Week Thirteen: Amazing Grace

This is my final entry for my grade twelve passion project.

For the past few weeks, in preparation for my presentation, I have been working on learning Amazing Grace. The sheets for this song were in an old piano book of mine and were fairly simple, which made it perfect for violin.

Today, I had my last lesson before my performance, and Piotr was very pleased with my playing. He told me I am still progressing wonderfully, and that I should be very proud of my achievements. Quite perfectly, Amazing Grace fits right into what I have learned about fiddle music and is a great way to finish off my project.

Piotr originally was very excited that I had selected this song to learn, and he proceeded to teach me various different techniques to increase the depth of the tune. "Think of the story behind the song," he told me. Some of these techniques included sliding my fingers, which is quite opposite from what he had been teaching me for classical music, and playing fiddle chords. Conveniently, I had previously learned about fiddle chords and I was very excited that I would get to use them. However, a little to my disappointment, I was unable to practice very much last week, and so I am not prepared enough to perform the song on Monday with the fiddle chords.

Regardless, I am very excited to show my class what I have learned, and I look forward to the day when I can confidently use the fiddle chords and other techniques in the song.

My highlight this week has definitely been learning about all the different techniques to use on Amazing Grace. I am in love with the sound of this song on the violin.

My struggle this week was learning how to play the melody so that it sounded like fiddle music, and not like classical. It is not only a different rhythm, but also a different bow approach. This makes this genre both challenging and exciting.

Looking to the future, I hope to continue using this blog as much as I can in order to track my progress and look back on my improvements. This project has been a fantastic opportunity to learn about the violin, and I am thankful for the chance to better myself and be enlightened by so many people and experiences.

This is Laurel Farrell optimistically concluding her English project, but continuing her life project, where the violin is her passion.

Week Twelve: The Long Lesson

     Since it is the beginning of Christmas Break, I normally wouldn't have a lesson this week, but because I missed two of my lessons earlier this year, I had the privilege of a makeup lesson. They squished both of mine together, so I had one on one time with Piotr for an hour and a half! This was the highlight of my week.

     I played my violin about five times this week. In my lesson, Piotr decided to take me back to the beginning for review. We spent the first fifteen minutes of my lesson bowing on just open strings. By doing this, I was able to see the different ways that I could improve my posture and sound, and Pitor gave me a lot of helpful tricks. We talked about keeping the weight of the bow even, being able to apply force to the bow without squeezing, as well as the importance of letting the violin rest on you. Now that I am becoming more comfortable with the instrument, everything that he had been telling me from the beginning was much easier to understand and apply to my playing.

     After a long warm up filled with scales and bowing techniques, we went back into some of the old songs that I had learned. By playing these again, I was able to see how I had improved. I was very pleased with myself in this sense. When we got to the page with my Christmas songs, he asked me which one I wanted to play, so I chose Silent Night. To my surprise, this is what we spent the rest of the lesson on.

     He took me through the whole song and got very excited as my playing progressed within the ninety minutes. He told me the best ways to begin the song and how to guide the bow so that it was softer and more delicate. Even after I was content with the sound, he continued to get me to play, and then he accompanied me on both the piano and violin until he was satisfied. When I left he told me I had no choice; I had to perform the song for my friends and family.
So that is what I did.

    I have had no real struggle this week, other than not being able to work on Turkey in the Straw or St. Anne's Reel, but Piotr promised that we would work on them more in the new year. As well as this, he told me that we would work on vibrato as well. I am very excited and look forward to this. For now, I have left you with a recording of Silent Night from today. 

     Moving into next week, even though I do not have a lesson, I will try to work on my fiddle tunes and scales as much as I can, remembering all of the little tips and tricks I learned this week!

 

Week Eleven: Third Position and Key Signatures

There is not much for me to report this week, but I will do my best to summarize it nicely.  

     Much to my disappointment, I did not progress with Turkey in the Straw as much as I had hoped.

First Position

I was able to practice four times this week, including my lesson, but I am still not very confident about my playing.

     I'm finding it difficult to use a shorter bow and transfer back and forth between strings so many times during the fiddle tunes. This, along with trying to maintain a constant speed, has been very challenging. When I played the song for Piotr, however, he was impressed that I had made as much progress as I had in just one week. He suggested that moving forward, I try to relax in the song so that it becomes more fluid, and I hope to work on that next week.

