|
|
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
Recently Sylvia has been learning how to play with her second finger in the low position, mostly in the interests of playing songs in the key of G; her orchestra director and I have both been showing her how to play the second octave of the G scale and she's pretty interested in it. Well tonight we were working on "Etude", which I guess is the first song in Suzuki that uses that position, and she was spending a lot of time on getting it to sound right; then she said she wanted to play something for me, and did "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," in A, using a low second finger -- awesome, she just discovered minor keys! So I showed her how to play with a low first finger, and she could do the whole song in A minor.
posted evening of October 24th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Fiddling
|  |
|
I heard this song playing in the restaurant where I was having lunch today and I thought it was fantastic.
posted afternoon of October 24th, 2007: Respond
|  |
Sunday, October 14th, 2007
Bob and I went over to Menzel Violins in Livingston today and listened to Eugene Chrysler's band. Great stuff -- Skip, playing the pedal steel, was just phenomenal, and the other musicians were excellent too. Unfortunately no fiddler was with them.
posted evening of October 14th, 2007: Respond
|  |
Saturday, October 13th, 2007
Janis and Bob and I have been jamming together for about 4 years now; today we are playing our first actual gig! At the Meeker St. block party, starting in about an hour. Exciting, we have a set list and everything!
posted morning of October 13th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Jamming with friends
|  |
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
Sylvia is really interested in transposing music. Today we were working on Andantino, she was playing it in in G, D, and A, moving back and forth -- we were only doing the first half of the song, which is all on two strings, so she was able to do this without moving out of first position. It's pretty neat to watch, like she just discovered you could do that -- I think influenced by watching me play violin tunes on the viola -- anyway it seems like it will be a really good way of building her musical ear.
posted evening of October 10th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Sylvia
|  |
Monday, October first, 2007
One thing the sheet music for Farewell to Peter does not include, is the fiddly bits that you hear when you listen to Natalie MacMaster playing it -- grace notes, trills, etc.. I've been trying to get some of these going on, and having a little success with it; but more success when I am not looking at the sheet music.
posted morning of October first, 2007: Respond
| |
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
Playing that viola feels like having an organ on your shoulder! (No, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter.) -- Tonight I played all of Farewell to Peter, which I have played bits and pieces of but never the whole thing. My music reading is getting better -- playing "the whole thing" meant being able to distinguish the slight differences in the repetitions of the theme, based on their representation on paper. I was transposing from F down to B♭, because I was reading the music as if I were playing a violin -- i.e. where I read notation for "A", I was playing D. This is way easier than it sounds. I should probably figure out how to read viola music straight at some point. Update: Hmm... apparently learning to read viola music straight is going to involve accustoming myself to a new clef. May possibly never happen. ...and Later: Well, I bought a book of music in alto clef today -- 6 Suites for solo viola, by J.S. Bach. Wonder if this will go anywhere.
posted evening of September 30th, 2007: Respond
|  |
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Last week I bought a viola on an impulse. I was at the violin store for supplies and decided whimsically to look at the violas; and it turned out they had a very cheap student model which sounded pretty nice when I played it. And, well, I've been wanting to play viola for a long time now, and it turns out that was a good thing to want -- playing it is absolutely addictive. It seems to have taken me outside the habits I had fallen into on my violin and is allowing me to come up with a lot of interesting improvisational stuff. Bob and Janis came over to practice this afternoon. (How exactly is the viola jarring me out of my melodic habits? Well there is the change in tone obviously; also the finger positions are very slightly wider-spaced, enough so that I need to pay attention to where my fingers are falling. And, I didn't buy a shoulder rest for it; so my head position is a lot different and it rests differently on my shoulder and my wrist. All this together is enough to make it difficult to play just like I'm used to playing.) (What is it that makes it feel so rewarding to produce sound on the viola, makes it so difficult to put the instrument down once I'm playing? Well the instrument is just so damn resonant, notes will ring a long time from a light application of the bow. Of course there is the simple novelty of it, and the feeling of having waited a long time for it. And somehow the feeling of playing in that lower register just makes me want to keep on playing.)
posted evening of September 29th, 2007: Respond
| |
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
Patsy Cline, is who. I would love to hear Robyn cover some of her songs, maybe especially "Heartache".
posted afternoon of September 23rd, 2007: Respond
| |
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
The Apostropher has posted a mix tape that is better than good. Dig that Al Green.
posted afternoon of September 9th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Mix tapes
| Previous posts about Music
Archives  | |
|
Drop me a line! or, sign my Guestbook.
•
Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
| |
