Mail!

It's been twenty years since I ordered something from Shar, and back then, I certainly didn't order it online. My first Shar package of my new era of violin playing arrived yesterday with new strings and another goodie or two:

It's fun to get real mail, and reassuring that I have a set of spare strings that does not date to the Clinton administration.

Full-Body Counting

After banging my head against the wall with that one part of the Berlioz for a while, I asked Ms. L at my lesson today to help me. Quite reasonably and logically, she had me play it slower and count it in four. I still struggled--at one point she observed, "I can see you counting with your entire body"--but we made progress. Counting in four is a much more realistic way for me to practice this than counting in two, and I am a little more optimistic that I will be able to get this into my head and my fingers. Then maybe I can stop the full-body counting.

Subdividing the Crap Out of the Beat

The Berlioz continues to be my nemesis. I can play most of the notes at close to the right speed, which is more than I could have said last week. However, I still need to figure out when to play them. 

Right here, at the arco, ...

...I never come in right. Then the next three measures or so are a loss. I flail. There are some chords after that where I manage to jump back on the horse, but those three measures are painful. 

Counting this is hard. If you're keeping score at home, counting/playing sixteenth notes when the conductor is giving you two beats per measure means that you're mentally dividing each beat into eight parts. It's not "one-and two-and" (i.e., dividing each beat by two), it's not "one-e-and-a two-e-and-a" (i.e., dividing each beat by four), it's faster than I can babble. 

At 72 beats per minute, which is the marked tempo and about how fast we're going, there are 576 sixteenth notes per minute. So: each sixteenth note gets 0.1 seconds and change. I somehow have to imprint this rhythm into my brain so that I can "rest" for 0.10416667 seconds and get started right on that measure.

When I practice alone, I can play that arco measure and the two after it without a problem. But in order to correctly make that entrance, I have to go from the pizz. to the arco in my head several times before I play that stretch. I have to subdivide the crap out of each beat. My phone rests on my stand with the relevant spot in the video cued up (4:20 or so, just before the pizz.) so I can listen along several times. I do all of this and it still takes three or four tries to get into the arco measure correctly--when practicing alone. Again, in rehearsal, it's a total loss right now.

Maybe my next step for rehearsal should be to try to correctly land on the quarter note that's the "and" of each beat in the arco measure. I can just try to give the impression that I am using a microscopic amount of bow on the sixteenths. Uh huh.

I really want to get this together and pull my weight--to at least make Berlioz my frenemy.

Alrighty, then

Berlioz's "March to the Scaffold" from Symphony fantastique? Can't say I'm a fan. But we're playing it, and I need to practice it. I worked on it for about an hour tonight. 

So, I'm working on the part around 5:45-6:06 in the video below. My cat wanders in, yowls at me, and wanders out. I get to the point where I need to call it a night, and pack up. I walk into the next room and find that my cat has laid three fresh turds in the litter box...and one in the middle of the floor. Alrighty, then.
 

Video via YouTube and vladi565

What to Practice When I'm Practicing Orchestra Music

I sort of had to drag myself into practicing tonight, but when I did, I got so absorbed that I lost track of time. I also worked my alertness level back up to the point that it's going to take me a while to settle my mind down and think of going to sleep. 

Part of what I was doing was going through some orchestra music and making mental notes of things to ask Ms. L. about. These include:

• How to play really quietly and slowly, with good tone. I can play with good tone when I play with a certain amount of volume. It's much harder to play with good tone when you're supposed to be fitting your sound (along with the rest of your section) under another part of the orchestra. I just hear myself in rehearsal playing with a rather constipated tone in spots like that, and would like to remedy that. 
• How to play loud tremolos without tension. In the seconds we have a few spots where we have loud, long tremolos. I find myself clenching my whole right arm when we get there. That can't be good.
• I'd also like to ask her to listen to me play through a couple of spots where intonation is a work in progress. When I am practicing, I can make adjustments. But I really need to have another set of ears--a better set of ears than mine--help isolate the trouble areas. In rehearsal, I have found that I cannot hear myself well enough in those sections to notice little intonation issues, though I'm sure they are there. I have work on my own to get those right and then let muscle memory take over to some extent when playing in the group.  

It's a whole different set of issues now!

