Author Archives: Ryan Libel
Looks Are Not Everything
Recently, I’ve discovered another pop violinist – David Garrett. He is a crossover performer, like Vanessa Mae, and has quite a following. He’s German, and was, as most famous violinists were, a child prodigy. Wikipedia reports that the German president gave him his first Stradivarius at the age of 11. Garrett’s showy style evolved over […]
Denouement – DENIED!
You set up the dominoes then finally get to knock the first one down. You climb the high dive, stand perched at its edge, then leap. The hero lives happily ever after. You play half a Bach minuet for a week, then get to play 2/3 of it for another week. One of these is […]
Anticipation
I’m only 4 lines of 10 into this second Bach minuet, so it’s likely that in today’s lesson I’ll get through the rest. I don’t go ahead by myself – I feel I have plenty to polish, and I expect Teacher to dole out the new stuff as she thinks I’m ready. I think my […]
More Stuff
The Chicago winter, my teacher’s habit of keeping one, and my desire to do right by my 87 year old instrument resulted in my ordering a little humidifier – dry air is the main risk to older instruments (well, carelessness, I suppose, is the biggest risk!). The hygrometer in my spiffy new case reports virtually […]
The Radio Ranch
Growing up, my grandpa and grandma listened to a country radio station in Wichita, KS called “KFDI – The Radio Ranch.” It was the old school country western music station, at least that’s what it became as a new school of country music emerged sometime in my late elementary school years. Rock and Roll and […]
Bach is Beautiful
Well I’m enamored of these minuets. As I’ve developed a basic competency playing the first one, and am at the spot where I can start to hear what the second one is getting at, I have come to the conclusion that I love Bach. To hear teacher refer to him, I think all violinists do. […]
Tenuto?
I’m enjoying having music to guide me, and learning what it all means. The Suzuki method does not focus on reading music until book four, but all the songs are laid out in proper staffs – while I’m no expert at looking at scores, to my eye there is an awful lot of musical notation […]
Junior High School
I woke up with a flash of memory. Since beginning this blog, I have been unable to remember whether I made it out of elementary school with my violin – I know I played in the fourth through sixth grades, but I’ve been unable to recall if I kept playing in junior high. The thing […]
The German-ness of Bruch
While I have yet to see them, The Evanston Symphony Orchestra plays out of a venue on the campus of Northwestern University not too far from us Chicago north siders. I started to learn more about them as I began looking for local performances of violin concertos. Evanston’s 2013-2014 season features four concerts, and in […]
Bach Minuets in Suzuki
I have been trying to find out more about the Bach Minuet I’m playing – the first of three in Suzuki Book 1 for Violin. It is more difficult than I thought it would be to pin these minuets down. Let’s stick to the facts: A minuet is a dance, the music to which is […]
Ryan Libel 