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.