Singing

A few weeks ago, on you-know-what, a high school classmate of mine posted this video with the isolated vocal track of Marvin Gaye singing "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." It blew me away. 

It's one of those songs that I've heard so much--originally because of the soundtrack from The Big Chill, most likely--that I don't really hear it anymore. Although I formed an unlikely attachment to the rest of the soundtrack, I didn't even really like that particular song.

Later I came across the version by Gladys Knight & the Pips, which really grabbed me--particularly the off-balance feel of the percussion at the beginning and the faster pace, which seemed fitting for a woman scorned. 

But hearing Marvin Gaye on this song by himself is amazing--his singing is one long, pained question and lament. In the midst of all those strings and everything else, I never really heard that before. Listen up:  

Via grammophoneferreira and YouTube. 

Sit tight for the first 19 seconds until the vocal track actually starts.

P.S. To get the flavor of a period performance by Gladys Knight & the Pips, check out the video of their appearance on Soul Train in 1972. They've got to be lip-synching, and the applause at the start drowns out the cool percussion part, but the fashions are not to be missed.

Seconds

Playing in the second violins is different than playing in the firsts in ways that I will probably be digesting for a while. Most prominent in my mind after two rehearsals is that when playing in the seconds, it's harder for me to tell when I'm screwing up than it is when I'm playing with the firsts. There are so many ways to screw up musically--I seem to discover new ones all the time--but for now, I'll just focus on intonation when learning a new set of orchestra music.

With the firsts, it seems that you either have the melody, just had the melody, or will be getting the melody soon. When I'm so plugged into the melody, it's fairly obvious (even when sight reading) if I'm out of tune or overlooking an accidental or something. In saying this, I reveal the ugly truth that in the firsts, I didn't always listen as closely as I should have to what was happening elsewhere in the orchestra. Sometimes--OK, generally--those bits of resting and listening and accompaniment felt like interludes between the real business of diving into the fun, sexy melody. Oh, what an entitled, self-centered member of the firsts I was!

In the seconds it's not as obvious, at least when sight reading, if I am hitting wrong notes. The notes may not feel wrong because sight reading can be so disorienting that I lose my feel for exactly where the notes are on the fingerboard, even in first position. (Maybe this will improve as I get my orchestra chops back, but sight reading presents a major cognitive load for me right now.)

Listening to my stand partner and section mates is obviously the biggest help. However, listening to myself while listening to others--either to match them or to figure out how my part meshes with theirs--is a balancing act. I'm finding it tough, maybe because I haven't played with an orchestra for so long. When I am practicing by myself, I can easily hear if, say, my A flat is in tune by listening for the interval to be right with the F natural that came before it. In a rehearsal, processing what I hear from others while hearing/assessing/correcting my own intonation is a lot tougher. On top of that, the music we're rehearsing contains a couple of areas with divisi parts where there may be only three other people in the section playing the same notes as me at any given time, and only one sitting close enough for me to really hear. It's just going to take a healthy amount of practice time on my own to get all of this that into my head and my fingers. 

In tourism terms, I appreciate having seen some wonders of the world with the firsts but I look forward to traveling off the beaten path with the seconds. In looking for some validation of this viewpoint, I found this very interesting Los Angeles Times article about second violinists. In it are some words of inspiration about the role of the seconds from Dan Nobuhiko Smiley, principal second violinist in the San Francisco Symphony:  

"It's a very thrilling feeling to feel wired into this mega, gigantic string organism. It's not always the most glamorous, but it's very heartfelt -- it's the soul of music-making at that level," he says. "When you're playing the second violin part, you can see the textures, the almost brocade-like tapestry."

 That's the spirit!

Cheers!

I made it! Well, one orchestra did not take me, but the other did. It only takes one. I'll be in the second violins, which is 100% OK with me. 

I am really, really looking forward to belonging to an orchestra again. As much as I have enjoyed taking lessons again for the past (almost) two years, it was a bit of a solitary experience without a very concrete sense of purpose. Now I'll have rehearsals and (ultimately) concerts to be prepared for. 

On the way, I'll have fun. It's hard to pinpoint how there is time for fun in a rehearsal when it's business from start to finish and you just have moments here or there to exchange a whisper with your stand partner or folks at a neighboring stand, or to chit-chat while unpacking or packing up. I hope and presume that I will be reminded how that fun happens!

