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Elke Meier

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Practice report...

Actually, this was supposed to be a progress report. After all, I had a long vacation, spent at home with quite a bit of time for practice and had hoped to see real progress. At the end of my vacation I was rather discouraged: what was there to see after all this time with Auer, Schradieck, Wohlfahrt #4, Kreutzer #4, Yost and Dowani?? Spiccato and staccato were just as bad as ever, left and right hand still did not want to work together well, and with the start of shifting intonation seemed to suffer even in first position.

Then, toward the end of my vacation, Roy posted a video of "Witch's dance", a piece I have liked ever since I heard it for the first time during a masterclass at last year's workshop - and he saved me from this bout of depression :). "Witch's dance" is still several pieces away from me in the Suzuki book. I am still stuck with "Hunter's chorus" and "Long, long ago" at the beginning of Suzuki 2. As Roy's post brought this piece back to my attention, all of a sudden I thought: Why should I wait?? I have been trying the bow stroke I would need for "Witch's dance" on open strings, and I have been practicing all sorts of arpeggios basically every day with Kreutzer #4. Why not give it a try? It is still very much a work in progress, but I have had such fun with this little piece!

Actually, as I said, it really is ALL a work in progress/practice... But I had a chance again to record today, so here it goes. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, here is what is in the video:

Beginning - Hunter's chorus - sorry for the ending. I played without the sheet music and all of a sudden couldn't remember what came next, so there is an extra repetition...
1:35 - Long, long ago - I made two additional variations of this piece :). But I never can play it all in one stretch. I need a break between variation #1 and #2 (this is the one from the book), because I cannot switch instantly from one bowing experience to such a different one. And variation #3 is rather difficult for me, so it never works on first try.
6:15 - Shifting - Geringas is called "progressive studies", which to me implies that it starts easy and gets more difficult. Wrong! I will probably still practice the #1 study in a year! It goes with one finger through all the positions from first to fifth without sliding (open strings in between the notes). #2 was much more learnable, so this is my first shifting post :)
7:05 - Witch's dance - It is such a fun piece, but I guess the end will be hit and miss for some time to come. Today it was rather miss... Last week was much better...

I look forward to your comments and suggestions :)

Elke Meier
28 Responses
Posted: September 13, 2015
Last Comment: September 20, 2015

Replies

Elke Meier
Posted: September 16, 2015

It is pretty late already over here, but I really want to thank you all for your encouraging comments! And they REALLY were an encouragement! I thought I should have posted something several weeks ago - you would have given me a different perspective even then! At the same time I wondered, now why is it that they saw things I did not see? What is it that made me think that I hardly made any progress when everybody else says that I did? - I think I had kind of lost sight of the big picture while noticing all sorts of little details. Like with bowing: you are right, I find it much easier to keep the bow straight than some months ago! But this had become "normal" and instead I noticed other things. Like in the up-bow staccato exercises I find it a challenge to keep the bow moving and just dig in with the index finger a bit to give the next note a crisp beginning, but not stop and start the bow with each note. The tone is very different if I keep the bow moving! This was just one of the details I really got hung up on. So, it was very good and encouraging that you made me step back and look at the overall picture again :) - thank you! I will practice some more and post a follow up in a little while.

And here are some specific comments to suggestions you had:

Beth: Thank you so much for such an in-depth answer! Wow, this was very special indeed! I have started to try out the things you suggested. I like your addition to my double stop version :). Actually, it made me realize that even more can be done there! This started just because of your suggestion in the tutorial to play this with an open string drone. But there were then several places where I just couldn't bare the open string drone, so I looked for other harmonies I could manage. But it is true: the open string drone is a practice tool, to make it sound nice now I could well introduce more harmonies. I look forward to that!
You used a word for what I did at the end of the minor variation when it changes to major. Could you (or someone else with more music theory background) write down this word? I am not familiar with it, and just cannot make it out.
Haha, a rhythmic variation on the minor one? No, I just wanted to play with all my soul, stress notes or prolong them just a wee bit when I felt they needed more emphasis to bring out the heaviness of the melody. When I watched it I noticed that it sounded more than anything else disorganized... And your example, even with very even notes, conveyed a lot more emotion than my uneven playing. So I will try to undo this habit :).
The comment on the opening elbow for arpeggios was SO helpful! I discovered that this is a very big part of my problem between left and right hand coordination in faster passages (at least after my practice this afternoon I think that this might be it)! I have noticed before that when I just relax, let go and just play faster passages without much thinking, then the two hands are much better coordinated. And the arm comes into play when I am NOT relaxed any more but start to tense up. I'll see what difference it makes when it becomes more natural :)
Janice: Very true! I learn a lot from performances I don't like. I had the same experience with one performance in Youtube of Kreutzer #4. It surely showed me what to pay attention to...
Nick: I practice Kreutzer #4 rather very slowly, so don't call it advanced material... But you know what: I feel that practicing this etude really helps me with string crossings. I find it much easier to have enough weight during a string crossing = they get cleaner!
Vibrato is not coming along at all at the moment. My wrist gets very painful after just a few minutes of practice, so I have done hardly anything with it lately. I started to practice arm vibrato instead of wrist vibrato seems to be better on the wrist joints, but I find it hard to change to this movement, and I have started at zero again with the exercises. Sometimes I wonder whether I shouldn't buy a baroque bow and forget about vibrato... :) - well, but I still have the dream about the Zigeunerweisen, and that would not work with a baroque bow.
Dynamics: There could be much more, you are right, but one problem is that you cannot even hear what is there. I found that my smartphone equalizes the sound level within a split second to make it all sound "nice" and level. I really should get around to buying an external microphone to get a more realistic portrayal of the violin's tone.
Elizabeth: I record the video with my smartphone. Then I copy this file onto my computer and import it into the free program Windows Movie Maker. There you can very easily cut out the sections you don't like. Actually for this recording I had made a number of videos and imported them into Movie Maker. And from each one I used only that little part which I did not mess up... :). In Movie Maker you can also add captions, titles, etc. Then I export the finished movie as a new mp4 file, and that one is then uploaded to YouTube.