Even if it's completely useless

Violin: So despite the problems I had this week that are discussed below, I've made some interesting insights. As I continue to work on arm weight and using direction and keeping my fingers loose, I have discovered the importance of sounding points. This was something that my old teacher talked a lot about, and I know it's "important" but I never really grasped it myself. I think now that I am relaxed enough to let the sound open up, the difference between certain places on the string makes an very audible difference. Also, I have to make sure to keep the arm weight going at the ends of bows, so that the sound sustains and carries over to the next bow. To find the arm weight, it seems to help to think about using the whole arm, so that my upper arm doesn't get "stuck." Using direction helps keep the fingers loose. Playing fast sixteenth notes is still uncomfortable sometimes, and I'm not sure what I need to do to fix it. I also discovered this week that I have paid a price for not using a metronome in my last few weeks of practicing - my tempos were fluctuating a lot, and hearing the metronome helps in filling out beats when there are fast notes, and in finding the phrase. I've also been working on hearing the larger picture as I play, which means that I try to keep in my ear what I just played, and adjust the next part accordingly. Doing this exposes intonation problems, phrase problems, sound issues, and all sorts of things. It is like recording yourself and listening to it, without having to actually record. I have to do that more often.

Life: As is clear from the interval of time between this post and the last, I got a little lazy this week. Mostly it was due to my descent into TVGA, which sounds like a fancy monitor, but actually stands for temporary video game addiction. During this period of time, my practicing went down the tubes and self-esteem was ravaged. But I was able to come through alive, having beaten the game, and now I can slowly resume my industrious way of life. Until the infamous revenge...of TVGA.

Practice Time: 2.5 hours + .5 hour rehearsal

Something...anything...please

Violin: Well after that practicing marathon last week I tripped over some video games and spent two days recovering. Hence the lack of a post yesterday. But today I got in a few hours, so here's the deal. I've extended the new idea about relaxed muscles, i.e. paying attention to both the ones that expand and the ones that contract to my upper and low arm, with miraculous results. I finally feel like I have a little bit of control at the frog, something which seemed nearly an impossible feat a few months ago. Combining this with direction and arm weight as usual makes things comfortable and have a big sound. Or at least, relatively big compared to before. That is, my old teacher would be like holy crap. On the downside, doing all those things at once is a pain in the ass. I feel like going back to Wholfhart (which I did last year, with limited results) just so I can work this new stuff out on nice basic material. Putting it right into the Mozart is kind of tricky. But it is coming. My left hand has had to catch up, as it were, by remembering to keep my wrist straight, and to think about the up part of the vibrato instead of just the down part. And keeping all the fingers loose is essential. I hope when my teacher returns next week after being gone for an entire month that he doesn't politely inform me that I've practiced myself into corner. I don't think I have. I think things are getting better.

Life: Well, as mentioned, I sucked at life for the duration of yesterday and today. Video games and socializing and sleeping and doing dishes and cross-dressing. Well, I did do some research for my upcoming Prokofiev paper, and found some really interesting stuff about Soviet music and culture and discussions of Prokofiev's music. I'm getting the impression that his music seems unusually absent from many theoretical works by western writers. I can't tell whether this is because his music just isn't as highly regarded as Stravinsky or Scriabin or Milhaud or whoever else or whether it is just because there wasn't as much appreciation for it until recently. As soon as I found some russian books, they were full of Prokofiev. I suppose more light will be shed on this issue as time goes on. In other news, I have to practice more.

Practice Time: 1.5 hours + 1 hour rehearsal

Soon someone will care, right?