Third Position

     Instead of playing St. Anne's Reel, we continued to work on my Christmas songs. I am happy to report that they are continuing to improve! Inspired, I attempted Jingle Bells this week as a new Christmas tune, but it was awful! Interestingly, I learned that the bad sound was not entirely my fault. Piotr told me that almost all pieces for the violin are written in keys with sharps. For example, G, D or even A, but my copy of Jingle Bells was written in F, which contains B flat. The finger positioning for this note is very different than the sharp notes that I am used to playing.

     As well as this, I also learned about third position this week. This position is used to play higher octaves and is kind of interesting. I've taken some pictures that show the difference between first position, which I am used to playing in, and third position. Piotr provided me with some exercises to get used to playing multiple octaves of my scales. This was the highlight of my week because it was cool to learn something entirely new.

 Moving forward I will continue to work on Turkey in the Straw, and practice playing in third position.

Week Ten: Fiddling!

As promised, Piotr gave me two fiddle tunes! 

     Turkey in the Straw and St. Anne's Reel will be my focus for the next week, and I am very excited about it. Whether it's the speed, the key, or the general feel of the songs, I do not know, but I love playing them already. 

     This week, I worked on my violin three times. Up until yesterday when I received the fiddle tunes, I was plugging away at my two Christmas songs. They are slowly becoming beautiful, and I hope to have them nicely rounded for Christmas. My brother is a typical musician who loves a good jam session, and my cousin plays fiddle music in various folk competitions. I hope to be able to play with both of them when they come home this year. 

     It was very interesting when Piotr explained the difference between classical and fiddle music to me yesterday. Before we started Turkey in the Straw, I played Silent Night for him to hear. He pointed out ways for me to lengthen the notes on my bow, and to make my movements more grand and fluid. Quite contradictory to this, once we started the fiddle tunes, he instructed me to use a very short bow, fast movements, and to not worry about hitting wrong strings now and then. The reasoning behind this is the historical background of the song. Every time I learn a new song, Piotr makes me think about who would have played that type of music when it was written. In this instance, Turkey in the Straw would have been played by farmers who were out working in the fields all day. Piotr explained,

"The men would have been tired. They'd come home, sit in their chair and play light, fun songs. Not grand, complicated pieces with crazy movements!" 

     Understanding the historical context is always very helpful, especially when it comes to learning different styles of music. Fiddle music is very 'messy' compared to classical violin playing, so hitting other strings now and then only adds to the character of the song. Piotr explained to me that if it the music is too clean, you lose the effect that fiddle music is supposed to have. 

     When he discovered that my cousin is an avid fiddler, Piotr became even more adamant about me learning new songs in this style of music and promised we would work on more next week. It is all very exciting. 

     In short, my highlight this week was learning Turkey in the Straw and exploring a new genre. My lowlight was once again my lack of practice...other than that I don't really have any regrets. 
Moving forward, I will continue to work on Turkey in the Straw and St. Anne's Reel. I did not share a video this week because I only learnt the songs yesterday and am very far from anything that sounds melodic! Hopefully next Sunday will be a different story! 

Until next time!

Week Nine: Progress

I am happy to report that this week I am feeling much better. 

My cold has worked its way through my body without help from antibiotics and I am becoming my old self again.

     Due to my cold, I was only able to practice twice this week and, as usual, this was my biggest let down. I played my two Christmas songs a few times, mainly focusing on Good King Wenceslas. I also worked on a few of my older songs to see if they sounded any different than they had originally. While I was not necessarily proud of these accomplishments, I am looking forward to how I will be able to improve next week.

     Somewhat surprisingly, my lack of practice did not prevent me from progressing this week. When I showed up to my lesson, I played four songs: Hungarian Folk Song, The Old Grey Goose, Good King Wenceslas and Silent Night. Piotr wanted to hear how the songs sounded after not seeing me for two weeks, and he was very impressed! 

     He said he could tell how much I had worked on all of the songs while I was sick, and that he could not believe how far I had progressed. We spent the majority of the lesson playing together and working on increasing my speed. As always, playing with my teacher was an absolute pleasure, but the greatest pleasure I experienced was towards the end of my lesson. He gave me the most eye-opening compliment I have received so far. 

"You progress so fast. I mean, I never played this level of music after such a short time on the violin. You should realize that most people do not play this way until their third year of taking lessons. Know that I am very proud and you are doing excellent work." 

     These words were very encouraging to me and, moving forward, will help me to take more pride in my achievements. Understanding that I am learning very fast and playing very well, motivates me to continue moving forward. This was definitely the highlight of my week. 

