Today was my second violin lesson. My, how the time flew! I was pleased that my practice on open strings had paid off, as I was able to demonstrate a much better and more consistent sound than last week.<\/p>\n
We did a bunch of string-crossing exercises, which involve switching between the four strings without any messy intermediate noises or scritches from the bow. This requires decoupling the sweeping bowing motion from the angle at which you hold your arm, when intuitively your body wants to do it all together in one fluid movement. Therefore, you have to practice by bowing on one string, stopping, changing the arm angle, then bowing again, etc. It’s definitely baby steps, but I can already see that it’s the right path to increased control.<\/p>\n
One of the most unexpectedly fun parts of this lesson was playing with<\/em> another person. We played G-D-A-E-A-D-G which is about as boring as it gets, and it was still fun, making music together.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Right at the end of the lesson, my teacher (re-)introduced me to fingering. I now get to practice playing G-A, D-E, A-B, and E-F#. That is, going from an open string to a whole step up by dropping my index finger down at the magic spot on the fingerboard. This is all sorts of stressful. For some reason, mechanically executing bowing and arm position is fine, but when I now need the ability to not only hear the right pitch but be able to reproduce it, I freeze up. I think in my head the ability to hear and interpret pitch seems like this magical skill to see the invisible<\/em> that some people have and some don’t. Intimidating! I’ll have to work on giving myself permission to be horribly out of tune and gradually work up to in-tune.<\/p>\n