Project

Starting next week, I will begin to learn all 41 Campagnoli Caprices as well as possible. One at a time. One a week in order...

and I will write about it.

Day 21-Done!

Today was the last day of the recording challenge.

It was the last movement of the Romeo and Juliet. And it really improved...even/especially the dotted rhythms. And suddenly my sound seems to have a lot more core and pithiness. But that could be a result of this week's performances. (More on that later.).

So that is that. Yay.

(But I don't want to stop. I will change my focus for the next project, coming to a screen near you within a few weeks.)

Now it's time to take a short break. This week was one of the most exhausting of my life (and that includes the baby years...). And go and buy that digital recorder.

Thank you for reading this past month!

Day 17-Check

Recording today:

Handel Messiah no. 11-check!
Romeo and Juliet-check!
Campagnoli no.31-check!

That's all for now. Recording done for today and now off to Hanover for rehearsals...

See you tomorrow. There will be more time to write then.

Day 16-Looking Forward

Today (and the last week) has been quite a downer. I don't know if it's the traveling or the lack of sunlight, but I feel quite sad and angry. Or maybe it's the cold...weather and condition.

That's enough rant for now.

Listened to excerpts of the Janacek on Amazon. And if I wish to buy it as an MP3, I can. But I'm not sure I want to. The sound quality of the singers is um, a little nasal for my liking. (Very particular about good singers.) And it's the original version of the winds and piano. It's also interesting that the articulations are quite different and the tempos are slightly slower. Still it gave me a bit of confidence that I am fairly close to performing it decently next April. Now it's time to get to the next level. And it's time to rest it for a month and get back to it in the third week of December. (And buy the score in the meantime. There's lots of imitation between the singers and the viola.)

And the recording today? It was the Campagnoli caprice no. 31 again. I worked though most of the middle section and made nice progress. In spite of the fact that my mood was very stressed and sad, I was able to still work. Good because the mood is temporary but the work remains to be done regardless. In the past if I had a bad day, it would be frequently turn out to be a day of non-practicing. Sometimes it would even extend to a stretch of a few weeks. Not a great way to become an artist. The work and practicing should be for a lifetime and a process-not a goal in itself. After having children, I realized that it was important to practice every day even for a few minutes. Also it was important to always try to improve and learn new things to feed the artistic soul. These ideas sustained me when I was not allowed to work for almost two years. And now it still does with the new challenges facing me.

Looking forward to two things in the near future. This week I will be in an orchestra for a couple of Messiah performances. I have played it about 40 times and never get tired of it. The conductor will be first rate. And a strange surprise for the violist. In no. 11 (the bass aria "The People That Walked in Darkness"), the viola part has many *treble* clef, violin-range passages in this particular edition. Strange. Good thing for looking at the part ahead of time. The rest is easy and the violas are tacet quite a bit so we get to see the violinists do their gymnastics in the tenor aria.

Also thinking a lot about a new project after this one. Have decided on something and it is rather silly, but I need to do it. Relates to that always trying to learn new things issue. When it's ready to go, I'll let you know.

'Til tomorrow!

Day 12-a turn around

Have to be honest...the first part of today was terrible. A playground trip turned bad when we got there and found that it was closed for the winter as of November 1.

(And we wonder why so many children are obese in N. America...though I do remember that the playgrounds in Thunder Bay were never closed and it would be -30C for 2 months. Okay end of mini rant/comparison...)

The worst thing that children with autism have is the inability to adapt to transitions and changes in routine. It can create incredible havoc in a family and limit what they can do. My oldest (7) could not understand why we had to leave his favourite playground in order to find another one. Anyway we didn't make it that far. He proceeded to scream high pitches for the next 45 minutes. The length of the car ride home. Another pleasant day.

[And that's one of the reasons why I have fantastic concentration in performance. There's no need to practice viola with the radio on full blast. I have my own distractions always at hand. For example this past Saturday during the first movement of the Magnificat, all the lights went out and we all just kept playing for about 90 seconds for memory. Didn't even faze me. That's a piece of cake compared to a normal day for me.]

