Category Practice Notes
A Musical Independence Day
As I lay in bed yesterday morning prior to getting up, I started thinking about music representative of American Independence Day, and immediately John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever popped into my head. When I overcame the inertia of the bed, I grabbed coffee and made my way to the internet, where Google’s Independence […]
Self-Confidence? Ego?
A colleague and I led a discussion last night on reconciling the concept of self-confidence with the Buddhist notion of anatta, or “no-self.” Most of us, it’s safe to say, value self-confidence on some level, and those of us who’ve been lucky enough to come across some of the ideas embedded in Buddhism tend to […]
I Played II, and Errors
Yesterday’s practice session went much better than Sunday’s. If you’re following my little saga, I’m fresh off of a bike crash, well, ten days ago, and I’m trying to get back into the groove of the things that keep me going – playing and physical exercise – while not doing any further damage to myself. […]
A Tough Slog and Ode to Joy II
I played a few times last week, despite my wrists still not being up to speed following my bike crash 9 days ago. Mostly my playing was going fine until yesterday, when I felt more discomfort than I had been experiencing prior. One thing that changed is that the day before yesterday I started back […]
I Played
Since my bike crash on Saturday I haven’t done much. I did get out and go to work yesterday, and I practiced the violin before I went. I was unsure how the practice would go – playing the violin utilizes different ranges of motion than I tap into otherwise. Mostly it went fine. I had […]
A Back and Two Weeks
I had no lesson last week – Teacher canceled due to an early morning rehearsal schedule in the suburbs. The cancel actually worked out quite well for me, unfortunately, since a week ago this past Sunday I threw out my back something fierce, and I’ve been on a slow road to recovery ever since. Most […]
Cradling the Neck
Since my first lesson, Teacher has been working with me on the proper violin hold. She’s been showing me the same thing week after week and my progress has been small and incremental. In last week’s lesson, however, I had a bit of a breakthrough, and over the past week I feel I’ve finally been […]
Birthday Present
Last night I got home and had a package in the package room. Teacher told me to order Suzuki Book Two, so I did – I got the one that comes with the CD. I opened it, started leafing through the book, and started getting excited about what’s to come! For one thing, it looks […]
What Is a Gavotte?
Gavotte is coming along. It’s a very long song for me – 8 lines that repeat and repeat and repeat. Consider that each letter below represents two lines of music. Here’s the pattern of Gavotte: AABCCDDAB For some reason section B does not repeat until a D.C. repeat, but all of the rest of the […]
I Need More Rosin
“I need more rosin,” grumbling my way out of my practice room – AKA bedroom – yesterday. Michael smiled. I had a very busy couple of days and hadn’t gotten to the violin as much as I like since my lesson on Wednesday. Even at this early stage in my playing it’s become an old […]
Ryan Libel 