Teacher canceled our lesson last week, and travels over a long weekend meant no time to practice, so no lesson this week either.  I got back on the violin yesterday after not playing since last Wednesday, almost a week away from the instrument – it seems the violin didn’t miss me much.  After a quick sharpening of the E string I was playing scales, then moved on to my Suzuki warmup repertoire, then all the songs starting with Book Two’s Beethoven all the way through Book Three’s Bach Bourree.  It was a great session; I was playing just about as well as I can ever play.

But it’s time to buckle down on vibrato.  It’s the missing piece for me in making progress at this point in my tone production.  Teacher has mentioned that as we move on to Book Four she’s going to give me some dedicated vibrato practice exercises – I’ve had some, but I think these are going to be more real, more applied.  I’ve been trying to make it real myself with occasional scales, and I’ve also been attempting to play through the old Book Two Judas Macabeaus and, on a few occasions, the Brahms Waltz.

One Teacher-issued prescription I’m having difficulty taking is to apply vibrato to longer notes as I play any piece in my repertoire.  I am just so bad at producing it that my attempts mess up an otherwise lovely play through.  But there’s really no getting around it – I have to just do it if I want to succeed and make progress.

Get over it and wiggle that wrist, Ryan.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan