Moms trying to practice – The Occasional Violinist 9

This one’s a bit of fun! Moms trying to practice be like:

My violin case…

“Mommy’s going to practice, ok?”

“I’ll just tidy up a bit first…”

“My kid’s napping but I forgot my sheet music in their room…”

Enharmonic notes / ledger lines / key signatures with more than 3 sharps or flats / asymmetric meters

Practice session achieved 🙂

Motivation – The Occasional Violinist 7

I’ve been thinking about motivation recently.

The author Brandon Sanderson talks about internal vs external motivation. He uses word counts like a competition with himself, and incorporates progress bars as the carrot/stick to motivate his writing.

This got me thinking as I’d always considered myself a very internally motivated, gung ho, go get ’em personality. But upon reflection I realised looking back, especially with music, I pushed myself and improved mostly with the help of external motivaters.

Lessons, concerts, performances. It all gave me that push to practice, prepare and put in the hours. It still does, and even more so as I have more time constraints and things to gobble up my time nowadays.

Of course there is an internal aspect to musicianship as well. You can’t spend hours in a practice room alone without some internal motivation as well (good practice techniques also needed). Only perfect practice makes perfect as my old department chair said.

So I developed my perhaps natural internal motivation into a high discipline level which I think classical music training is good at doing. These days though, the Occasional Violinist needs a dose of sheer terror (upcoming rehearsal) to get motivated!

In other news, I got to do some saltando bowing (richochet bow technique) at rehearsal this week which was fun and totally impossible with a Baroque violin bow!

Metaphorical calluses? – The Occasional Violinist 6

Violinist life update: calluses. I’m currently getting re-callused on my left hand. I also forgot about the weird one from the fine tuner as well. And going into high positions…oh dear. It’s uncomfortable and distracting to say the least, but as I keep saying on this journey, you’ve got to start somewhere.

So taking the callus idea a bit further, what about mental or emotional calluses? I certainly found in my former life as a music student and professional violinist, my nerves got gradually worn down and confidence built up by frequent performing. Those calluses will need rebuilding too. And I know there aren’t any shortcuts. It’s putting in the hours and hard graft. You have to expect some failures and mistakes. This is where you learn to pick yourself and dust yourself off and turn up again the next day.

Granted playing in an orchestra requires a much lower level of ‘metaphorical’ callus than solo performances, which I have no desire to do at present!

Strangely enough I’ve found the skills I developed through performing and being on stage have helped me in my day job which involves delivering and supporting live training.

Thanks for reading and please share your thoughts in the comments.

I’m going to regret this in the morning – The Occasional Violinist 5

I’m going to regret this in the morning.

This thought usually occurs to me at some point on a Monday (rehearsal day). Rehearsal finishes at about 10pm. Every other night I’m usually tucked in bed by that time. I also am guaranteed to get woken in the night by various family members several nights of the week. So sleep deprivation and tiredness continues for me despite being beyond the baby phase. Therefore I value sleep and am trying to maintain a good bedtime routine. Then rehearsals come along and throw a spanner in the work. Don’t even get me started on how wound up/energised/hungry I am upon arriving home after rehearsal.

So regret the next day, and anticipating the regret is a real thing.

I choose to soldier on because I know I’ll enjoy the music-making and it’s good for me.

Postscript – Welcome back. I drafted this back in May so I’m a bit behind on my ‘publishing schedule’! I published four posts in the series so far, and have four more in drafts. So there’s plenty of ideas but I struggle with carving out the time and energy to execute. I think that just about sums up my life currently. HOWEVER, WordPress has a ‘schedule post’ feature now, so I will be utilising that to work smarter not harder.

My big, loud orchestra – The Occasional Violinist 3

I played in a Baroque chamber orchestra for 10 years. Loved every minute for the most part and got to play with some early music legends. The repertoire is lovely – the Baroque period is roughly 1600-1750, think Bach, Vivaldi and Handel. It also suits my playing. So it’s a bit of a shock – an earthquake – returning to a mainstream symphony orchestra again. Or as I describe it to my son – my big, loud orchestra.

It’s concert week so we had additional brass and percussion coming out the woodworks at rehearsal last night. It was most certainly big and loud. I was contemplating ear plugs.

The orchestra repertoire goes through to modern day. As such it includes lots of weird stuff that I just haven’t seen or had to deal with in years. Atonal, chromatic passages, accidentals, key signatures with more than 4 sharps/flats and All. The. Time signatures. I figure it’s good for my brain. Also weird bowings! Baroque music is all about gesture and nuance (bowing is integral to that), so I really don’t get mainstream bowing anymore.

We’re playing Sibelius Symphony no 2. Talk about drama! It’s wonderful.

Sorry for the geek out post.