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!

Week Six: Hungarian Folk Song and Bow Techniques

     For my fifth week I worked on Hungarian Folk Song. The purpose and challenge of learning this song was to practice playing at increased tempos, and to enjoy playing instead of thinking while playing. I believe I have successfully accomplished this. 

     The more that I practiced playing at faster speeds, the less I focused on maintaining the technical aspects of playing. This week I really began to appreciate playing for what it was. Now that I am more solid with my technique, I am able to relax without sacrificing positioning and posture. When I went for my lesson yesterday, I noticed that I was no longer struggling to find the positions of each note.  Instead, every note came out clearly and richly.  Piotr stopped me mid song to tell me that he was very impressed with my progress. 

"You improve so fast." He said, "and I'm noticing that you are no longer thinking about the chunk of wood between your neck. You are playing. You are getting more comfortable." Being able to achieve this was the best part of my week. The comfort and ease that comes with playing is very rewarding and exciting. 

I look forward to playing more and more now that violin is becoming more natural. 

     In my lesson, I started working on The Old Grey Goose. This is a simple melody, but the purpose of this song is to teach me better bowing techniques. The song has a lot of eighth notes, and Piotr explained to me that in classical training, the eighth notes are only played on a specific part of the bow. That is, either the tip or the frog. 

The direction of bowing for quarter notes dictates where the eighth notes are played. This sounds simple, but after playing for two months with no concern for eighth notes, I've developed a habit. 

Even though his new knowledge is neither discouraging nor very difficult, my pre-formed habits caused me to struggle with adjusting my bow. Thus, it was my biggest challenge this week.

I was able to work on my project three times this past week and will, once again...hopefully...be able to practice more moving forward! 

Looking ahead, I plan to work on my bowing techniques even more and to perfect The Old Grey Goose so that I can share it next week. I also hope to continue learning how to enjoy playing the violin by simply having fun, instead focusing on perfect technique. 

Until next time!

Week Five: Lightly Row

Five weeks into this wonderful adventure! 

This week brought many interesting twists and turns. 

     My biggest struggle was once again finding the time to practice. I managed to work on my playing three times thanks to some in-class time and my Saturday morning lesson, but if had I not had guaranteed time set aside, I don't believe I would have practiced much at all. I fully intend to improve on this next week, but unfortunately with a busy school schedule it is hard to guarantee anything. 

Another struggle that I had this week was fully learning how to play in fourth position. After what work I was able to do on my positioning, the pitch of the note is still not quite right. However, Piotr assured me that my posture and playing on the string itself is excellent and that it just requires some tweaking to get the pitch right. With each practice session it slowly sounds better and I am hopeful about future practices. 

     After working on Lightly Row and my fourth position this week, Piotr told me I was (to my surprise) ready for a new challenge! He would like me to work on playing faster and pushing myself more because he believes I can rise to each new level that I move towards. Hungarian Folk Song is my new endeavour and the highlight of my week! I was able to learn the melody within eight minutes on Saturday and will now spend next week mastering it. As well as this, Piotr showed me how to bow the strings as if I were 'massaging' them. This sounds odd, but after a few attempts it made perfect sense. Both the feel of the bowing and the sounds leaving the strings were much more full than they had previously been, and my playing improved a lot from this single adjustment. 

     I feel very inspired moving into next week thanks to both Piotr and my passion project group in my class. All of these people have pumped me full of both wisdom and encouragement and I look forward to the continuation of my adventure!