I’ve definitely been playing.  I wrote about my horrible Saturday session a few days ago, but I did play, so counting that day I think today will be my 11^th or 12^th day in a row playing – a record, perhaps.  Generally I skip Friday or Saturday, and it’s not uncommon for me to skip Tuesday or Thursday too when I have work commitments in the mornings.  As long as I get five days in a week I feel I’m doing just fine.  But I’ve really been plugging away.  When nothing gets in my way I find I really want to be playing.  I told my mom the other day that I need a bike sticker that says, “I’d rather be playing the violin.”  (That last bit rang a  bell – indeed that’s the beauty of a blog, you can check, and indeed it seems I’ve already written a blog post with that title.)

Lately, part of the reason I’m on fire is this exciting Dvorak Humoresque I’m working on.  It has some challenging fingering and string crossings, and getting at the tonal variations that make it particularly interesting is starting to be a goal of mine.  I haven’t worked through the whole piece yet – I was hoping to get to the final remaining section today, but I’ll have to wait as Teacher has canceled our lesson due to illness (Get well soon!).

Coming along more slowly is my position shifting book – I’m working through exercises there but I just don’t feel I’m making much progress.  I suppose I have to admit that my tone is getting somewhat better and I’m able to find the notes higher up the strings a little more reliably, but to my mind position shifting is about making choices about where to play notes, and I have really not started that project at all.  Teacher says patience is the key there, of course.

I’m having a Les Miserables moment:

I will join these people’s heroes
I will follow where they go
I will know their little secrets
I will know the things they know

One more day,
One day more!

Thanks for reading.

Ryan