Violin: More fingers and arm weight and direction today. I made several interesting discoveries, however. First, I found that to effect better bow changes, it helped to continue moving the bow in the old direction with the fingers, while beginning to move the opposite direction with the hand and letting the fingers and bow follow. This enable smooth transitions from one direction to the other, and made it easier for me to maintain arm weight through the change, making a better sound at the beginnings of notes. The ease with which I tighten up my first finger and parts of the other fingers is absolutely infuriating, however. How long will it take before the old stuff is out of my system? Hopefully no longer than it takes weed to do the same thing. I think my years of clicking a mouse, especially during high intensity video games has not helped in establishing a relaxed index finger. Second, in trying to work out passages that alternate between on- and off-the-string I was reminded of my old teachers comments about stroke transitions, something I don't thing I was ever ready to deal with when I was studying with him. Basically I found that I needed to alternate between a suspended stroke for the off stuff and an arm weight stroke when the on came back. Figuring out how to go from suspended to weighted proved an interesting task. Third, near the end of my practicing I had the idea of imagining I was in the competition (as I will be in a week) and seeing what happened. As might be expected, places that were not totally comfortable and had not been carefully polished stuck out like big bumps on the road. But this was good, as it gave me a clear indication of what I needed to fix. I will continue this sort of practicing tomorrow.

Life: Read more about Prokofiev. I'm not sure if I can finish this enormous 500-page biography that I am reading, but learning about Prokofiev's work ethic and industry gives me inspiration. At my current rate of reading I still have 12 or 13 hours to go though. Tried a new practicing technique, in which I did 1.25 or 1.5 hour segments at a time instead of just 1 hour. It didn't make the fifth hour any easier though. Oh well.

Practice Time: 5 hours (5+ hrs. streak Day 6)

And it wears me out

Violin: I'm not sure where to start. Today I worked on a whole bunch of things, trying to make it all happen at once. Keeping my fingers relaxed remained a top priority, as I found new little muscle groups to pay attention to. I started to see whether I could add the ring finger to the first and second, but I think that added too many muscles for me to deal with. Integrating arm weight into everything was second on the list, followed by direction and a good vibrato. When I had all of these pieces going together, I really liked what I sounded like, and I could use my ear to make decisions about phrasing and articulation and sound and all that kind of wonderful musical stuff. But of course, if I got to carried away, I would very easily fall back into old habits, especially while rehearsing with my pianist. Sometimes I noticed that if I tried to feel like the bow was part of my arm, like if you tied a string to your fingers and waved it around, that it would help me articulate fast notes, and help in finding that relaxed finger feeling I was so desperate to establish. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to do that and use arm weight at the same time. In any case, I had the first sensation ever that I might be coming close to outplaying my violin. I could be totally wrong, but something made me feel like that today. If it's true, it is both bad and good. I better start saving though, that's for sure.

Life: Read a lot more about Prokofiev. Found my old teachers new textbook on Sonata Theory in the music library, and it was amazing to see all the things he used to teach us in print in a big new shiny book. I was inspired to look for it after the teacher of my history class identified a section of Haydn's symphony no. 104 as part of the secondary zone when I felt almost sure it was part of the closing zone. This was just one analytical decision in a long list of many that she has presented that I have problems with. Of course, analyzing music is always open to interpretation, but if I am ever right, I feel sorry for the rest of the class who are learning the wrong things. Oh well.

Practice Time: 5 hours + 1 hour rehearsal (5+ hrs. streak Day 5)

And ignorance is bliss

Violin: Well, no epiphanies today. Just worked for hours on trudging through the whole concerto while keeping my finger muscles loose. It was quite difficult. However, when I was able to do it, I found that using direction and arm weight was immediately helpful if not necessary to maintaining comfort and creating a good sound. Direction helped in keeping the fingers relaxed, as it required the initial motion to come from the hand and not the fingers, and it kept the rest of the arm loose as well. Arm weight, now that my fingers let it be effective, gave me a sound I started to like. Today I had much more of a sense of working on the music and using my ear, instead of constantly thinking about the physicalities of playing. As I started to make better sounds with my right arm, however, I instantly noticed problems with the left. There haven't been any left hand developments in a while, but there were today. I noticed that raising my thumb up a little so that the neck rested more on the joint instead of the pad allowed more control of my fingers and a wider, faster, looser vibrato. Mostly I found that I had to make sure every finger that I put down was strong and relaxed enough to vibrate, and that all the other fingers that weren't being used were free of tension. These improvements made many passages much more comfortable to play. I can't wait to see what aspects of all these left and right hand developments are totally wrong.

