by bit…hopefully with this new flow of income I’ll be able to take lessons now and again.

So I’ve been practicing the vibrato alot lately. Teaching yourself violin really its that bad. Sure there are alot of quirks and bad habits that can be easily picked up. But with the amount of knowledge out there on the web; and being all around self aware, I think i’m doing alright. Anyways, the ‘vibrato’ for those that don’t know is that ‘singing’ sound you get when you hear a string instrument being played. It actually quite hard; most think its produced by direct finger movement; however, its really a pure wrist movement that ‘pivots’ the finger tip on the string.
I’m getting there…Slowly but surely I shall make this bad-ass thing play for me ;-)

-sorry for grammer and spelling—

It’s funny…all I hear is…why did you get one?....what made you want to learn ho w to play? ...Have you played any other instrument?..”Well for your first instrument you shouldn’t learn the violin…”

Well....its my first instrument...I'm 24...and yes...I'm going to play it.(damn well might I add). It brings me back to the whole...individuality of it all... I have no problem recognizing the importance of beginning things at a younger age...but it seems in this day and age the importance lies in the ability to continually 'change' (maybe 'modify') one self,without regret of losing a part of once self in the process. We are driven to believe that the desire to change(past a certain age) is a lack of 'not knowing' thy self. When the ability to change...and develop parts of yourself...that 'maybe' were lacking during childhood. Its probably one of the greatest gifts while living in todays society. [shrug] or maybe all of this is just ramble.....