Ever since I found out that I made it, I periodically get wrapped up in a task and forget. Then I remember: I made it!

Encouraging Voices

One time in a lesson, I was playing through a semi-tricky run. I could handle it in terms of my left hand, but problems in my right hand were making it sort of ugly. As I played through it again, Ms. L. chanted above the din, "Bend your thumb. Bend your thumb. BEND your THUMB. That sounded much better. Your thumb was bent. Think that's a coincidence?"

At one point as I was warming up on the evening of an audition, I got to that run and heard in my head, "Bend your thumb!" This was oddly calming. It told me that on that run, at least, I knew how to do what I needed to do...so just do it. It was a comforting thought to take with me as I walked into the actual auditions.

I experienced something similar as I was learning to ski, years and years ago. Through several days of lessons and short runs on tame little green-rated slopes, I had advanced to the point of getting maybe halfway down those slopes before falling on my ass and shedding skis and poles as I slid to a stop. Then one day I ventured out with a few friends on a 45-minute run down the mountain to the closest little town. The route was a step up in difficulty from the green runs. If I am correctly identifying the route we took, we went from an elevation of about 6,000 feet down to about 3,000 feet.

In other words, this was a stretch for a beginning skier like me. But I took my time, methodically executed one slow turn after another, and heard the voice of the ski instructor in my head: "Bend your knees! Bend your knees!" I kept my stuff together and didn't fall once in that 45 minutes. It was exhilarating to cruise into that little town in the valley like a real skier.

Unfortunately, I can't say I felt like a real musician after my auditions. Certain parts went reasonably well in relation to how well I had learned the music. (See how I qualified that?) Other (smaller) parts of the auditions were disastrous. Both auditions, although structured differently, were clearly designed to separate the men from the boys. The outcome just depends on the standards, I guess.

The good thing is that the orchestra people at both auditions were as kind (even funny!) as they could possibly have been while putting someone through those paces. They seemed like people I really would enjoy spending a few hours per week with. Another good thing is how my friends and family have encouraged me. A week or so ago when my MP3 player tossed some Sade at me, these lyrics jumped out: "That's just like you to tell me I have nothing to fear." Still, it helped to hear it. Those helpful voices may pop into your head just when you need them to.

Ambivalence / Pep Talk

As excited as I was earlier this year about the prospect of joining a community orchestra, I am now having some ambivalence. 

One thing tamping down my enthusiasm is that I feel--make that I AM--underprepared for auditions. August is just so rough at work that I have been too tired when I got home to keep up with practicing. 

Another thing bothering me is--and I know I should not dwell on this--ghosts of auditions past. Am I remembering the good ones? No, I am remembering the ones where my hands shook and the bow did spiccato on its own and I convincingly demonstrated that you cannot fake high parts when you are the only one playing. (Academic Festival Overture, I'm looking at you.) 

So, how can I turn this mindset around? What was my best audition ever? My audition for the school orchestra when I started high school, hands down. I went in with no expectations and put no pressure on myself. I was secure in the belief that I would get in, and I didn't care where I sat. I have no memory of what I played or how I thought it went at the time, but I ended up third chair in the first violins.

With these auditions, I have different reasons in the case of each orchestra to think I am no sure thing to get in. It's absolutely true that I don't care where I sit, so I've got that going for me, which is nice. 

How else can I take pressure off of myself? Maybe I could think of it as a job interview in a situation where I already have a job that I like and am reasonably secure in. I don't need to nail this. No matter what happens, I am gaining experience with the audition process and making local orchestra contacts. 

Do I judge people when they get nervous and don't perform at their best? No. I  need to treat myself the way I treat other people who are nervous. (In August, I interact with a lot of nervous people at work.) I need to politely ignore the nervousness and envision only calmness and confidence. I need to convey that I anticipate success and comment on every bit of success that I notice. Thank you and goodbye, nervousness--calmness and confidence and success are going to take over now. 

Now that I think it through, this is sounding very much like what Noa Kageyama wrote about a few weeks ago on The Bulletproof Musician and what Joyce DiDonato spoke about in the video he included. It's reassuring to think that you can overachieve, in a way, in relation to your technical preparation (or maybe it's more accurate to say make the most of your technical preparation) by investing in some mental preparation. Not that I have done a ton of mental preparation, but--OK, no second guessing. Time to get in some productive practice and a good night's sleep.

Picking Up the Pace

I have been working on audition excerpts for a community orchestra for the last couple of months. All but one (let’s not dwell on that one!) fall under my fingers somewhat decently now, and I’ve got an approximation of the dynamics and articulation. Much of my recent effort has focused on playing the stuff faster.

I’m reminded that there’s a lot more to speeding something up than just starting with a lower number on the metronome and plowing upward through muscle memory and brute force. Here are some things I am working on that set the conditions to play faster:

• In a couple of passages with lots of string crossings, I have to make sure my right elbow is high enough to let my lower arm do the work of moving the bow from one string to the next. Moving my whole arm slows things down. 
• Elsewhere in the bow arm, I have to work on keeping my upper arm still. Again, moving my whole arm slows things down. I finally have a mirror in my practice space, so that’s a constant reality check.
• Yet elsewhere in the bow arm: How many times have I written “Less bow” in my music? In learning new music, I just have to be more conscious of passages that will need to speed up a lot and use less bow from the start. 
• In shifting, I have to keep my fingers (and thumb) light. This has been a recurring theme in my return to the violin for a number of reasons, but I have a particularly hard time with left-hand tension in passages that call for me to squeeze and press with my bow hand. My left hand wants to squeeze in misguided sympathy. 

Ms. L. has had me try things like playing the rhythm of a particular passage on one note at the target tempo—that is, not worry about left hand for the moment, but let the bow arm get a feel for the target tempo. “Let your bow lead the way and let your fingers catch up,” she suggested. “Even if the notes sound mushy for now, keep at it. Your fingers will catch up.”

Those sorts of tactics seem more important for me than anything I do with the metronome. In any case, I am pretty sick of the sound of my metronome right now. The other day it fell off the stand and the lid to the battery compartment popped off and the battery sprang out. I looked at it lying on the floor in pieces and had about as much desire to pick it up and put it back together as if it had been road kill.

Not Violin Related

An old, good friend of mine died a few months ago, and this song reminds me of him. There's a story behind it that our group of high school friends might remember. A couple of things have made me think of him recently. When you've lived far away from an old friend for a long time, communicating only by Christmas letters and the occasional email ("Congrats on your school's sports championship"/"Heard about the natural disaster in your area--hope things are OK with you"/that kind of thing), it takes a while to sink in that you can't exchange the occasional email anymore. And in the moments when it does sink in, it doesn't "sink in" so much as "stab you in the heart." Anyway, this is the music I have in my head this evening.

Video via YouTube and JohnLennonMusic

That Roller Coaster Moment

Surely I'm not the only one who's had this roller coaster moment in a lesson:

Teacher: "That's sounding much better." 
[Me, in my head: "Yessss!"]
Teacher: "Now, when it's up to tempo..."
[Me, in my head: "Oh, yeah. That."]

Mind Games

Even with a concrete goal like an audition in front of me, I have to play some mind games to get myself to practice regularly. I've commented before on how my week revolves around Fridays, my lesson day, in terms of squeezing practice in. Since then, rather than thinking in terms of practicing two or three or four or (rarely) more times per week with the entire week looming ahead of me, I break it down this way: 

1. Practice either on Saturday or Sunday. The vast majority of the time, it's Sunday. I have a sense of urgency about a lot of things on Sundays that I do not have on Saturdays, so squeezing practice in on Sundays fits the bill.
2. Practice either on Monday or Wednesday. Sometimes after practicing on Sunday I have a sense of momentum and practicing on Monday comes naturally, without me having to exercise a ton of self-discipline. But if I have a rough Monday at work and feel lazy--Mondays also happen to be the day when I am most tempted to pick up take-out on the way home rather than make something at home--there's always Wednesday. On Tuesdays, I have another commitment.
3. Practice on Thursday. This is non-negotiable. This is my last chance to have the 1-2-3 sense of progression during the week and feel like what I've been working on is fresh in my lesson on Friday. Not coincidentally, I tend to practice longer on Thursday--75-90 minutes--than during the rest of the week, when it's generally an hour.

As long as I abide by this little scheme, I practice three times per week. When I wrote about this last February I was aiming for four times per week, but I have not maintained that. In college I regularly practiced six days per week for 60-90 minutes each time, but that is flat out not gonna happen anymore in my life (barring some crisis that gives me more time on my hands than I actually want). 

Breaking things down this way tends to prevent me from letting time slip away until Tuesday and then beating myself up for wasting half the week. I would rather consistently practice three times per week with minimal angst and self-flagellation along the way than eke out four practice sessions that feel forced. If I practice on both of the "either/or" days--at least one set of them, like Saturday and Sunday--that's a bonus. It's all about the mind games.

Thank You, Muscle Memory

Muscle memory works in mysterious ways. I got back from vacation last week, and my practice time since then has been devoted to making up lost ground on certain things. However, some things seem to have gotten easier. 

For the two weeks before I left on vacation, I'd been working on a Hans Sitt etude (#56 from 20 Etudes in Changing Positions) to practice all kinds of shifting between first and fifth positions. It went fine in my lessons, but did not feel truly automatic--particularly some stretches such as:

Exhibit A. First, it's this.

Exhibit B. But then, it's this!

I picked this etude up when I came back from vacation as a way of easing back in. I anticipated using it to reintroduce myself to the concepts of shifting and playing in tune before I jumped back into the repertoire things I'm working on (mainly orchestra excerpts for auditioning for one or more community orchestras).

But guess what? It came out totally smooth and as in tune as I've ever played it. I didn't have to use my cheat marks to distinguish half steps from whole steps amidst the accidentals. It just came out right. Apparently my vacation involved more than coffee on my uncle's back porch, wiffle ball with my cousins' kids, and minor league baseball with the whole clan. My brain must have been consolidating this--practicing without me knowing it.

Teacher Appreciation: Dr. E

I'm late to the teacher appreciation party, but I'd like to reminisce about the first teacher I took private lessons with, Dr. E. 

Although I started playing violin in fifth grade through the string program in my public school district, I didn't take private lessons until high school. My high school orchestra conductor, Ms. Y., recommended private lessons after I (unexpectedly) auditioned into third chair in the first violin section as a sophomore. She recommended Dr. E., a retired professor of music at the local university.

A steady stream of young string players flowed in and out of Dr. E.'s home studio--a spare bedroom of about 10 feet by 12 feet crammed with an upright piano, file cabinets, bookshelves, and multiple instruments. Dr. E. was a cellist--a fan of Lynn Harrell--and he had huge hands. When he played a violin, his left hand flopped all around the neck and his right hand sprawled all around the bow. He rarely mentioned his performance career, but he had played in the symphony orchestra of a Rust Belt city in the 1930s under a famously demanding European-born conductor. 

If he had a thick skin from this experience, he didn't show it, and certainly didn't force his students to cultivate one. When Dr. E. first heard me play, he told my mom, "She's a diamond in the rough." That meant a lot to me. He dealt with the rough in a calm, grandfatherly way--and introduced me to Kreutzer. This was the first time I'd played Kreutzer or even heard of the exercises. I was too unfamiliar with violin repertoire to have opinions about what I wanted to work on. So it was entirely Dr. E.'s doing that in my senior year of high school, whether I "deserved" to play it or not*, I was working on Mozart's G major violin concerto. So fun, so motivating.

Dr. E. had also founded a chamber orchestra for adult amateur musicians, and this orchestra rehearsed each Sunday afternoon in his living room. To round out various sections and (presumably) to give his students some chamber orchestra experience, he also invited some of us to play in the orchestra. As a sixteen-year-old, I felt thrown into adulthood when called upon to make small talk with a sixty-something stand partner. Even the break at the halfway point of each rehearsal felt like a challenge. The adult members took turns bringing snacks such as cake made from scratch, and Dr. E.'s wife served the cake on lovely glass plates along with coffee and punch in china cups. I was always nervous about the balancing act of handling the cake and punch in Dr. E.'s and his wife's pristinely clean, white-carpeted living room.

Once when I was in college, I was home over a break and running errands around town with my dad when we ran into Dr. E. He seemed delighted to see me and asked, "Are you still playing?" Before I could answer, he took up my left hand, ran his thumb over my fingertips, and announced, "I can feel your callouses!" 

A few years ago, long before I thought seriously of returning to the violin, I heard Lynn Harrell play with the local symphony. I thought of Dr. E., of course. I'm glad to have those callouses back.


* My college violin teacher, Dr. O., sort of turned up her nose when I started lessons with her as a freshman and she found out I was working on this concerto. She seemed to view it as a case of pearls before swine, musically speaking. I didn't disagree with that assessment, but also didn't let it dent my enjoyment of playing the concerto. In any case, she did work with me to finish it! 

Video via YouTube and TheDonguriHotel. See also the second and third movements.

Rehearsal Impressions

Some impressions from the rehearsal I sat in on:

• Sight-reading for two hours is tiring. I am not very good at sight-reading, and I certainly had a few instances of overlooking key changes and that kind of thing. (Actual train of thought at one point: "Wow, it sure is different playing second violin instead of first. Everything sounds different than I expect it to. Oh, oops, we have four flats now instead of two sharps. There's the issue.") Fast runs with lots of accidentals got fakity-fake-fake-faked, but I was generally able to jump back in at the starts of measures for at least a fraction of a beat. My rate of bowing in the right direction was slightly better than chance. At least I only got totally lost (as in not knowing what measure we were in) twice.
• Orchestra etiquette/procedures come right back even if you haven't played in an orchestra for, oh, about two weeks short of 20 years. It was second nature to arrive about 15 minutes before the start of the rehearsal, put my case where no one would trip over it, keep an eye out for the tuning protocol, play the bottom part of the divisi parts and turn the pages while sitting on the inside of the stand, keep an eye on the section leaders for where I should be in the bow, and change bows at a different moment than my stand partner on long notes. Being a guest, I did not put any markings in the music. Hopefully I also managed to watch the conductor as needed, though based on a few of his comments, he would have welcomed more attentiveness from everyone.
• My stand partner and everyone who talked to me could not have been more welcoming. It really seemed like a nice group of people. Actually, my stand partner was awesome. She was very helpful about quietly pointing tricky stuff out before we got started on a piece: cuts, which repeats to take and which not to, parts that were solo, etc. The one time she noticed me get lost, she managed to point out where we were and help me jump back in. At the break and at the end of the rehearsal, she insisted, "You're doing great!" The conductor, despite one or two moments of (I'm paraphrasing), "Seriously, people, pay attention," seemed patient, knowledgeable, witty, easy to follow, and very efficient in his use of rehearsal time. It doesn't get any better than that.

The bottom line is that this orchestra seems like it could be a really good fit. The next step is for me to "stay in touch" and check in about sitting in on the first rehearsal in September! At the same time, I am still keeping communication open with the other orchestra (which I've also heard back from in the meantime) in case something falls through or in case they are an even better fit. Fingers crossed for a good musical fit, social fit, and schedule fit.

Spiccato: Actually Not Horrible

That is a pretty remarkable headline given my previous difficulties with spiccato. But I've had to deal with it again because a few weeks ago, in the very first conversation I had with Ms. L. about finding a community orchestra, she commented that my prep for auditions would have to include working on my spiccato. 

Every time I focus on spiccato I feel as though I am learning it for the first time. On top of that, I have to psych myself up to practice it, knowing that it typically feels like an exercise in futility, and knowing on top of *that* that tension and overthinking are a recipe for spiccato failure. I always have to start on open strings and bounce, bounce, bounce until I get some approximation of an even, controllable stroke. Getting from that to a two-octave, easy scale with, say, two bounces per note is a long and sometimes discouraging journey. But anyway, doing a two-octave, easy scale (enough to cover all the strings) was Ms. L.'s recommendation for how to practice spiccato. 

So three weeks or so ago, I followed through and made that part of my practice routine. I worked my way from four bounces per note to two, and it went reasonably well in my lesson. (Frankly, I think Ms. L. was surprised that I actually practiced it.) The next step she suggested was practicing spiccato with Kreutzer #2. Again, I followed through and did it--just the first two lines or so. That went reasonably well, too, and I am continuing with Kreutzer this week. I am cautiously feeling like my spiccato this time around is not horrible. 

What's the difference? I think it's my bow hold. A year or so ago, Ms. L. started having me adjust my bow hold. When I'm doing it right, the difference is huge, but I still have trouble maintaining it consistently on my own. But now I find myself slipping into it more easily--recognizing the feel of it rather than consciously examining all the angles and curves happening from each finger to the rotation of my forearm. What really feels different is the sense of balanced pressure and counter-pressure among my fingers. This pressure and counter-pressure creates the interdependence among my fingers that the bow hand is supposed to have. I've read about that--the idea that each finger plays a role in controlling the bow--but never really felt I was accomplishing that until recently. 

Anyway, when my bow hand is in order, spiccato works better. I hesitate to say that I have truly turned a corner with spiccato, but I am becoming less apprehensive about it.

Sitting In!

I finally heard back from an orchestra, and I'm sitting in on a rehearsal next week! I'm sitting in on a rehearsal next week! Woo hoo! Sitting in! Happy, happy, happy!!! (Possible audition to follow--not quite so fun, but there you go.) Anyway: Sitting in! Happy!

Scales, Revisited

So much to practice, so much to process. For now, I'll keep the discussion to scales. I have started reviewing them in the event of an audition in the next couple of months for a community orchestra. Last week I worked on G major and E minor. 

The good news is that by revisiting the G major scale, I recognized how much smoother my shifting has gotten since Ms. L started working with me on that. It's still something I have to be vigilant about, but I can do it. The main things I have to focus on are keeping my hand loose and taking my time with the shifts. "Taking my time" doesn't necessarily require me to slow down--it just means I move my hand in more of a "tai chi"-type fashion as opposed to an "accidentally touched a 400-degree oven rack"-type fashion.

The bad news is that I "practiced" the E minor scale last week over and over again apparently without realizing that the top four or five notes were out of tune, especially on the way down. When I played it at my lesson on Friday, Ms. L pounced on that. She had me start from the top and work down through the top octave again and again, making minute adjustments to get the intonation right while she played an octave lower than me. I'd had no idea it was off!

It is just so freaking hard to hear those notes when you're just a couple of centimeters from the end of the fingerboard. There's a lot less string to vibrate than there normally is, so does that mean there are fewer overtones to help flesh out the sound and give more clues to the pitch? Or, are the overtones all closer together and thus harder for the ear to sort out? I sort of have a working grasp of the acoustic stuff related to the violin, but then again, sort of don't. 

I should clarify that I'm not getting fancy with this. I'm doing four notes per bow, at a pace of about 69-80 bpm (one beat = one note). No dotted anything, just straight, even notes. I just want to be able to play them in tune, on demand, without looking at fingerings or half-step markings or any other form of cheat sheet.

Anyway, this week I moved on to A flat major and F minor. Unfortunately for my neighbors, this coincided with the weather warming up and me opening my windows. I pity the fools who have caught a whiff of my F minor scale while walking the dog or taking out the trash.

Video via YouTube and Dragon71484. Repeat to self...smooth shifts...smooth shifts...

Stalking Orchestra 2

So last weekend I went to check out two community orchestras' concerts to get a sense of how good a fit they might be for me. My impressions of Orchestra 2 were pretty much the same as my impressions of Orchestra 1. One important difference is that Orchestra 2 has fewer violins, so maybe they have more room for me!

I also noticed significant differences between Orchestras 1 and 2 on a front I had not expected to consider: funding and audience. Presumably each orchestra needs to rent the hall for their four or five concerts per year and pay the conductors. (Maybe they each pay section leaders too--it wasn't clear from the programs.) Both orchestras charge for at least some of their tickets, and both get financial support from a mixture of local businesses, state and regional agencies, and individual donors (i.e., some subset of the audience). 

At Orchestra 1's concert, the audience was big, but it definitely skewed old. At 41, I think I was younger than 80% of the audience. To me, the program seemed to reflect a very traditional symphony orchestra atmosphere. It listed named chairs at the head of every section, the program notes had a rather sober tone, etc. 

At Orchestra 2's concert, the audience was maybe a quarter smaller than the Orchestra 1 audience, but definitely younger. The program had more ads, and rather than just slapping ads in there, it actually had a couple of nice tie-in offers from local businesses. The program notes and conductor bio included bits of corny humor--corny, but enthusiastic! Orchestra 2 also clearly has connections to school music programs--maybe that's where the younger audience came from.

I don't mean to make more of this than I should--this is just me looking for a place to exercise a hobby. However, knowing how members of arts organizations (or sports teams, or education institutions, or, or, or...) get drafted into fundraising efforts, I find the long-term prospects of an orchestra worth noticing.

In the meantime, I also got a response to my email from Orchestra 2. It was a very cheerful and welcoming message, so I look forward to finding out more about the audition process. However, there is one significant hitch: they rehearse on the night that my second language conversation group meets. We've been getting a great turnout for the conversation table on that night, so I hesitate to ask fellow regulars to move it. I don't want to give it up, either. Sigh. I guess I will figure that out later. 

Maybe Orchestra 1 will offer an alternative--assuming, of course, that my audition(s) give me that option. Forget critiquing programs or analyzing marketing...I should be practicing.

Stalking Orchestra 1

Still no answers to my emails to Orchestras 1 and 2, the orchestras that Ms. L. recommended I consider if I want to join a community orchestra in the fall. That makes me a little impatient, though I know how it is to be a volunteer at the receiving end of a generic organizational email account. In any case, both orchestras happen to have concerts this weekend, so I want to stalk them check them out. I figured this would be a good way to gauge their level, and--Ms. L.'s informed opinion aside--conclude for myself where I would fit in, skill-wise. Tonight was Orchestra 1.

An amateur orchestra is never going to have the sleek, powerful sound of the pros. (If it did, no one would be suggesting that I could hang with them.) Having said that, by the time Orchestra 1's concert was over, I found myself listening to what was there instead of what wasn't. They closed out the concert with Sibelius's Symphony No. 2, which I had forgotten that I knew. 

As soon as it started, I flashed back to a time early in my freshman year of college, popping that cassette tape into my circa 1988 boom box while studying. No sooner did a measure or two play than my roommate (who was from Sweden) exclaimed, "Sibelius!" and proudly announced, "He's Finnish-Swedish!" She then gave me a quick primer on the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and, while she was at it, much of the previous 150 years of the history of northern Europe. She smoked and dyed her hair black and dated a football player and dressed as Cleopatra for Halloween, none of which I have done to this day, and she knew her history, and we bonded over Sibelius. 

In Orchestra 1's rendition, the winds were pretty solid, and so were the lower strings. In the first violins--I couldn't hear the seconds very well--there was clearly a range of skill levels. At times I thought I could hear the front couple of stands carrying the rest of the section. But they finished strong. By the time I left, I wanted to listen to nothing in the car on the way home except Sibelius.

My conclusion, in short: I could hang with these guys. I could maybe even contribute. They are probably about the caliber of my college orchestra. However, they already have a ton of violins. 

The Orchestre de Paris and Paavo Järvi, via YouTube and ArioniaTellus2

And there are some great program notes about the Sibelius from the CSO.

Waiting!

Sent emails today to Orchestra 1 and Orchestra 2 to briefly introduce myself and ask about their audition process. Now anxiously awaiting responses. I have already invested a lot of thought into doing this--already mentally assessed my collection of long black, already started reviewing major and minor three-octave scales, already told friends and family about it. I even told my boss about it for no apparent reason in our regular meeting last week when she asked me, "Anything else going on?" (She was supportive--she takes piano on the side.) I want it to happen! 

Community Orchestras

After 18 months of violin lessons (following about 18 years of musical inactivity), I am finally starting to actively investigate community orchestras to join. Ms. L. has recommended three orchestras for me to consider.

The rehearsal schedule is a big variable. I would have to work around some regularly scheduled work commitments in the evening and another evening that's regularly booked.

The biggest factor for me, though, is atmosphere. I want the chance to play good music with friendly people and a conductor that has standards/expectations but understands that people with non-musical day jobs can only bring a certain level of commitment. Musically, the ideal would be for me to be in the middle of a pack where the range of musical skills is not huge. I want to feel that I am pulling my weight, but I don't feel a need to be "above average." 

This prospect is firing me up again. Working on the cadenza to the Haydn really slowed me down. After a while, there was not much to say about it except, "Still plugging away. Progress still incremental." I don't know who wrote that cadenza, but it was kicking my tail.

Ms. L. seemed to pick up on the fact that I was losing momentum, and started me on the Rieder Concerto in G Major, "a student piece." Although I was ready for a change of scenery and happy to tackle something less intimidating, I was also a tad disappointed to play a piece that has less "there" there than the Haydn or the Bach. However, I think it's been good for me to regain the feeling of making steady progress on something.

With something like an audition in front of me--my first audition in 22 years!--I will feel more fired up to come back to the Haydn.