Life: Saw a little bit of the Horse Whisperer. Scarlet Johansson as a 14-year-old is not quite as hot as, say, natalie portman in Leon, but it also made me realize how messed up Lost in Translation is. I mean, Murray hooking up with Johansson is like my dad and my younger sister. That's whack. And also hot.

Practice Time: 5 hours (5+ hrs. streak Day 4)

But are there enough days

Violin: Today was one of those days where you feel like you "figured everything out" but in reality you know that the next day probably won't be any easier. What I feel I figured out is how to play with relaxed fingers. It seems that it all had to do with the muscles in my fingers, which I wasn't allowing to either expand or contract as necessary. The muscles that both raise and lower my first and second fingers were found to provide much flexibility while bowing if properly controlled. I believe that my discovery yesterday dealt with the muscles that close the hand, and today and became concious of the the ones that open it. I also believe that my connection work somehow tapped into the opening muscles, which then led to tension in the un-looked-after closing muscles. This is so terribly scientific I feel like a doctor. The words of one teacher I knew keep ringing in my head, who said that one should focus on simplicity in violin and on establishing the basics and the fundamentals by which one would become a better player. Well, I think I will come to that eventually, but it is easy for someone to tell you to keep it simple who doesn't have a bunch of ridiculously complicated tension issues going on all the time. If what I figured out today proves to be true, I will have outdone all my previous teachers in terms of what they were able to tell me about how to fix my playing. At least in this regard. The technique I developed today was one in which my first and middle fingers held the bow, and the ring and pinky only became involved when the bow needed to be suspended above the string. In this way I was able to play amazingly comfortably when I remembered to keep those two sets of muscles relaxed and accepting of any pull of the hand. Of course, with this new look came various pains in the wrist and arm, which I have felt before. I am not worried though, for I have dealt with these things before and they have never been to serious. If I can keep my fingers relaxed, direction and arm-weight will reign supreme. Chicken Supreme.

Life: Made some absolutely delicious spinach pasta. Can't wait to eat it for dinner for the next two days. Read more of Robinson's biography of Prokofiev. Turns out he was a spoiled only child who was just as interested in copying out train schedules as he was in composing. And I think if appraised in modern terminology he would be a total nerd. Anyway, for some reason I find it very interesting reading, even though I have never been drawn to this sort of literature before. I got all excited about the prospect of learning one of his concertos when I am done with this blasted Mozart. And I wish my ear would stop itching.

Practice Time: 5 hrs. (5+ hrs. streak Day 3)

Who knows what it will be

Violin: Today was an interesting day. I started out planning on continuing the development of connections in my bow arm, but, as the few previous days have been, progress felt slow, and it was a while before I felt that I was playing comfortably. Also, the amount of concentration I have to exert to keep all the different parts in control began to be tiresome. I worked on integrating the shoulder, and tried to see if I could play any passages up to tempo. Unfortunately, when I tried this, there were immediately many problems. I couldn't retain the "connection" idea when I was playing quickly, and many little bumps that went unnoticed while playing slowly suddenly jumped out. It was rather depressing. However, near the end of my practicing, I made a possibly vital insight. I believe that the cause of my stiff knuckles is actually a result of a lot of tension in the muscles of my fingers. The fleshy parts of my digits I found to be places full of tightness that was relatively easily released. This produced a similar and possibly better effect than the one I had felt when establishing connection between my knuckles and elbow. And it made me think - what moves things are the muscles, and if something is stiff, it must be that muscles are not allowing it to move. I don't think you can having simply stiff knuckles. What is there to be stiff about them? My teacher was always telling me to keep my knuckles down, but I think that clouded the issue. The last hour or so of my practicing was devoted to testing this new hypothesis, and it was found to be extremely helpful. It was also a welcome change from constantly trying to focus on this vague and intangible idea of connectedness. Combining this relaxed fingers idea with arm weight made for some actually enjoyable practicing.