The next few hours I felt sorry for myself. And I really couldn't shake it. And I had a student coming for a lesson. Had to pull together. So I took the viola out of the case and recorded the Campagnoli study without warming up.

And it was really really good. Bordering on virtuosity save for three measures. Metronome came out and the offending measures were fixed. Okay now I know no. 38. Will work on a new one starting tomorrow. A nice happy one in d minor. (Just kidding...)

Then my son made this on the rug in the living room and it cheered me up in spite of the bad day. And gave me the tiniest hope that maybe things will get better. And tonight my husband got some good news regarding work.

So here's the picture. Back to Janacek tomorrow!

Day 11-part 2

More Romeo and Juliet this evening...and the rhythms are getting much better.

Maybe this is also from the fact that last night I was sitting right in front of the drummer. And I could feel every bass drum note he played because the floor was rickety. Let me just say I know the Conga rhythm pattern really well now...

Day 10-like yesterday yadda yadda...

Not much to write today after big post last night.

Worked on second half of first page of Romeo and Juliet "March of the Knights".

Coming together nicely.

Chord co-ordination good. Except the slurred octaves.

Rhythm slowly getting better. Especially dotted rhythms.

Busy day of teachings and groovy gig tonight.

That's all...

Day 9 recording and story time

Another post...

Before I did the recording today, I read through a Canadian piece for viola and piano...written by one of my close friends from university. Looks and sounds like a wonderful piece. Cool to know the composer and be able to email her to ask questions about said piece. And have her write back within the hour. Ah the power of twenty-first century communication...

(I didn't record that. Well not yet. Only had the piece for two hours.)

Next up was the Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev is very special to me-in fact a talisman. I actually credit Prokofiev with helping me win an important audition.

When I was living in Toronto in the late '90s, I went to play regularly for an orchestra in a city 5 hours away. More than half the orchestra was from out of town so we were all put up in a hotel. Lots of fun and good memories, but not going to write about it here today. Not that type of blog...

We played some really great and often difficult music. One concert had Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto. And it was difficult for the violas, especially the third movement which has a exposed secondary theme that reaches up to the E-flat above high C. Spent many hours on that for shifting and intonation and am also grateful that it's not an orchestral excerpt. (Conductors-don't get any ideas.)

But the first movement haunted me. The steady rhythm of the continuous sixteenths lived in my head for weeks afterwards. So when I discovered a month later I actually had a tape of this piano concerto (bought five years previously at Sam the Record Man for a dollar), I was thrilled. And then listened to it all the time. Get a little obsessive about pieces sometimes.

A few months later, I was auditioning for NOI, in Ann Arbor. It was about 3 hours from where my husband was finishing grad school. So we decided to go together. Actually I decided since I didn't drive and he did. Well we decided to take a different route- instead of going through Detroit, go through Port Huron and then go south through Michigan. Big. big. mistake.

We got stuck in horrible traffic-worse than I had ever seen in Toronto and there was tons of construction and detours. Getting nervous because the audition time was getting closer and closer. We got to UM a mere 5 minutes before the audition time. Fortunately the audition person and the main administrator (didn't know this at the time) was a nice person and said that I could have an extra 15 minutes to get settled. And I needed it. The list included concerto (Hindemith), Don Juan, Mozart 35, Beethoven 5 etc..

I really needed to calm down so after doing the absolute minimum warm up, I put on my tape machine with the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto and just listened to the first movement for a few minutes. Calmed me down enough to do the audition. And more than rhythmical enough to make me temporarily rhythmical too. That is to say feel the beat so solidly...for fifteen minutes.

And I did well. Got into the program and it was a turning point just because I learned so much in those three weeks, I am still reaping the benefits today though I still haven't used all the tips yet. (They live in the pedagogy journals on the bookshelf.)

So almost ten years later, finally getting serious about practicing with a metronome. Seems fitting that it's Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. The main problem for me is compressing the beat when it's a dotted rhythm. I get ahead of myself. Worked on the main theme of the last movement with the metronome games. Then recorded...it's better but still a slight rushing to each new beat. Back to the drawing board tomorrow. And wonder if I can get a new version of Prokofiev's Third Concerto on the MP3 player...still love the piece.

