More Progress

I stand by my assessment that my Monday practice session last week was crappy. Perhaps I was trying to make too many adjustments at once. However, it also just so conveniently happens that my violin was a bit out of adjustment.

Mr. R., the luthier who takes care of my violin, had asked me to bring it in before my lesson on Friday—his shop is just upstairs from the music school. He adjusted the sound post and bridge, and lubricated the pegs. In my lesson, as I was playing the double stops, the chords rang and rang, just like my violin did when I picked it up from him last October. It’s a joy to practice when it sounds like that, though I almost feel the need for earplugs with so much sound hitting my left ear. Mr. R. seems to be stunningly good at his work, and I appreciate him even more because he is such a friendly, welcoming guy. He explains everything he’s doing, and bustles around the shop to show one thing or another that makes his point.

In other news, I’ve commented here before about shifting up to fourth and fifth position out of nowhere. Two months ago, I had to practice like crazy to land those shifts in tune. In my lesson on Friday, Ms. L. was having me sight-read Kreutzer #10, and I hit an F on the E string in fifth position. In fact, with the note being so far above the staff, I didn’t even recognize what it was—I just took a stab at it and got lucky. (OK, I played this etude in college, so “sight-reading” may not be the right word. But it’s marked in my college teacher’s handwriting as having been completed on November 3, 1990, and I highly doubt that I have touched it since then.) Not only did I hit it right that one time, but I have been accurate on it about 80% of the time without having to practice it to the death. I will call that progress!