Bling Bling in the ATL

So, one thing I haven't blogged about thats not nessecarily of interest to the general public, but is of interest to me: I've been playing violin again. I always thought I'd hated it, I remember one time my parents made me practice for 3 hours before a concert and I was so pissed off I decided to play really loudly and badly the entire time. I can trace about 5 bad playing habits back to that particular session. But . . it must have been a little oasis of quiet for all these years, because thats whats coming back to me now that I pick it up again. I think the quiet started around middle school, when I'd gotten somewhat skilled, and outgrew the local teachers. I studied with this one woman, Ms. Davis, a mean old bat who taught at college in Providence. She gave me Bach's concerto for 2 violins in A minor. I took it home and once I figured out how it was supposed to sound, I thought it was too beautiful for me to butcher. I told her that and she cracked up.

My last year in high school I was at Exeter and I had a wicked good teacher. I forget his name, but he played for the BSO and he was so anal he would make me stop playing so he could remove bits of lint off my shirt. He showed me not so much how to play as how to mark up a piece so it was playable, how to diagnose a problem and how to practice it away. I played an awful lot that year. Prepared a solo, played orchestra and learned viola so I could join a good quartet.

Quartet was fantastic - we played Handel and Schubert, I don't remember what pieces. None of us were superb players, but something in our group clicked - we really, really listened to each other and dug how the other players made us sound. There was one moment during practice I especially like. In the closing bars, I had triplet eigth notes and I was playing them wrong. The cellist called it, and the two of us took a moment to make it right. Then we played the piece again as a group. As we hit those closing bars, the alteration was magic - something in that middle viola voice, same note but different rhythm, made all four of us click to something about the harmony that was alive. Its like an old book that takes 4 people to read, and when you make a breakthrough, its not a personal meaning, or a verbal one, its kind of like a shared emotion or idea.

Past two weeks I've been practicing scales and a Bach concerto in C minor for oboe and violin. Its initially composed for harpsichord, so in the end its got to be delicate and flighty and restrained. Tempted to play it glam rock style though - sometimes I plow through it in my head like a cheesy electric guitar solo. But I'm nowhere near style yet, just taking it apart and using different bits as practice pieces to get my hands back in working order.

Its in C minor, so 3 flats and a naturals thrown in every once in a while. And, lots of arpegios with string crossings and relatively awkward fingerings and varied bow style. Everythings in 1st through 3rd position, so not biting off too much all at once.

Main objective lately has been getting back in tune, and then getting some speed and rhythm into my left hand. All the funny muscles that give you rhythm in your fingers, like the 'lift' muscles, are completely atrophied from years of typing, where rhythm is irrelevant - only sequence matters.

Its a nice mind excercise too. Demands focus, attention to small things, anaylyse little mechanical problems. If I get nervous about a shift, my hand tenses, and then everything sounds bad. If my mind wanders, I forget what note I'm on, what key I'm in, what the fingering is, whether my next note is a major or minor third away, where I should be in the bow to get to the next phrase. Have to concentrate, disconnect my anxiety from my hand and feel confident. Then I sound good.

In 2 weeks I've made a few breakthroughs. My hand is remembering where the shift points are, and how big a half step is in first position, and how fingercrushingly small a whole step is in 5th.

I remembered that there are three points of movement in the arm- shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Simplistic, but good to remember. I got my wrist back into the action and now I can play really, really fast if I want to. Still can't do string crossings cleanly and having trouble with volume control, but slowly slowly.

In other news, I get home this morning to find 2 men drilling holes in the asbestos paneling of my house. No masks, no bubble, no signs, no publicly posted 'permit to work,' no abatement, no nothing.. just... drilling holes in asbestos. I already tried that story out on the boy and its clearly not very funny. Regardless, upside of the not-so-funny story is, the landlord is making a laundry room on the first floor. Yay. No more schlepping to the laundromat, losing all my sweaters.

And, lil sis called today. She's working hard and just seems to be doing all great. Somethings pulled together for her in the last year, she seems to be asking all the right questions, staying true to her voice while trying to listen and learn and respect everyone else, pacing herself, trying to take care of herself while she's stressed... all that good stuff.

Ciao bellas,

Ms. Bling