Life: I started reading about the life of Prokofiev in preparation for a possible research paper on one of his symphonies. It is always a little difficult reading about great musicians, for the obvious reasons. I am excited to begin analyzing his work, however, as it seems there is a dearth of scholarship relating directly to his symphonies. I find this unlikely, and I hope I can find some sort of analysis or theoretical studies, but I've found nothing yet. It's not like he's that good or anything...

Practice Time: 5 hours (5+ hrs. streak Day 2)

I hope it doesn't get old

Violin: So I think today was like Connection Monday. As I worked a relaxed hand frame into more and more music, I began to find a lot more little discomforts which I then tried to smooth out by trying to connect and integrate various parts of my arm. I got better at moving all the joints together, and all the bones together, but couldn't really mix the two of them. As soon as I concentrated on my palm and arm, my knuckles lost their flexibility. And if my knuckles and wrist and elbow were loose, my arm lost that unified feeling. I'm thinking now that I need to start thinking about how the shoulder and back fit into all of this as well. There are so many pieces and they all need to be working together. I found it important to remember to keep my middle finger knuckle connected since I habitually only think about the first finger. And my thumb continues to require attention. I still haven't quite figured out how to play chords comfortably, so something, or some things, are still missing. My hand always feel tight or strained as I get to the top of the chord. I can play now for a little longer without my hand stiffening, but it very quickly will return to an uncomfortable state, especially if left to its own devices. This may be the most difficult thing I have ever attempted to fix.

Life: I decided that my computer is most definitely old and outdated. I tried to install and run a game from 2004, and it barely got a framerate above like 10 fps. I'd love to get new parts or a new computer, but of course, that would just distract me from the subject of the first paragraph, and so I am torn. The hard thing about violin is that I never really feel like I deserve a break, or a reward, or something, since nothing is ever finished, per se, and you can always practice more. And then there is that high-minded side of me saying that I should engage in art for art's sake, for the greater glory of art, and so on, and if I'm doing it for the cookie at the end then I shouldn't be doing it at all. That's what all those quotes by famous artists make me feel like. When you decide to go into business or law you don't get anybody saying, You must sit at your desk for hours for the greater glory of sitting at your desk. Or at least I don't think you do. Oh well.

Practice Time: 5 hours (5+ hrs. streak Day 1)

So does everyone else

Violin: Today I kept working on developing a relaxed hand. I was eventually able to quickly remind my hand of what it should feel like, when playing new material. The problem is, of course, that as I am trying to change a huge aspect of my technique, every thing I've been working on has to be redone with this new feeling in mind. As I worked I found that remembering to keep the thumb involved and relaxed was just as important as monitoring the upper fingers, and that the ring and pinky fingers can play a very small role for the most part, mostly just resting on top of the bow. As I worked through several pages of music, the necessity of keeping the knuckles and the elbow connected was quite apparent, and it helped to link the hand with the upper arm. It made me compare the hand and knuckles to the upper arm and elbow, like two similar little systems. The same is probably true of the lower arm and wrist. Perhaps getting all three of these pieces working together will produce good results. I felt even today, though, that I was able to get a new sound from my violin that I liked and that I don't think I had heard before. And to be able to make a down bow without having this awful feeling in my hand was like heaven. This is the right road for now.

Life: I was contacted today by two old friends of mine, both of whom were girls, and both of whom it seemed had recently ended a relationship with a serious boyfriend. Women are funny that way, you know, they can't help but do the rebound thing. How many times have I been the rebound. I don't even know. At least they are both far away and I don't have to worry about them. I was just thinking today about how nice it has been not having to deal with women and their problems. Not to say that I don't appreciate them anymore, but being single has its perks.

Practice Time: 2.5 hours

And forget something too

Violin: Well today was hard work as I tackled my son of a bitch right hand. The tension I get in my knuckles is so ingrained and automatic it's almost impossible to play anything without it. I think I started to feel what it is to have them relaxed though. First I tried relaxing them right away, and then bowing, which I have tried before and it didn't do much good today. Then I forced them to collapse and played for a while like that. Then it occurred to me that in the same way I had worked on "connecting" all the other parts of my arm, I should connect the knuckles as well. And since they are joints, I figured I would try to connect them with my elbow. This proved to be difficult but ultimately fruitful. When I could feel a connection I was able to relax them in a way I had never felt before. I was able to bow a little and maintain it. Further improvements were made by remembering to keep the wrist relaxed and part of the system, and to pull down from the back of the upper arm and bottom of the elbow. In this manner I was able to successfully bow while keeping the knuckles relaxed. I was even able to apply arm weight without them tensing up which was something I had never felt before. So here's to forgetting what I knew all too well - stiff knuckles.

Life: I didn't post yesterday because after my exam (which I think I aced) I tried to practice and couldn't because I kept falling asleep. So I went home, and at around 7 went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next day at around 9:30. But I still learned something yesterday, and that was that I can't practice when I'm sleep deprived! The problem is that I'm concentrating so hard on making my body relaxed that I put myself to sleep. Hopefully I won't have the same effect on future audiences.

Practice Time: 4 hours

Even if it doesn't seem like it

Violin: Well everytime I feel like I have a little breakthrough, as I felt yesterday, the next day is always kind of a letdown. Or at least it reminds me that violin is indeed a bitch. If you are someone like me who has very little intuition about how to play. As I tried practicing today it felt like I was ending up in places I had been before. I think I'm getting the sense that the knuckles of my right hand, the place my teacher always bugged me about, are really the source of lots of problems. I've noticed over time that for me to fix something, I first have to become aware physically of the discomfort, which my brain has numbed me to over time. Then I have to concentrate on it until I discover what it feels like to be relaxed. Those are the hardest steps it seems. Once you have become aware of the new way, it is just a matter of repetition and refinement. Unfortunately I think I am on about step 1.5 as regards my fingers and hand. So the goal every next practice session will be to really keep digging deeper into this knuckle problem until I'm dead or something. It's easy to get caught in the trap of being content once some little amount of headway has been made. I have to keep remembering that there is always more.

Life: Had to study for an exam, a history exam, which wasn't fun. Stayed up way too late reading pretentious musicologists wax on about their superior methods of analysis. I think perhaps that I never like history because of problems I have in seeing the big picture and thinking about it in an interesting way. Only occasionally, when I teach myself the history, am I able to find the excitement and wonder in that other people seem to grasp intuitively. Of course, I like math and most people hate it, so maybe I don't need to try to be so understanding. Fuck shit that happened already!

Practice Time: 2 hours :'(

And sometimes that's all that matters

Should I be growing weary of plog-writing by the fifth post?

Violin:
I made good headway today into solving the arm vs. hand struggle. While demanding that my arm remain relaxed and connected, I found several things to help the hand. The most important one seemed to be related to the in/out idea my old teacher always talked about. It was always, out on the down bow, in on the up bow. A couple weeks ago I thought I had finally discovered what he was talking about, when I felt how helpful it was to open up and move from the elbow, making what I felt to be an in and out feeling. But today I think I have found more to the concept, involving the hand. In an effort to find a way to move the hand with the fingers in a way that wouldn't cause tension, I noticed that instead of pushing the hand down onto the bow, it helped to feel that I was moving it along the bow, while keeping the fingers stationary. This motion required that all my joints be relaxed, and once I had worked it into my down and up bows, it helped produce a good sound at the beginnings of notes, and helped me stay in control. The motion felt like a little pull on the bow that issued directly from the hand, and drew the fingers with it. The quick motion would bring my whole arm in and out, and thus seemed to be an element of the in/out thing. More will come to light tomorrow.

Life: This girl asked me today whether she should continue dating someone who she found out has herpes. I thought it would be fine cause she could just wait until it goes away, but I didn't realize that it stays in your body FOREVER. So I was thinking, maybe violin isn't such a harsh mistress, I mean, a big callus on your neck is a lot better than open sores on your lips. Women are just too troublesome.

