My new song – the Book Three Becker Gavotte – is quite challenging.  I’m getting close to the point where I can play it through, but I’m not there yet.  I am not close at all on the memorization.  There are some complicated bowing indications, and being in tune is a constant challenge – there’s a modulation that makes everything tricky, big slurs, shifts of single fingers, my first staccato double up-bows, and plenty of rhythmic challenges to boot.  I’m enjoying working it up, but it’s definitely not sounding magnificent yet!  As with Humoresque, this song is revealing tonal variation possibilities that still feel very new and exciting to me.  I’m working on more colorful playing (and will be forever).

I’m also working on Oh Holy Night as my single Christmas tune for the third year in a row.  The first year I was a total newbie on the violin and I picked a simple and meager version of the song out by myself and wrote it out in finger positions.  Last year I found some music in G Major, and I’m working with that same music again this year.  It sounds quite a bit better this year than last, but I still have tons of room for improvement.  Being in tune while attempting to convey the drama of the song is becoming my primary goal.  I’m trying to find a balance between playing everything more or less correctly but in a boring way and playing with pizazz but introducing more opportunities for mistakes.  It’s a fun equation to tweak.

We’re renting a car for our annual trek to Wichita this week, so the violin gets to make the trip too (our own two-seater has no room for anything but the bare essentials!).  So perhaps I’ll get another family recital opportunity.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan