Viola, new strings, tuner/metro wrapped in a shoulder cloth in instrument compartment.
Bow and pictures in the lid.
Side compartment contains rosin, nail clippers, chrome hotel mute, homemade earth magnet mute, and business card.
Handle has luggage tag and bronze pendant attached.
I went back to Gliga again, and the unplayable, tanklike 16.5″ executioner’s axe that I started out on is back and looking for a new owner. Same little beauty-blemish on the top shoulder-side bout, same neck like a tree trunk, the same unreachable intervals, the same thick ribs … the same boomy, gorgeous rich voice … no wolf on the open G …
*sigh* I can’t play the bastadge! This is the second time the thing has resurfaced there, so apparently, I’m not alone.
Note to self: do not go looking for violas if you aren’t in the market for one. That way lies pain and regret.
Just felt like whining a bit. I am the least assiduous viola student in the universe. Four days off, and I found time to practice for one. I’m going to take more time off than usual for the winter holidays this year, just so I can have a staycation at home that will allow me to gorge myself on the viola and piano. I will do piano in the morning and viola in the evenings. Piano 8-2, viola 2-whenever. I write better in the morning, so the piano will go better at that time.
I have definitely realized though that practicing on the fundamentals is what’s needed. Three-quarters scales, shifting, half-scales (M and m), long tones, and other fiddly exercises and one-quarter actual music. It’s a bit maddening since I’ve gotten my head calibrated to the opposite way of working: mostly music, and exercises as warmups. I’m not sure how much of this is due to the fact that I’m a beginner on viola and how much is due to inherent differences between the two instruments. But I’ve gotten a bit more forgiving toward myself when it comes to taking “too long” to warm up and get through the exercises. Now, I just let myself take as long as I want until I feel settled, which can be some time. Still though … a winning lottery ticket would go a long way to helping me find the time.
– is a possibility, which I’m doing now. But damn, it takes me at least half an hour to longer before I can get myself calibrated to the point where I can even start thinking about playing anything, Gavotte, Fitzpatrick Melody, or otherwise. I can’t imagine what’s going to happen as I work on pieces in multiple keys simultaneously. By the time I’m working on three things in three different keys, it’s going to take me all day to get my fingers warmed up to the point where I can even hope to start working on them. At some point, I will be exceeding the number of waking hours in a day before I even touch any actual music.
And that isn’t even touching on when I start doing more than simple detache bowing with the occasional slur. When the oddball bowing techniques start showing up, I may be able to scrounge the time for showering, tooth brushing, and bowel movements, all of which I’m sure my teacher would appreciate as much my practice time.
I start with just slow, long open tones to concentrate on my bow hold. Then, I move to one-octave CM. Then, two octave, slowly, one-note-per-bow, then four. Up and down, up and down, ad infinitum until I feel even vaguely oriented. Then, it’s simple one-octave GM and DM starting on the open strings. Then, it’s major and minor half-scales up and down the open strings, over and over, one note per bow to four notes per bow. I have a tough time with half steps on the open strings — D-E-F on the D string, A-B-C on the A, that sort of thing. The E-F and B-C between 1 and 2 is a challenge for me, and doing these half-scales major and minor and swapping for each as often as possible up and down at will and at random is the only way I can find that helps me get them under control. Again, one note per bow to slurring the whole thing, over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AND FREAKING OVER.
Then, it’s the shifting. I don’t shift in music yet, but it helps my ear to do the 1st-to-3rd shift on all four strings as many times as I can stand and then a few more. Sometimes I shift 1st-to-2nd-to-3rd and back again for the hell of it.
In between any and all of these, I may find that I have to move back to slow open tones because my bow hold has mutated to something unrecognizable while I was off worrying about the actual noise I was making and not where my bow hand thumb was.
Then, after about a half an hour at this, I can start to consider thinking about working on something. I can see this “getting up to speed” stuff expanding to fill all the available practice time I have.
I am going to go back and get that thing in decent shape. I’m outraged at the fact that it’s unraveled as noticeably as it has. I can’t move forward like this and let things come apart behind me and hope to have any decent progress that can be relied on or assumed.