Practice Time: 4 hours

While other people knew it all along

Was out of town for the past 3 days.

Violin:
Today I think I started to grasp the reasons behind my constantly uncomfortable bow arm. After finding that hand and arm relaxation were nearly incompatible in my current setup, I realized today that if I concentrate on moving my arm in a comfortable way, a way that eliminates awkwardness, my hand inexplicably squeezes and tightens and feels horrible. I think, in the past, in an effort to keep my hand from doing that, I contorted my arm into positions that were highly disconnected and unbalanced. Unfortunately I got used to those feelings and thus was unaware of the problems. Good teachers have always told me that it was my hand that was the source of the problems, and I think I now understand why they said that. So today I practiced bowing with a relaxed arm, and forcing the hand to go with it. This induced a lot of weird things in the hand, which I then began to work out. I found there was some sort of tension in the "knuckle" of my thumb, and that I often squeezed with my ring and pinky fingers as I approached the frog or tip. I began to have a sense of joining the fingers with the arm, so that everything was connected, but this was hard to keep up. But this new method of relaxing the arm and then moving down into the fingers I think will yield excellent results, as compared to what I think I used to do, which was relax the fingers and then try to figure out the arm.

Life:
Not much to say. I've been listening to all of the Mahler symphonies for the first time, and am loving it. They are such amazing pieces and give me inspiration for striving to become an orchestral musician. I think few things must be more glorious or more exhaustingly satisfying than performing one of those pieces with a great orchestra and an even better conductor. Though perhaps some people feel that sitting in a chair in an office is better. I don't know. Playing video games is pretty fun too.

Practice Time: 3.5 hours

And sometimes I wish I didn't

Violin:
Well today was one of those days when you practice for hours and feel like you only got worse by the end of it. But there were some good things. I concluded that my main problem right now is still an issue of maintaining total relaxation in the right hand, under all circumstances. All kinds of bad things happen when I change direction, especially on the down bow. At times I was able to achieve what I felt was a full awareness of the whole arm while playing, but it was very hard to sustain. I had a lot of difficutly today figuring out how to flatten my knuckles and pull the bow without basically grabbing it. Whenever I tried to apply the arm weight, which I feel is coming along, I couldn't manage to transmit it through my fingers without tensing them up. When I figure this out, things will be better. I was reminded today of the fact that I have to make a conscious effort to decide what kind of vibrato I want to use, and not rely on it happening naturally. A faster vibrato was found to be suitable in some situations, but that may be a result of having a thin sound. We shall see. Tomorrow will be better.

Life:
I went to a concert tonight a saw a lot of musicians, violinists who are doing something with their lives. An incident occurred which, combined with previous experiences, made me feel like my life is rather lonely. I suppose I can be happy in my solitude until I see the other side of life. So how does one reconcile this line of work with the rest of the world? Try to ignore it? Taste it every now and then? So far I can only seem to manage one at a time. La vie du musicien? I'll find out soon enough.

Practice Time: 4 hours

Or maybe I knew it all along

Time to double my number of posts.

Violin:
Today several things were confirmed as good ideas that I forgot to mention yesterday. The most important was the realization that I often thought my arm was relaxed when in fact it was suspended and rather tense. I believe this state was occurring when I attempted to relax my hand. It seems that a relaxation of the hand led to a stiff arm, and vice versa. So today I concentrated a lot on keeping my arm actually loose and relaxed, and tried to find a way of maintaining that while holding the boy very lightly. I found that it was much easier eventually to have the hand relaxed if the arm was as well. Building on yesterday's examination of specific right hand tension areas, I found that relaxing the knuckle of my middle finger was almost always helpful. I began to develop a feeling of drawing the bow when I noted that the thumb should feel light against the stick as well as the top four fingers. Pulling the bow down and away from the violin at first seemed to help my comfort, but made the bow very crooked. To maintain a straight bow all the way to the tip seems to require an awareness of how the bow pivots in the hand as it goes down. I probably tighten something as I near the tip. Another thing I discovered yesterday and confirmed today and forgot to mention was an idea on how to stay relaxed and in control when coming off the string. I noted that concentrating on keeping the muscles in the upper arm relaxed as the bow begins to come off made a world of difference. A relaxed arm at liftoff meant a relaxed arm at touch down, eminating clumsy and ugly returns to the string. More active concentration will be needed. Near the end of my practicing for today I found that the left hand became much more solid and reliable when I had rooted the notes in the chords that lay below them. Sustaining the chords at the piano while playing helped several passages come much more into focus, intonationally and soundwise. Ending with two made up words is always good.