Day 8-getting into a routine

It's a good thing that the voice recorder was cheap, because it wasn't built to last. Or maybe a two-year-old is very destructive. Hmmm...a button cover fell off today.

Figured since on the sidebar it said 4 octave C major scale, well it's time to record it. (Writing things down tends to make people accountable.)

Went superb. Intonation fantastic and just just one slightly bumpy shift coming back down on the A string. Not bad...

Next on the agenda is the Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. It's a great piece and not played too often. Rhythm is not good yet. Even after a 45-minute practice session.

Have to get into the habit of practicing regularly with a metronome. I can handle electronic equipment since starting ten years ago, practiced with tuner pitches over a period of two years. And it really helped. Like friend and blog reader Anna said, you start to know how it's going to sound before the playback. Intonation yes. Dotted rhythms not yet.

Now off to play a Groovy Magnificat. (see link in previous post)

Bye!

(Update: Realized on the mortning of November 9 that I accidently labeled this day 7 and it was day 8. Though now it'll appear on the 9th. Such is life...)

Day 7-Getting better

It's a good thing I recorded this morning because now I am unbelievably tired.

Summary:

Janacek-better but now it's time to get the score and recording. Goal is to memorize it.

Campagnoli-much more even.
4 octave scale-in tune. Need to play it at a different i.e. faster speed than 52.

Teach a lesson in 1/2 hour and then rest.

Tomorrow evening-a rehearsal for a strangely named piece. More later...

Update: here's the link to the concert info. I don't know what it is going to sound like. That will be Friday.

Day 6

Wow...6 days in a row. (Though I'm still not doing the NoMo stuff. A holdout and non-joiner in general.)

I worked more on the Janacek Nursery Rhymes concentrating on co-ordination of the sixteenths (there's many). The thing about this piece is not just the fact that it's difficult, it's a little awkward in fingering as well. Maybe that's the arrangement of the woodwind writing. But many composers write awkward passages...Brahms comes to mind (thinking of the viola parts in the symphonies) and that is great music. And this Janacek is a good piece as well.

One of my teachers insisted that when learning a piece, one has make sure to do two things:

1. Look at and study the score to see how the other parts fit.
2. Become familiar with the other pieces the composer has written. And not just the string repertoire. Listen to the symphonies, operas, art song etc. Learn the composer's language.

As of now, five months before the concert, I have done neither. Shame on me.
Its time to address that.

I also worked on five measures of Campagnoli, working up the tempo to quarter equals 132. In the recording I notice that I still have the tendency to shorten the last note of the four-note pattern, trying to get to the next beat. Have to remind myself that there is lots of time to fit all the notes.

'Til tomorrow!

Day 4 of navel-gazing recording stuff

Another post...every post is closer to that pro recorder. Though my friend and colleague Bob thinks that there is another recorder that is better. Is this true?
Discuss...

Okay enough of that-on to the business of the day (a little dry and technical today).

Taped various passages of the Campagnoli Caprice in f# minor. It's an example of what I call the "noodles"-continuous sixteenths and fairly chromatic. The main thing I wanted to work on was the evenness of the notes.

Recorded three relatively random passages of 4-8 measures to see what the baseline was. (Been influenced by ABA-DTL therapy for my kids-they always determine and document the base level before introducing a new skill.) Not bad except that sometimes the middle or the last notes would get lost. And it wasn't consistent even in the same passage.

So now to work. First did what I call the "rhythms". If you are familiar with I. Galamian's teaching this will not be new. I use a simplified pattern sequence with my students and I do use it a lot in my own practice. Basically it goes like this in a four note grouping with separate bows:

fast-slow-fast-slow
slow-fast-slow-fast
fast-fast-slow-slow
slow-fast-fast-slow (my favorite and my most difficult...everyone has one)
slow-slow-fast-fast
fast-fast-fast-slow
slow-fast-fast-fast

and then play again as written to see how much improvement there was.

