Category Preliminaries
A Milestone
My memories from when I played the violin as a child are limited and specious – I very much wish my recollections of those third through sixth grade years were stronger. But one thing that sticks well in the brains of humans is anticipation, and as a youngster, I definitely remember anticipating this important thing […]
Hardware Update
Teacher was heading out to the burbs to see the luthier yesterday, and she generously offered to take my bow along. I’m so grateful – it saves me a trip out there! I needed to get the grip re-wound, as the leather has deteriorated with age and is splitting. The wire wrapping is also starting […]
To Read Is To Spar
Wohlfahrt’s Opus 45 is a book of etudes – pieces composed for the technical skills they build in their players. So I assumed that’s why Teacher wanted me to get it – as a tool to help me improve my technical skills. But in yesterday’s lesson she told me that she has another quite concrete […]
The New D
Tone is a funny thing – of course at this stage of my playing I chalk every deficit in my tone production up to my level of experience. I’m a beginner on this instrument, and the pursuit of beautiful tone is something violinists struggle with forever. But overall I’ve been relatively pleased with my progress, […]
Simple Gifts
I put a few items on an online wish list at Christmas time – one of them was a practice mute. The list paid off in spades, and, much to my delight, I came home from Wichita with the thing. It works quite well; I had my first full practice session with it yesterday. It’s […]
Musical Me: An Anniversary
One year ago today I started Musical Me. It was a Monday, a normal day off for me, and I remember sitting on the couch pining over the loss of our cat Mischka, which had occurred just over a week before. I was also bored, and trying to come up with something to write about. […]
Are You Kidding Me with This?
In Musette, the final note is a D, which I’ve typically been playing on the A string because, well, that’s what the music would seem to indicate and that’s all I’ve known how to do. I was thrown for a wonderful loop during my lesson yesterday when, the second time playing through the piece, Teacher […]
A Debutante at 100
This is my 100th post on Musical Me, happening on the five month anniversary of the blog’s creation. To mark the moment, I’ve finally decided to come out about this project, so welcome to you! I do not blog about blogging – this is a first. But on the occasion of my 100th post, retrospection […]
The New Case
As I noted when it first arrived, I have needed a new case since my father-in-law shipped me my violin. I did a lot of searching and finally found one I liked, but it was on backorder, so it has taken a while for it to come. I didn’t need a particularly high-end super impact-resistant, […]
Returning the Rental
It’s time to turn my rental violin back into the shop. I feel like I barely got to know it – I’ve been practicing on my new instrument for almost a month, so it was really only the first two months of coming back to the violin during which I played the rental. I thought […]
Ryan Libel 