The Power of Progress

After that horrific practice session on Wednesday, I felt like I did not know where I stood with any of the stuff I’ve been working on. Despite redeeming myself a little bit in my practice on Thursday, I did not know what to expect from my lesson yesterday.

Luckily, some of the trickiest bits went better than I expected. The last few lines of Kreutzer #6 were almost entirely in tune, even the shifts up to fifth position from nowhere. I undershot the last shift up to fourth position from nowhere, but all in all, the etude still went better than any of my practice sessions would have led me to expect. I repeated those four- or five-note bits with big shifts SO MANY FREAKIN’ TIMES this week to try to get those shifts right.

One of my strengths, relatively speaking, is playing in tune. But what does that mean, really? Intonation is in one’s head to some extent, so maybe good intonation says something good about one’s ear. But a lot of the rest of it is muscle memory. Couldn’t a trained monkey do that?

In Bach I had been working on 1) managing my bowing (when to travel on groups of four sixteenth notes, and when not to), 2) not scratching (i.e., keeping my bow straight and not playing too close to the bridge), and 3) getting the last half page or so under my fingers better.

I made only moderate progress with #1 and #3. But on #2, Ms. L. said at the end of my lesson, “Your tone is sounding better—more open, more resonant.” In my head, I went, “YAY!” The scratchy, choked sound was really bothering me. I don’t think I normally play like that, but it’s certainly been a problem for me in Bach. Making progress in that area means a lot to me!!