I’m working on a new etude, a largo piece from the Wohlfahrt book in A minor.  In addition to being my first A minor piece, Teacher brought it out because it will help me practice my bowing angles, which have been giving me fits.  Long, slow bows are what the piece is about, and that’s the best way to drill the angles.  We skipped over several other etudes in the book to get to this one, which is interesting since to date I’ve just been taking them one at a time – and making very slow progress along the way.  The new one is quite beautiful; I do love working with minor keys on the violin but don’t get to do it much.

Shifting to D major, I can report that progress has felt slow on my current concerto movement, the first in Seitz 5.  There are many tricky things to do, and they all come in succession. There is one nice, lovely interlude that I’ve written about, but the rest of the thing provides a challenge a measure.  I’ve been working on this piece for a long time, almost three months as I take a look back on this blog, and it’s just now that I’m starting to memorize some of the music. The more I play the more appreciation I have for great players – this stuff is hard!  And that’s what makes it fun.

In another shift, beginning next week my lesson will be moving earlier in the day – Teacher needs to start earlier, which nowadays will also work out well for me.  The only drawback is that due to proximity of other urban condo-dwellers, I don’t usually play before 9 am.  But I determined early in my lesson-taking career that warming up is crucial to a productive lesson, so I’ll still have to do it – since it’s mostly my fingers and brain that need warming up I think the mute is probably the answer.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan