It's a violin duet. I'm trying to play the 1st violin part, not trying to play both (before anyone asks!).

Today I listened to someone (who is a diploma level violin player) playing something from Bach (don't ask what, I've forgotten!) and in this piece it REALLY does sound like there is 2 different violins playing! I turned around and looked everywhere but I could only see ONE player apparently later in the piece it sounds like there is THREE violins playing (all done by same violin!) there's me thinking I can play that one day!

You probably will be able to one day.

The piece I'm doing is by Pleyel not Pleydel. It's A5 on the syllabus.

My fingers are sore now.

It's starting to sound a bit more like a piece of music now, but there's an awfully long way to go before it will sound even vaugely reasonable. I am absolutely determined to get it to sound right.

Lesson number 3 yesterday. Managed a little tune using 2 strings rather than just on the D string. OK so my additional note was only open A but I managed to play it in context without too much squawking and hitting of the other other strings with the bow.

I think this is progress

Next lesson I'm moving on to fingers on the A string too. Heaven help my poor neighbours

Must say I'm really enjoying playing although I doubt I'll ever make a concert violinist

Lois

I'm pretty sure it's progress. Well done!

Now I've made my forum 'cello début, are you planning your forum violin début somewhere?

er yes. Stalybridge 2020 for my rendition of three blind mice I think

Hmm. I'm going to read that as a typo, Lois. You mean Stalybridge 2010 for some nice pieces. you'll progress quite quickly with your background, so you will easily be ready to do grade 2-3 music for Stalybridge this year.

*makes mental note to bring spare fiddle to Teddington *

I think you'll be more than ready sometime in 2010, lois. I managed to make my forum 'cello début this February, having started at the end of September, I'm sure you'll be more than capable of playing violin to the forum populace sometime during the course of this year.



You, kj, are a bad influence...

Don't you dare

Using the 4th finger is really beginning to stress me out it seemed to be getting better over time, and all of a sudden it's just crumbled away into not ever being in tune just had a pretty bad lesson so I think I'm putting a negative spin on everything, but I'm very aware that the exams are sooon

I might just use it too! I've been having a couple of sneaky goes on kj's spare fiddle and I'm beginning to get hooked.

Oh dear...

W

Careful. It's addictive.

...well if it becomes habitual, I now only live a stones throw from you

The Pleyel's still hard. The first part is okayish now, but I've moved on to trying to do the rest of it.

Edit: on a positive note, my old grade 3 pieces now seem easy in comparison.

I have now mastered twinkle twinkle little star

Learnt another couple of notes yesterday and am now up to the grand total of 9 notes!

Need to work on my bowing technique dramatically though. I just can't seem to stop moving the bow all over the place. It will come with time though. I also play every note with my first finger sharp, I know (and can certainly hear) I'm doing it but need to get it into my head to stop doing it! God help me when teach finally removes all the stickers showing me where to put my fingers

Lois

for progress! you'll be surprised how quickly you can commit the notes to muscle memory, I had a sticker on my violin showing me where the first finger should go-my teacher took it off at the start of the lesson without me noticing and I didn't realise until after she'd gone home, you get used to it pretty quickly one thing that helps fantastically with bowing technique is bowing in front of a mirror-I always found it really difficult to tell when my bowing was going wonky and doing it really really slowly in front of a mirror helped me sort it out (not that my bowing's even approaching good yet! )

I want my violin, but she's at home. I got the grade 4 book on Friday and have fallen totally in love with one of the pieces. I can't play it yet though, but I really, really want to be able to.

which piece is this? I have the grade 4 book

It's called Andante Cantible (or somehing similar) - I think it's no A2, but not 100% sure. It is absolutely beautiful.

thank you, will have a listen to it and have a go, now that I am 'getting rid' of the 'exam burden' this thursday, I can start exploring and having fun and why not try this piece out, maybe i can practice my vibrato on it?
hope you get reunited with your violin soon!!!!

ps how come your violin is 'not home'? has it 'run away'? been 'kidnapped'?? hope its nothing too serious!

Has it eloped with the neighbours cello?

If you look again, I said that she's "at home". I'm at work, and my violin is at home, and therefore I can't play her now eventhough I want to.

ok, I get it now, that'll teach me to read properly next time
oh well, then it's good news, a few hours and you shall be together again

This seems a good place to put it : best of luck for your violin exam tomorrow jojo!

Well, I'm allowed to do the piece. My teacher hasn't done it with anyone before, because she says it's nearly a grade 5 piece, but she's happy to do it with me.

Hope tomorrow goes well Jo.

I'm really 'excited' for you and your new piece you will learn
I'm going to learn new things too from this saturday: Meditation from Thais (PROPERLY this time, not like I did 2 years ago!) and the Bach double concerto in D minor

thanks for your best wishes for tomorrow, I'll be fine

Both of these pieces are probably grade 7, a big jump from grade 5.

are they? I didn't think of that I have to be honest, I asked my teacher if I could learn the Bach Double not knowing its difficulty and whether he thought I could do it ok enough and he said yes, then I gave him a list of various music I have at home and he picked Meditation out of it....
I never thought of asking him their graded difficulty, I assumed that because he said we will do them that they are achievable to me in the very near future.....
when I see him saturday I will ask him: are you sure I am ready to learn these pieces?

by the way, meditation is included in a book I bought 2 years ago for a grade 3 piece (canon) and it's not even a simplified version.... so I assumed (wrongly) that it was not as high as grade 7...I didn't stop to think what 'grade' it could be....


ps for anyone who would like to read my 'report' on my exam yesterday please see the thread 'session a exams' in the adult learners forum, thank you

Well done for yesterday Jo, sounds like the girl did good!

