Today I’m recovering from a back injury that happened last week – I’m almost back to normal. So I decided to take advantage of my rest from work and practice to publish a BLOG regarding my progress and while I’m at it, I have a small giveaway to announce for my violin-learning followers.
About 4 days ago I threw out my back, this injury is not violin related by the way, but it does stop me from practicing. It takes a lot of work to sustain myself upright and it stops me from doing most activities. I’m getting better though and I should be able to resume my daily practice routine in a couple more days.
Currently, I’m halfway into my third year of learning the violin. My progress has been slow within the past year and a half. A lot of life events delayed my practice sessions. The good aspect of this is that my violin is always there when I regain a balance in my personal and work life – and when I start up again, it still brings me a great amount of joy. In a nutshell, for most of 2021 I’ve been stuck on “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”. I think I have a tendency to stay on one piece for a long time when I feel that I’m not playing it as clean as possible. Clean meaning – in tune, in rhythm and without any squeaking. I guess I’m working on feeling “natural” when I play it. Another challenge I’m facing with this piece is stamina. The triplets are constant and it’s not a very short piece. When I feel that I get good flow I run into the 8th bar. At the 8th bar, I get swarmed by an incredible amount of accidental notes for the next 3 bars. 
My goodness, it took me a while to adapt. Especially the high C and B notes in the 10th bar (the version I’m learning is the violin 1 part arranged by Stephen Wieloszynski). The last time I practiced this piece I was almost satisfied. I’m currently at a stage where I play with a metronome to train myself to keep it steady. I think when I return to my regular practice routine, I will give this piece another week before I move on to my next challenge.
I still have to learn the third part (Rondo) of Kuchler’s Opus 11, which I predict should not be too challenging, I do want to learn the entire concertino. I’m a bit obsessed in completing everything I start, no matter how long it takes. I’m also going to resume learning Suzuki book 2, my next two pieces are “Hunters Chorus” and a revisit to “Long, Long Ago”. After those two pieces, I plan to learn another concerto, The concerto in B minor, Opus 35 by Oskar Rieding. There’s just so much to do.
Alright, let’s talk vibrato…I can do it…sort of. I’m working on the application step of vibrato. Currently, I can vibrate when I’m set up to vibrate. When I’m playing a song, I’m not quite used to shifting my playing position to apply vibrato. I’m getting much better at it, and as with a lot aspects of violining, I’m trying to make it as natural as possible. I do plan, in the next several weeks, especially after recovering my back to record my third step tutorial for developing vibrato – so if you’re interested check back for that video.
I’m also aware that I’m long over due for learning third position. I have plans to approach that, but…I’m working on other things right now. There’s just so much to do and so little time. Which leads me to my next subject, the tool I obtained for learning third and second position, which is the Finger Finder for violin. I’ve come to find out that this is such a useful tool that compliments your method for learning scales. It really does. It’s a cheat sheet for finding every single note in 1 2 and 3rd position. Currently, I’m using it for finding all my notes in 1st position. It has been essential to adapting all those accidentals I ran into for Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. My next concerto in B minor is all in first position. But, I have not yet practice the B minor scale. Fortunately, I can refer to my Finger Finder by using the first position card. I can slide it to where the window shows the B minor scale’s note locations with indications for all four fingers. Very useful!
I’m not being paid to promote this tool, but it’s been so useful for my self teaching. I bought three extras to give away to three lucky winners. The rules and details regarding this mini raffle is available HERE (click this link to access full contest rules). In a nutshell, in order to enter this giveaway, you will have to visit my YouTube channel through the entry widget below. This will unlock the Gleam form for entry. You will need to provide your name and email. Be aware that I will not be collecting emails for any purpose other than for this contest. I need your email in case you win, that way I have a means for contacting you. Other than that I have no intention of creating a mailing list. I’m just too lazy to do any marketing work – it’s just not my thing.
To enter:
Lady & The Violin – Finger Finder Giveaway
December 1st is the deadline by the way. If you don’t want to wait to have a Finger Finder of your own, you can buy it direct from the creator, Ed Paerlman by clicking this link: Finger Finder for Violin Just a little heads up, the website looks really outdated, but it’s ligit, I purchased a total of four finger finders and I got them delivered without any trouble.
Well that’s it for today. Good luck to everyone who enter the giveaway!
