Category Practice Notes
Day by Day and Year by Year
I didn’t practice Thursday or Friday last week – not a terribly uncommon occurrence. While I almost always practice at least five days a week, it’s unfortunate that my most likely to skip days often are the two following my Wednesday lessons – days that tend to be longer for me at work. The final […]
Playing Under the Weather
I’ve been struggling with a pretty nasty cold or something of the sort since we got back from Wichita. I was even supposed to go back to work for a day and didn’t. I’m mostly better today, a welcome development, since I’m headed back to work after the New Year holiday and have quite a […]
Long Time No Lesson
Today marks another Wednesday with no lesson. It’s been a few weeks – the longest stretch without a lesson since I began playing just over a year ago. Though I’ve been off of work and traveling, I’m definitely getting some good practice in. I especially feel I’m improving on my new Gavotte. The minor section […]
Merry Maids?
It seems I am not fated to practice in isolation. At home, the condo is in a building with 449 others. Of course only about fifteen or twenty of them can realistically experience the joyous sounds of Ryan’s Beginner Violin on a daily basis – few grace the seventeenth floor who do not live on […]
Oh Holy Night and the Difference a Year Makes
Oh Holy Night has long been my favorite Christmas song – I love the wonder the music conveys; it seems to perfectly capture the mood of the nativity moment from the Christmas story. It’s also just a beautiful collection of notes, with highs and lows and plenty of drama! Last year as Christmas approached I […]
Long Song
Gavotte from Mignon is coming along. It’s long, and it’s complicated. There’s a passage that goes minor (I think I can say that) and even without that there’s a lot of back and forth between naturals and flats and sharps throughout. Eventually accidentals just become the notes that you play – no big deal I’m […]
Chunks and Strings
My new Gavotte is coming along well enough. I started the piece in the middle, and now I’ve gone back to the top. It seems pieces of music can all be broken down into little chunks that make sense, kind of like a sentence can be pulled out of a paragraph as a standalone unit. […]
Inbox Delight
I came home from a long day yesterday to find a lovely present in my e-mail inbox – the accompaniment tracks I asked my pianist sister to record for me! Of course I played my violin before I dealt with e-mail last night, so I didn’t play with them yesterday. How lovely will it be […]
A Pesky Triplet
I’m plugging away at Paganini – The Witch’s Dance is fun and challenging. I have only worked with teacher on the piece in one lesson, however, and while we played it through and I understood the broad-strokes, the devil is always in the details (that reminds me; I need to write about Paganini and the […]
Practice Makes Better
Unlike my horrible week prior, this past week I got in enough practice sessions, so I’m looking forward to today’s lesson. Perhaps I’m looking forward to it a little more than usual – The Witch’s Dance, by Paganini, is my next song, and it’s likely that today is the day I’ll start it. I’m not […]
Ryan Libel 