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)