It’s a small world – The Occasional Violinist 8

I had a small world moment recently. I have a recording of a beloved piece, Ralph Vaughan WIlliams ‘The Lark Ascending.’ I performed this piece in my senior recital at university in Mississippi, nearly 15 years ago now. I worked on it for a year, had it memorised back to front by the end of it, and had spent hours listening to the recording. I grew to love that soloist’s interpretation but never bothered with finding out much about the performers as they weren’t household names and I guess I was just focused on my recital.

Lo and behold, The Lark Ascending came up on shuffle on my iPod recently and I smiled to myself, reminiscing about how much I still love the piece and had a look at the performers out of curiousity. And the soloist’s name was very familiar…

It was the same name as the conductor of my symphony orchestra who is also a professional violinist. His name isn’t super common and the orchestra on the recording was in the right region of the UK.

And I thought, really can it be? Well with a bit of internet detective work, I found that, yes, yes it can.

So I am now playing under the baton of the same violinist who is the ‘voice’ on my much loved and listened to Naxos recording of Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending. I haven’t plucked up the courage to tell him or even properly introduce myself yet but maybe someday!

It really is a small world.

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!

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.

Back in the saddle – The Occasional Violinist 1

I rejoined my symphony orchestra recently. Other than a one off with my baroque group, this was my first rehearsal post-Covid. Writing this just back from second rehearsal with a strong feeling of deja vu. I remember sitting in college orchestra at 18 years old, absolute deer in the headlights and just hanging on for dear life. It felt like everyone else had a hidden wellspring of skill at sight reading and counting and general musicianship. It took years to build my skills and the confidence that I belonged.

And I’m right back there again as a mid-30s mother of two.

I clawed my way up back then at university and now it feels like I’m starting at square one – maybe square 1.5 – again. I feel regret and also resentment at the very valid reasons why I haven’t maintained my music skills. And if I’m honest they really started declining once I left that wonderful, intense pressure cooker that is music school (decline then hit warp speed after son 1). Rehearsing, practicing, learning all the time. It was turbulent but honestly some of the best years of my life. 

So I’m jumping back in. My practice routine is: carve out 30 minutes during nap time (once a week) and I’ll open the case and have a bash through. I used to practice mutiple hours 6 days a week. But I’ve got to start somewhere.

P.S. Also jumping back into blogging, so welcome back and thanks for reading!