Enjoy your new pieces, they are lovely - your teacher obviously thinks you are up to it, so have fun!

well, I had a GREAT lesson today this smiley does not have a smile big enough to show how I feel today about my lesson
I started on new sevcik exercises, from book 8, exercise n.8 for now I have to work on G and E strings only I was told
we did more shifting work on one string and also on Kreutzer 11 which we approached before but we brought it back to life a bit
then started on Meditation which my teacher confirmed it's a 'perfect' piece to be working on next (his words), so I take 'comfort' in knowing it's the right piece to learn I had a good chat with teacher and explained I am more than happy to do anything he thinks most appropriate, we don't have to do the Meditation and I can buy new music without any problems but he wanted to go back to the Meditation, so ok, we started on that! I love that piece
I thought I had my best lesson with teacher 3 weeks ago but today it beats 3 weeks ago by far, we had a giggle, we worked hard, he said 'I must say: your intonation is improving' and it was just such fun. I think psychologically the exam looming was putting a huge amount of tension in the air, mainly in me but maybe also in him too...so it's nice now to 'have a break' from that

Sounds brilliant! Its great when you come back from a lesson all jazzed up about where you're going next. It sounds like you have a great working relationship with him.... the perfect teacher for you!

Another one with a great lesson

Managed to play 2 little tunes from my book reasonably well sight reading. I've got quite a few tunes to be working on for my next lesson which is in 3 weeks cos teach is away

I feel like I have made much better progress this last couple of weeks, things have started to come together, my bowing is much better and my LH finger control. I'm not playing so sharp and I've been trying not to look at my fingers so much, I've also stopped hurting too. Still quite a few bad habits to get out of though (the main one being sticking my middle finger out on my bowing hand, looks a bit rude )

Today I looked at my violin at the end of the lesson and thought I may just be able to play this thing afterall.

I love my violin

Lois

I haven't had a lesson for a while but I've been practicing and I'm starting to get better. I can play 1 grade 2 piece that is starting to sound alright now and my grade 1 pieces are going along ok. I'm looking forward to my first lesson in 6ish months on thursday.

for progress have you taken/planning on taking grade 1, Terra? Good luck with your lesson

Sounds like your doing great! enjoy your lessons.

Flossie, have you started on the piece you 'love' yet? enjoying every minute of the lerning phase? hope so

I haven't been able to touch a viola for months, so I dread to think what my playing would sound like these days....

Hi Elisabeth, you've not been here for a while! I hope all is well - when do you think you'll be able to start playing again?
N

Hiya N! No, I've not been on-forum for a while as I haven't done anything musical since the day we left the UK, other than having a quick go (ie embarrassing myself) on a couple of violas in shops here.

I daresay that I won't get back to viola learning until I'm back in the UK at the end of this year, but you never know. I keep meaning to e-mail a bloke about rental of a 2nd hand instrument that he mentioned, but then I think that I don't really have time. I'm beginning to think I rather need it though, esp as I've come to the conclusion that I mostly keep up my other hobby - embroidery - these days mostly to have something to show my blog readers, which is a bit daft! So, I might finish the two pieces I'm working on and turn to something else for a while instead, until the genuine desire comes back.

We'll see.... (I should adopt this as my motto!! )

Other than that, I'm getting sick of Chinese classes although they're going OK and I've been maintaining the needed grades to keep my funding. Trouble is, you only get a few days off between 11.5 week terms, up to 10 days at most and it gets wearing. OK for the early 20's that make up the bulk of the students at the Mandarin Training Center, but at nearing 40 and a bit of a wreck anyway, I feel it gets to me at times.

P'raps I will go for the viola after all

Hi Elisabeth!

oh I hope you DO get back to viola soon.....
and if you don't please still be our friend and come and post here

see how much your thread is growing?

Just gate-crashing your thread to say hello and nice to see you again! Hope everything's OK with you

Hey Skyers! Good to 'see' you.

I'm surviving, just stuck home (when possible thanks to gruelling class schedule and needing to get 80% on everything) with the late stages of tonsillitis at the mo. Might be feeling less sorry for myself in a few days. Oh, how I want some chocolate, but I don't want to get dressed again and then have to go all the way down the stairs and out to the 7-11 for some....

Hope you're feeling better soon, Elisabeth

So do I, thank you Fran.

Just thought I'd post on my violin lesson. I found a new teacher and I went for my trial lesson on thursday. She was really good. I really like her teaching style. Instead of telling you 'do this, do that' she actually explained the reason behind why you should do something. She also writes notes up and emails them to you so you can practice over the week and remember what you need to work on.

I'm working on my bow hold and positioning. Scales and pieces. I'm currently working on my grade 1 repitoir but I'm starting some grade 2 pieces as well. Hope everyone else is doing well

I genrally had a really good lesson and am off to go and practice now.
.xx

Lesson four on Thursday was really good. Played through the stuff I'd been set and got some very positive comments. Then out came the grade one book! Teacher must have seen my expression of terror though because she decided to do some work on a Kinsey study, fourth finger exercise and a short piece from the tutor book instead Looking forward to next weeks lesson already.