Basically, I need to get my ass kicked, and I’m the only foot in town.
Do not assume their politics are either identical to yours, or that they should be. One snide comment about a Palin 2012 bumpersticker that you saw in the parking lot will demolish any efforts you make to getting people to open up to what they already see as Snob Music. You’re not in the New York coffeehouse anymore. You’re well outside of your own cultural boundaries and must not only be aware of this, but be respectful as well.
If you are doing outreach for classical music, there are a variety of ways this mission can be perceived by an overly eager-beaver missionary to the NASCAR unwashed:
1) You are here to encourage these people, with their very different culture and attitudes, to take classical music to their hearts and make it part of themselves. You are bringing the music to them.
2) You are here to encourage these people to abandon their inferior culture for your better one … and in doing so, take on all of your other wonderful qualities, including your cultural, dietary, and political preferences. You are dragging them to the music, which will not move toward them even one inch.
If you’re doing #2, stop it. The point of doing classical outreach is to encourage people to realize that, even for their love of deep-fried oreos, college football, and conservative politicians, this music belongs to everyone in Western society, and we all have the right to play with it. Every last one of us. Bach belongs to all.
The point is not to communicate your Whole Foods loafers-with-no-socks latte-liberal fabulousness to these people, who surely would be all too eager to drop their grotesque, uncultured lives to become Just Like You. If you approach it that way, as if you’re sneaking in a spoonful of sugar to get them to eat their vegetables and become like you (because really, who wouldn’t want to be just like you?), you will do far more damage to the brand of classical music than you can imagine and should simply stay home.
You’re there to encourage them to play and listen to classical music, not vote Democrat and become a vegetarian Buddhist.
If you don’t know who their favorite musicians already are, stay home. If you think you already know all about that because you read an article in Rich Snob Music Critic magazine three years ago, stay home. If you think REO Speedwagon is stupid — or worse, don’t even know what that means, stay home. If you would be surprised to learn that nearly all of the Unwashed Heathens have guitars or fiddles in every single house, stay home. If you’ve never held up a lighter during a power ballad, stay home. If you think stock cars are stupid, stay home. If you couldn’t choke down a funnel cake to save your life, stay home.
I’m using mostly flyover terminology in this post, but the same goes for the urban working class as well. Never had a pizzelle? Never tailgated a hockey game? Don’t know what a “mummer” is? Stay home. You’re the wrong ambassador, no matter how well-meaning.
None of these things may be part of your own culture, and that’s fine. But I would submit that if you are completely ignorant of and even disrespectful toward the culture of the people you are trying to do outreach toward … you are the wrong person for the job. Because deep down, you don’t really want those people to get their mitts on your music. You want to change them first so they become worthy of your music.
But it isn’t your music, is it?
For my kitty. She’s reached the point where her comfort and contentment are paramount, and what will happen will happen. I’m not heavily motivated to practice but will try to do so, although I will miss this week’s lesson. I pick her up at the vet today — and she won’t have that blasted catheter in her arm anymore — and just keep her content and warm, and very well-loved.
In better times:
No shifting exercises. I’ve gotten out of the habit of doing them. *sigh*
More feline illness issues, unfortunately. Makes it hard to want to practice or to concentrate at all. I’d rather play piano; I don’t have to pay as close attention to noodle around on that.
So I said I would start paying attention to the slurs and bow markings. I wish I knew why I needed to, but the fellow who wrote these melodies, William Fitzpatrick, is quite good and I’ll trust that he marked the bowings the way he did for a reason.
It’s still a giant pain in a part of the body that normally has very little to do with the manipulation of a viola.
I supposed doing something right is always a bit of a pain.
A little tweaking to the hold, and otherwise, it’s not bad. My teacher noticed that my wrist was moving out (toward the scroll) more than it should, but other than that, it’s not bad. I can work with this. It’s a matter of just playing everything I’ve learned up to this point over and over ad nauseum to remap my intonation.
Unfortunately, tonight will not be a practice night since guests will be coming over. I may end up in my bedroom with the bombproof mute on.
