New Year, new page.
2022-09-05
- time to get back on the practice
- took a 3 tune class with Jenna Reid
- Talked with A, going to get back onto my Schradiek practice
- Try to get 4th finger working better
2022-02-12 - week and lessons, approx 3 hours of playtime
- reviewed Jenna Reid's music from past lessons.
- I really should get into Jenna's classes more often, they are always incredibly emotive, informative, and really fun!
2022-01-31 - 90 min
- seems my practices are running longer this year
- started with restoring my old fiddle that was gifted to me by my grandparents, who are both now gone, back into octave tuning
- this fiddle comes alive in octave tuning
- from there, it's a matter of going through the rounds
- A Prayerful Hymn on Octave, first and second parts. To get this to recording quality I need to get used to the way the strings work again
- back to regular fiddle
- Standard - almost all blue book tunes
- then I went on a whirlwind of tunings
- High bass - ADAE for Buck Creek Girls
- Cross A - AEAE for the Willowy tune
- Cross G - GDGD for Sail All Night
- and then back to standard GDAE
- It was a good practice
- Starting to get to know my fiddles again, starting to understand what it is I'm trying to do, what I still have yet to learn.
- learning how to push and pull back on the fiddles to find a range of playing
2022-01-29 - 1.5 hours, including break and lesson
It took until nearly a whole month into the new year for me to have a true practice session. I went through the tunes we are learning for group class (Flowers of Algernon, Whisky before Breakfast) and also the slow air Margaret Ann Robertson's, as well as reading Salve from sheet music, and a read through of O Magnum Mystereum.
I often wonder what it is that I'm looking for, why do I play? And the answer is in this music. In Margaret Ann Robertson's there is peace and the music is asking me to slow down and to feel deeper. In O Magnum Mystereum, the music is challenging my technical skills as well as the ability to build intensity from the very small to the extreme large scope.
I think this year, I have a few goals:
- build my vibrato. The sound of vibrato, I need to start cultivating my vibrato and start getting more confident in how and when to start the pulse
- higher positions, positions 2,3,4,5. With Aj I learned 3rd and a tiny bit of 4th position, but I'd like to get to know all the positions better
- build repretoire. Learn the greats, be able to pull out and play the great tunes and be ready to fit in with a group
That's three goals and I think that's plenty. In each of them, there's a year's worth of work, so in actuality, I'm trying to jam 3 years into one but I'm up for the challenge.
In terms of Hardanger Goals, I'm still in the first steps
- get the hardanger to ring (this happens from time to time, and when it does it's unexpected and beautiful).
- learn bow pulsing
- rebuild my left hand technique for the hardanger - my teacher keeps telling me my thumb is too high up on the neck. I'll keep an eye on that and bring it down.
That's about 1 year of goals for the hardanger.
so that's 3 fiddle goals, and 3 hardanger goals, combining into 4 player-year's worth of work. I've got a busy year ahead of me!
- 30 min hardanger evening
- I feel like the hardanger really likes this Vancouver coastal weather - back in toronto the fiddle was closed and tight, now it's opening up. it totally makes sense, given that it's birthplace was close to salt water in the Scandinavian north
- much more to learn about this instrument and the bow that I inherited from a long long past.