Then the "metronome games". Whoo yoo! Just start at the quarter (in this case the sixteenths are the beat)of the final tempo with the evil Dr. Beat on sixteenth subdivisions. Then crank it up 10-15 notches until beat is 160 (after that the Dr. peeves me greatly). Then go back to the eighth being the beat at 80 and notch up again gradually to 160. Then quarter is 80 and notch up to the final tempo. And this will solidify the passage. And it did...

Now thinking about what I should concentrate on this week. It should be the Janecek "Nursery Rhymes". It is originally written for woodwinds and choir and was arranged for a very difficult arrangement for viola, piano, and choir. To me as a violist, I would term it a "semi-concerto" compared to the Vaughan-Williams "Flos Campi" which is a true concerto. But it will be rewarding anyway. The choir is top notch. And it will be an honour to work for the conductor, a great musician. But I tell you more on that concert later...maybe in March.

'Til tomorrow!

Day 3

Posting with a monkey on my back (AKA the little one). Part of my soon to fail strategy to keep the kids up an extra hour, so when the time change comes tonight, they will wake tomorrow at 6 am instead of 5 am new time.

I listened to the sound check (Day 2 recording) from yesterday. Dennis was right, the hall made the instruments sound tinny, particularly the viola and the upper register of the piano. Though I liked performing in the space, since it was easy to hear everyone else. In the concert I tried to adjust my sound by using my bow closer to the fingerboard in legato passages to smooth the sound out. I'm very curious to hear how that concert sounds. In time...

So for today I decided to play one of my favourite Campagnoli caprices (no. 17). It's a theme and variations in e minor. Quite fun. I hadn't looked at it for probably four months. It didn't matter because there was/is no reason to play it in a concert. Good thing because I was making a few mistakes in every section and it sometimes felt like sight reading. When I made a mistake I knew that it will be on the recording and then a strange thing happened. I started to play to the silly voice recorder and enjoyed playing the mistake. Then I just started playing random things. And it really didn't sound so bad on the playback.

For some reason in the past when a tape recorder was on, I would become incredibly self conscious and try to do and play the right thing. And a lot of the time I would feel very boxed in and not be as expressive. After a few years of this, I coped by playing for the tape recorder and waiting one or two days to have some emotional distance to finally analyze the result. Now I'm getting rid of the distance and treating the recorder as a friend and something to play with.

Went back to the caprice and just imagined it like an audience. Much better.

Very happy that this is happening after only three days.

Day 1 of non NoMo Blah blah blah recording experiment...

Yes I did record myself today...and getting back to you with an short update.

I took that digital voice recorder and recorded various parts of the pieces for the concert tomorrow in Norwich. (It's the third rendition of the concerts from a couple of weeks ago.) My goal was to record short excerpts less than a minute and play them back immediately so I could zoom in what to fix in the next minute. Then the minute after that was my absolute favorite-deleting the track....

Excellent.

First I picked the fourth movement of the E. Nielsen work. It's fairly fast in 5/4 with a one beat four sixteenths-note motif that is passed between the four instruments (french horn, viola, cello, and piano). But there's rests in between these pass offs. So I recorded this and counted all the rests. The beginning was fine. Later not so much. I have been counting one measure in 6. Went back and did it again and fixed it.

Then I worked on the Nielsen third movement. There is a great viola solo near the end that alternates between a duplet and triplet pattern. When I heard the playback, I was very surprised that my most of the triplets sounded like two sixteenths and a eighths. Evil Dr. Beat to the rescue (that's the official name ;)). Put it on the triplet beat pattern and worked on that. Think it will go better tomorrow.

Also worked on the Bathory-Kitsz double stops and the Busler-Blais' wonderful viola solo at the beginning of the first movement.

General Thoughts?

Right now I'm observing my playing with a sense of detachment and not trying to pass judgement on my flaws too soon. Probably because I'm tired a lot of time and maybe because I'm older, I'm not so freaked out by the bad sound quality. And I guess the intonation is generally good, save for one or two notes in each passage which is easy to fix.

I do know that my co-ordination in shifts and particularly double stops is not rhythmically perfect. And my legato in bow changes is quite non-existent these days. So there's two flaws. Good. Something to work on. Take two tomorrow...