     Looking into next week, Piotr promised to give me some fiddle tunes at my next lesson so that I can expand my repertoire. I am absolutely ecstatic! Until then, my goals are to increase the speed of my Christmas songs and to adopt a more positive attitude about my playing. The video I have shared is a rough version of Silent Night. It gets better every day. 

That's all for now! 

Week Eight: Christmas Jams and Fiddle Chords

I do not mean to start this blog post off on a sour note, but I would prefer to get the bad news over with. 

The Frog in My Throat

     For the past nine days, I have been battling a horrible cold that does not seem to be improving. Because of this, I was unable to go to my lesson yesterday and I did not receive any feedback from Piotr. Even thoug
h it was a fluke, this was the most disappointing part of my week. I look forward to going to my lesson every Saturday morning because it gives me an escape from the hours of homework and university applications waiting for me at home. This time however, it was clearly not going to happen. I crawled out of bed yesterday morning to leave a froggish message on the music studio's answering machine. In the process of telling them I would be staying home, I had to repeat my name twice before it was somewhat audible. When I realized how sick I sounded, my attempt to laugh came out instead as a choked ribbit. 
I hope, for the sake of my violin teacher, that the studio owners could understand my message. 

Fiddle Chords

     The good news is that this week was more successful for me in terms of practicing. I was able to work on the violin five times this week. I practiced my scales and Christmas songs, as well as Old Grey Goose and The Hungarian Folk Song to improve as much as I could. The Christmas songs are still causing me some difficulty, but they are slowly improving. I practiced for so long this week that I've started to develop a red spot on my collarbone from where the violin sits! I think that means it's time to rest a little.

     On top of practicing the songs from my book this week, I worked on playing by ear. I had a jam session with my little sister on Monday to see if we could acco
mplish anything for this year's school talent show. So far we have been unsuccessful, but it was still a lot of fun playing around with chords. A few days later, I worked on trying to play harmonies and melodies with my Dad. He has been religiously plucking out some ukulele Christmas songs. This was great because it gave us some bonding time as well as helped both of us to work on our playing. 

     While we played around with Frosty the Snowman and Let it Snow, I learned how to play some fiddle chords! Fiddle chords are fairly simple. You position your left hand to play two notes in the same chord , for example C and G.You then position the bow to touch both strings and play with gusto. The result is a sweet, lively harmony that brings vibrant memories of county fairs and square dances. All in all, playing with my Dad was the highlight of my week. 

     Moving forward, I will continue to work on both Good King Wenceslas and Silent Night. I've shared a video of Good King Wenceslas even though it is rough. I figured I should document at least a little progress this week. I also plan to see if there are other fiddle chords or fiddle techniques that I can learn moving into my ninth week. My final goal is to be healthy enough to go to my next violin lesson. 
I will be visiting a doctor soon, but until then, here's to Neocitran, advil, and falling asleep at 7:30. 

Week Seven: It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

This week I officially started working on Christmas Carols! 

     After working on The Old Grey Goose last week and my bow techniques, Piotr gave me some Christmas songs to work on in my lesson yesterday. I started with Good King Wenceslas and then a few minutes later took on the challenge of Silent Night. Piotr assured me that though it is pretty, Silent Night was not written for the violin, so it is much more challenging to learn and execute. However, I'm loving the challenge! I was the first of his students that he let start the Christmas songs which I think is a large accomplishment and is very exciting. 

     Unfortunately, yet again, I was not able to practice very much this week. I only pulled off two practice sessions which means that, in my opinion, my playing did not improve very much. This was my biggest let down because it meant I didn't really have anything to really 'show' Piotr at my lesson. In spite of this however, he still played violin and piano harmonies to accompany me and let me learn the two new Christmas songs. Being able to sight read and decently play these tunes within the forty-five minute lesson was my highlight. I got to play with my teacher and it actually sounded good. I love doing this!The video that I've shared with you includes The Old Grey Goose (sorry it's out of tune) and some scales. 

     My goal for next week is to learn to play Silent Night and Good King Wenceslas faster and with more gusto. Piotr told me to keep on plugging away, working on increasing my tempo and really challenging myself to see how fast I can go. He also told me to keep working on my scales which I think have improved quite a bit! Hopefully I will be able to learn vibrato before Christmas. I will ask Piotr about it during my lesson next week. Lets all keep our fingers crossed that I will be able to practice more next week! It is so disappointing when I can't fit it in.

Cheers!