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)