Yesterday’s lesson was welcome.  We worked on the final four lines of Humoresque that I had yet to work with, so now I have all the pieces and can put the whole thing together.  The toughest parts of the piece – two slurred sections that are done in third position – are in these four new lines, and they will take a bit to make sound decent.  The new four lines are in D minor, which is a new key for me.  There’s a really nice key change moment too; we spent a tiny bit of time discussing dominant chords and bridging keys and the tonic and what-not.  Teacher even pulled out the circle of keys from my scales book.  I am going to have to spend quite a bit of time on this stuff if I want to understand it fully.  I’ve written before about it only mattering to the degree I want it to matter; if I can play the music I don’t care too much if I can talk about the keys and such with aplomb!

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve had a few weeks’ head start on the first half, so it will be interesting to see if the discrepancy in my playing the sections will persist for a few weeks or if it will work itself out quickly.  Overall the piece is quite fun and lovely and I’m thrilled to now be able to work it up fully.  Along with the Boccherini Minuet from the end of Book 2, Humoresque is a piece I’ve known and loved for a long time, so being able to play it is quite a treat.  I’m sure I’ll work on it for at least one more lesson – we won’t start a new one next week.

We also continued working in the position shifting book.  I’m finding that I have trouble appreciating the differences in the notes as I’m trying to work up high on the E string.  I have trouble hearing what I’m supposed to be producing – Teacher suggested I get out my tuner and work it that way.  She said it would drive me crazy, but that it was a good way to start to hear the notes.  She also says that it’s the first time I’m trying to work with notes this high and that it’s not at all strange that I’m having some trouble hearing it.  I guess that’s a good thing; appreciating pitch can be learned just like most things.  But as to the overall project of position shifting I’m still just scratching the surface.

Slowly we go, as we say with new things on the karate training floor.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan