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.