Life:
Not much life today. Played in a conductor's recital, and was rather bored by his lack of an interpretation. Not that I can conduct at all. My housemate told me today that exercise decreases male's sex drive, which I thought for a moment might be a good thing to try, until I remembered that masturbation is a lot more fun. Of course, no exercise and no sex might just lead to getting involved with someone I'm not really attracted to, which has happened much too often before. Solution? Practice more.

Practice Time: 3.5 hours

So What

I've decided to begin this blog with the purpose of creating a record of my development as a violinist, and, less importantly, as a person. As the term vlog seems to have been already taken to refer to video blogs, I will hereby deem this as a plog, a practice blog. "Vplog" is too hard to pronounce, and "Your mother is a whore" is too long. I decided to begin today, meaning Oct. 4, when I found out about 2 days ago that Oct. 4, 2006 marked the 49th anniversery of the historic launch of Sputnik I, a move that temporarily gave the Soviets the lead in the space race, until their lunar landing attempts all ended in sheer catastrophe. Anyhow, as the reds probably like nice round numbers as much as the next guy, I figured this blog could get in a nice year's worth of entries before we all get blown to smithereens by a huge party nuke. Let the countdown begin.

As the name of this blog suggests, my aim is to record in the lengthy tracts to follow my day to day progress in and discovery of the violin, and, peripherally, life. Since this plog concept has clearly much to be desired in the realm of entertainment value, the desired primary outcome is that I benefit myself, and get better faster. I could only hope that at some point some of my writings will help or even interest another aspiring musician, so that this becomes not a completely narcissistic endeavor. With that disclaimer, I can begin.

Right now I'm thinking of having two sections: violin and life.

Violin:
Today was a mixture, as most days are, of concepts recalled and ideas created. I found again that my teacher's comment of several weeks ago about keeping the elbow loose, and feeling the motion come from it, quite useful. I also realized that I always bring my upper arm and shoulder of my bow arm forward and up, because it allows a certain amount of control if my hand is stiff. However, I found a way to have my shoulder and arm back and down, and my fingers relaxed, but it is a very precarious setup at the moment. It will take about a week before anything new in my bow arm becomes remotely automatic. Another idea I had today was that I had different problems depending on whether I was bowing up or down. On the down bow, the main problem seemed to be a stiffening of the index finger, the tips of the fingers, and the knuckles of the pinky, ring, and middle fingers. On the up bow, there was always a disconnect between the hand and the upper arm, seemingly a result of the hand being "further away" when starting an up bow. In the left hand, I noted that some inflexibility was the result of tension in fingers that had been left down, and much greater comfort was achieved in the relaxation of all the lower fingers. A continued focus on strong left hand fingers seems important. That is all I can remember.

Life:
Watched Match Point, the Woody Allen film, read my first X-Men comics ever, and saw the new episode of South Park about World of Warcraft. South Park somehow continues to be awesomely funny, while Woody has thoughtfully reduced his interaction with young women to mere eye contact, albeit lots of it. Damn Johansson is hot. Good lord. But it made me come to an interesting and slightly retarded consideration, which was if someone chick as hot as her can go crazy just cause some guy knocked her up and then lied to her, then that suggests that at the core, hot women are pretty much the same as non-hot women, i.e. crazy and needy, etc. Which somehow makes them less intimidating to me, as they are now more familiar and less like that whole group of women with whom I have never had sex. Too bad I spend all my time in the practice room.

Practice Time: 4 hours