Thoughts on NoBoPoMo this year

Basically I can't do it. Since I won't be at a computer every day this month. In fact November and December are the worst month because our family travels a lot. For me February would be a much better choice. Lots of snow days and it *is* the shortest month after all...

Anyway with the mood I'm in these days, the best choice for me would be the Cranky Bloggers Group (thank you Miriam for showing me the link!). Though I don't know if anyone would want to read my words of "grr", "blah" and "argh" over and over on the page. It may get a tad bit tedious after day 4 (or Day 0.25).

Still thinking of the advice from one of my viola teachers saying not to be in love with one's problems. It's time to be solution oriented and not avoid things.

So I think as an alternative, I'll do what I've been saying since last May I should do. Record my viola playing every day for the first 15 days of November and then from November 25 to to November 30.

It won't get a nice little sticker for this blog. But just maybe I can finally get more co-ordinated with running sixteenths passages ("noodles"). Or maybe time the shifts better. This morning I bought a basic voice digital recorder. It's doesn't record any pretty tone colour at all. But pitch and rhythm will be captured.

And of course this time I should be accountable to you, dear blog reader, and posting how it went that day. If I am successful at doing this for the above days, then I will buy this for myself for a combined birthday/Christmas present.

The funny thing I was going to do this a few months ago with Audacity. But I didn't do it probably but the laptop turned out not to be very portable for recording. And then the computer motherboard fried in September and I didn't reinstall it on the new computer. It is a great program and I do recommend it-however right now I need something more basic. Sound quality will wait...rhythm can't.

Recalibrate

Still great weather here.

I'm trying to make a habit of walking for 30-45 minutes every day regardless of my energy level or mood. This is what I used to do about ten years ago in Toronto. In fact, I am attempting to recreate some of the things that made me happy back then and adapt it to life here. Walking is one of them. (Some things may not work so well in the mountains of Vermont...like the attitude chunky black heels and eating great cheap Thai and Vietnamese food at midnight.)

Also getting back to practicing this past month. I have a concert in three weeks, playing new works of Vermont composers. I'm really looking forward to doing this. Going back to what I do best. I promise I will write more about the concert...

So I'm plodding though the pieces using my practice strategy of "divide and conquer" along with much singing of the intervals. Fun. :)

And though no fault of my own, I will have to teach an advancing student the Stamitz concerto. Wait-it is my fault! I gave her the choice of Hoffmeister or Stamitz and she likes the Stamitz better.

Maybe I don't like it so much simply because I played it badly in high school. Nightmares of terrible double stops haunt me. Well it's going to be subjected to practice. Because, I will learn it better this time around. Have to.

Recalibration...start now.

Soon

...I will blog again.

Probably on Thursday.

The weather has been unbelievably beautiful here for the last two weeks. The best time for weather in New England is the fall-but this has to be the best I've seen since moving here five years ago.

So I have been walking every day to get my Vitamin D dose for the year 2007. Because soon the bad weather will return.

Soon the rain will come back. Tomorrow maybe? And then I will write again....

Though I have been practicing a lot as well. There's a big concert next month and an even bigger one in six months. Will tell you soon...

In the dark

I became rather amused when looking at my stat counter today. Yesterday someone had Googled "Penderecki Cadenza" and got my blog. This is strange because I've hardly written anything about it. And I actually don't want to know anything about it at this moment.

In the past when getting a new piece, most of the time I would proceed to research it thoroughly. I would look at the score, look up the history of the piece, listen to recordings of all the famous violists playing the piece. And I would become thoroughly intimidated. Especially when listening to the recordings. I would think that it would be very difficult to learn this piece. And even now there are some pieces for me that still have this stigma attached to them. The Walton concerto and the Hindemith solo sonatas are examples.

So I have been living in a cave and have never heard a Penderecki piece. And all I know about the Cadenza is that it was written in 1984 and was related to the Viola Concerto. That's it. And yes it's hard. Not a problem. I will just use the choice practice techniques that have served me well over the last five years. Singing. Three note overlap. Metronome Games. Divide and Conquer.

Just remembering the pieces I learned first without knowing too much about them. In a way these pieces are more solid and belong more firmly in my repertoire. Pieces like the Britten Lachrymae and the Barnes Lamentations of Jeremiah. Those pieces I learned very quickly and didn't have access the resources or the recordings. I remember the excitement of learning these works. Like reading a great novel that you knew nothing about it.

Maybe the Penderecki Cadenza will be that for me again.

Getting it together....ha! Part 1 in a series

Funny....now that I finally have the energy to post again, I had to run away and join the opera (orchestra). We're playing Madama Butterfly this weekend and it should be great. How's that there is all these fantastic singers around this area lately? And I get to sit in first stand....yay me.
Meanwhile my youngest son is still like glue and now that he's two, he exercising his right to throw a temper tantrum every day. (Actually make that six.)

But onto other things.....

My plan for the summer of 2007 is thus: to become a better player though observing my playing objectively. And how to do that? Ha ha... through tape recording *every* single week for the months of July and August. Yes I like to suffer. But I would like to improve a certain facet of my playing. Namely rhythm. Namely dotted rhythms of all types.

Note to reader: If more than three people say the same criticism of your playing (whether it's intonation or rhythm or something else) , then maybe it's really time to focus on that aspect and just fix it without getting emotional about it. As I say "honour your strengths but work on your weaknesses."

So I have a mini disc recorder from 2000. However it really annoys me since it's almost impossible to get the discs for a good price. And I would like to record a lot. So I was planning to buy this.

Quite expensive. But I was planning to get it in a few weeks.

Then last week via the Music Teacher's Helper blog I was able to get a freeware version of Audacity. And it's fun. Just stick the mike into to the computer and record away. The best part is if you don't like what you record (for me about 75%) you don't have to save the file. No more deleting files on mini discs which I hate to do even if they're terrible. This technology thing is fun. (Probably everyone in the inter web world uses this program already. However I'm a little slow....just figured out how to subscribe to RSS feeds only two weeks ago and don't know how to IM though I would like to try.....hint hint.)

Time to practice. Many new things to practice (but more on that later).

Have a great day!

The nice thing about viola studies....

is that you don't have to play them in public. :)

(Does that sound like a viola joke?)

Still working on the Mazas' Rapidity and liking it. But I figured I needed *another* study (yes, a sucker for self-punishment). So I went to my storage boxes and looked for something else.
Pulled out the Lillian Fuchs 15 Characteristic Studies. Sight read three of them. Decided I didn't like any of them. And finally realized why. (Short answer...I find them boring...even for studies. Long answer....well maybe later.)

So I went back to the box and pulled out the Gavinnes 24 studies. I had never worked on any of them. Could tell this by the lack of pencil markings. (I had bought the book probably around 1993....I hadn't been to this particular violin shop since then.)

After reading through a couple of them and decided I could benefit from them. First, they're really difficult. For some reason that's a plus for me. Second, there's a lot of fast shifting in the upper register. This is also a plus. So I decided to work on No. 4.

I think teaching violin and viola has changed my view on studies. For many years I thought that studies were something only to endure for the inevitable annual RCM exam. So naturally I balked when my grad school teacher not only wanted me to relearn the first twelve Kreutzer studies, but also analyze them. He believed that every study had a particular left hand and right hand technical focus. Of course I didn't do it-I was a rebellious student. (BTW-now I realize that he was right about everything. Maybe I need to write more about this....hmmm.)

Now fifteen years later after seeing new students come to me for lessons and seeing how they had treated their pieces as studies (with the resulting frustration that comes with that), I realize the true importance of studies. Granted they are boring. But better them than the repertoire the student will be studying. A study is a perfect vehicle to work on a technical focus without worrying about the musical ramifications. It's the bridge between technique and concert repertoire. And you do not have to perform it. Well maybe for your teacher, he he...

Now for something different.

Some enjoyable reading.....

The finale of Charles' audition story.... won't spoil it.

the Heifetz vs. Cher Gershwin contest.

and Jen is an amazing teacher!

Have a great day everyone...