Mini Rebuilding Mode

This Friday I’ll have my first lesson in almost a month, so I am in a mini rebuilding mode right now. I have to admit, though, given all that I had going on, it was a relief not to also be on my own case about cramming enough practice into the week.

The first thing I had to do in my first practice session since the hiatus was to take stock of where I had left off. Flipping through assorted photocopies* of exercises that are stuffed into my Kreutzer book, I contemplated lines 23-25 of the sixteenth note exercises, the clunky maestoso double stop exercise, and the droning double stop exercise. I remembered where Ms. L said to go next with all of these, but I was not in shape to do so. So, I basically re-practiced some of the material from my last lesson. In the droning double stop exercise referenced here, I had to slowly, slowly go through the first line and a half again and again and again. I was having trouble keeping the bow on both relevant strings at the same time, which is a rather problematic problem to have with double stops.

With the third movement of the Bach, I feel as though I have lost all the speed that I painstakingly gained over the summer. So far this week I have played slowly through all of the movement. I worked a bit on small things scattered throughout the movement—even trilling, dynamics, areas where I need a quick burst of bow speed or a quick bit of bow pressure to emphasize something. I have one more practice session tomorrow to introduce a little speed back into things.

Of course, I have worked on the double stop sections (2:18-2:25 and 2:55-3:12 on this recording), which constituted almost the only repertoire work I did for my last two lessons as things at work ramped up.  

To my dismay, I’ve noticed on more than one recording that all you can really hear of these two sections are the top notes or repeated notes. In a non-top-notch orchestra, stuff like this can be faked. It could be muddled through by a brazen/incompetent soloist. In a lesson, of course, playing without an orchestra as camouflage, this stuff cannot be faked.

Ms. L told me at my last lesson before the hiatus that these sections were sounding a lot better. I didn’t disbelieve her, but I really wasn’t hearing improvement. Weirdly, this week, after not playing those sections for weeks, I did finally hear improvement. I can get through them relatively smoothly, though definitely not up to full speed. I can play them in tune, though playing them in tune was actually the first thing I worked on and got somewhat comfortable with. The smoothness that’s there now, though, feels rather miraculous.   

* I should know what these are, but I don't.