Practice my violin 1 hour a day until Summer Orchestra auditions

Pretty much the same as yesterday.

Well, that was nice! I actually enjoyed that. It was frustrating at times – there’s a lot that used to be automatic that I now have to think carefully about. However, I think my ear is as good or better than it was, and my brain remembers quite a lot – now all I have to do is retrain my body.

Here’s what I did:

- G Major scale (3 octaves)
- Kreutzer exercise 1
- Bach Giga
- a teeny bit of a Beethoven romance

I’m going to give myself a week or two before picking out passages for the audition. I’m supposed to have both lyrical and technical passages. While I think I understand those terms, I’m having trouble finding a lyrical passage that isn’t also a bit technical. Ah well.

I just recently found out about a summer community orchestra through the University – it requires an audition, but my roommate assures me that I am good enough (and she’s a composer, so she should know). I think I AM good enough, I’m just awfully rusty.

It’s the perfect amount of time committment, too – 5 weekly rehearsals, and then a concert. All very standard youth orchestra-type stuff (Bizet, Beethoven, a bit of Wagner I think), but I miss playing in orchestras so much, and I actually have very pedestrian tastes in classical music.

I’m going to probably change this goal to 1 hour daily. I’d like to try for the 1st Violin section. Not that I HAVE to be a 1st Violin, but they do get much more interesting parts overall.

Playing fiddle music is more fun, overall, than working on classical stuff. However, I worry that if I only do fiddle, I’m going to forget to work on the underlying technique and/or continue to get sloppier with my playing. Still, playing fiddle is important because it develops my ear and my improv skills.

Today I did fiddle because I was very motivated after yesterday’s jam session, and wanted to cement a few tunes in my memory. I set the timer for 30 min. and went to town. Tomorrow, I’m going to practice 3-octave G and A major scales, and also work on some Bach. I’ll work on both intonation and bow placement while I’m doing the scales.

I’m going to start keeping notes here on how long I practiced, what I practiced, and any problems I run into.

- worked on a 3-octave C major scale. Spent a long time screwing around with fingerings. I don’t know where my scale book is, :( which sucks b/c my teacher had great fingerings for scales. Now I have to make them up myself. But hopefully this means I understand them from the inside out. Scales are going to be key for regaining my good intonation. I noticed that being on pitch is easy when shifting up – not so easy when shifting down.

- did a Kreutzer etude with long bows and many repeated small figures (basically practice for trills and ornaments, I think). Noticing that my flat pinkie finger (which has always been there) might really be a detriment, although I am not sure how. Felt a little discouraged – no teacher has been able to help correct this yet, but I guess none really seemed keen to fix it either. Maybe it’s livable, but if not, I need to find some good strengthening exercises.

- worked on the Fuga from Bach’s 1st unaccompanied Sonata. Whew! I can’t believe I ever played this piece. My intonation was all over the place. I’m going to have to get used to hearing myself play yucky notes again.

This practice was more challenging. Wrist is loosening up, but I now feel I’m developing tension in my back and shoulders. I think I need to work on my playing posture more than I ever did before. I had a lot of bad habits even before I quit playing regularly.

I’m wondering if I should up my practice time at some point. We’ll see how busy I get with classwork – that comes first, of course. But if I have an hour to spare daily, I’m tempted to get back to that level. I just can’t get very much done in 30 minutes, it seems!

I never ever thought I’d be saying THAT…

I just did 30 minutes. My wrist is still tired, but better than yesterday. Furthermore – about halfway through, I checked my watch and had already done almost 20 minutes. I felt sad and wanted to practice MORE (this NEVER happened while I was playing seriously and HAD to practice) – so I did.

Still appalled at how many bad habits I have picked up, but when I play things right, it is just so satisfying. Maybe I can find someone to teach me a few lessons. One lesson a month would be great. I don’t need weekly ones, but it would be nice to have someone to critique my technique and form and to give me tips on how I sound. It is really hard to self-critique and pay attention to the music, too. Maybe I can use my minidisc recorder to record myself and hear how I really sound. I won’t be doing that for awhile, though – it requires a better mic than I have at present.

I still think I could be pretty good, but I have lost a lot of skill since I stopped taking lessons.

I think I would like to start practicing on a regular basis again. I really want to do the Roma-style stuff, but my basic chops are pretty weak at this point. I just played Bach for about 20 minutes, and my left wrist is SORE. It’s definitely not used to the hand position required anymore. Strange. This used to be almost second-nature to me.

A reasonable goal, I think, is 20 min. a day. I will spend half of that doing fundamentals – scales, arpeggios, double-stops, and various bow techniques. The other 10 minutes will be spent working other either etudes or old (or new) pieces – it would be a fun exercise to put my own fingerings/bowings into the Bach unaccompanied sonatas I haven’t played yet, and to teach them to myself.