Practice Sept. 11, 2006 September 11, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Posture.add a comment
Time: 120 min.
Today was an okay practice. It started well, but eventually, my lower back started giving me problems. I’m really stumped on it. I have to solve this quickly. I’ll devote my opening of tomorrow’s practice to figuring this out.
I will definitely keep the break a week amendement. My pink recovered a lot yesterday.
Practice Sept. 8, 2006 September 8, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 120 min.
Today was actually a pretty good practice. The routine is really setting in; I got it done in an hour. Plus, 6ths and 7ths are pretty fun. My slow bow is getting a little better, and I went through the entire circle more efficiently. What else . . . .
Etudes were okay, I’m making some progess in them right now.
Kreutzer no. 5 is still hard at 160 bpm, but no that hard on 144.
And Fiorillo is fine, but I don’t know what to do with it now. Should I go faster or slower? I don’t know. I’ll talk to Mr. Hurst about this.
And Mozart 35 is damn hard–fun though. But I neet to practice it.
Throughout practice, I also noticed that my hip was sticking out to the left when I go up. This always hurt, and I think I’m going to try and stop it now. I don’t know why haven’t done this earlier because I’ve gotten some major pains from it.
Hip is sticking out September 8, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bad Habits, Posture.1 comment so far
I don’t know, this just hurts after a while. So I just don’t think that I should be doing it. I also find that it’s not hard to straighten out my body, but I have to fight it.
Practice Sept. 7, 2006 September 7, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 110 min.
Today was a very good practice. I’m utilizing my three part routine, but there’s a problem. The first third is taking about an hour, so I don’t have enought time for etudes and rep. So that means I have to increase my practice time or get more used to the routine. I’ll have to see how this rolls out during the week. I’ve also been using patterns a lot more in practicing scales. Is that bad? I’ll consult Mr. Hurst about this.
I’ve been looking at my left shoulder some this week, and I’ve noticed that it’s good–I think. When it tries to stabilize the bass, my entire body comes forward: MY SHOULDERS DON’T ROUND!!!
I tried playing Kreutzer no. 1 again (just because I wanted to). Then, I worked on Dragonetti II.
I’m going to have to run with the new routine for now . . . until I’m more used to it. Then, I think it’ll be more efficient.
Practice Aug. 29, 2006 August 29, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bow & Right Hand, Posture, Practice, Uncategorized.add a comment
Time: 100 min.
Today was good. I started by working on spiccato for Beethoven 5 trio. After twenty minutes, it was Nanny etudes to the end. I worked the first up to around 108ish, 120ish (pushing it). I even did the quintuplets well–finally! My posture seems to be fine, but I remember in rehearsal, I was overdoing my bow stroke: it started scratching a lot. I have to learn control.
Practice Aug. 7, 2006 August 8, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 60 min.
Today only worked on rep because my Auntie was watching me, and I figured I didn’t want to bore her with scales. So I did some of Dragonetti I & II, then Koussevitzky. Then I was playing . . . stuff.
Anyways, the most important thing that I found out from this practice was that my lower back was hurting quite a bit when I was playing high position for some time. I think this goes back to leaning too far forward. I tried leaning less, and it seemed fine, but I’m not sure if it would affect my super-high playing. So I need to experiment with this next.
Practice Aug. 5, 2005 August 6, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Left Hand, Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 105 min.
Although I practiced some, I didn’t get as much done. I don’t know, bass just doesn’t fill it all the way all the time. I miss Joy; I haven’t seen her for a long time . . . .
I did manage to look into three things first. One was the “false” harmonics near the end of the finger board. Appearantly, it’s very true that I don’t need to press the notes done in that area. My vibrato though is still out of whack. I can’t think of another motion to use in the upper registers at this moment. One main problem I noticed is that since my hand is turned more, the motion that I use in low registers moves very perpendicular to the string–not good. Sheri mentioned something about the vibrato involving a lifting in the hand, such that “you can slide a dollar bill under it.” I’m not exactly sure what that means. My understanding of vibrato is that it is an alteration of pitch. Moving the finger off and on the fingerboard seems to screw up the sound (in the high positions anyway). Finally, engaging my lower back more in shifting smoothens out the transition.
I also worked on the E major scale.
Practice Aug. 4, 2006 August 5, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bow & Right Hand, Left Hand, Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 60 min.
Today was a fine practice. I didn’t do as many things as I usually do, but I still think it was productive. All I did was work on the C# minor scale and Kreutzer no. 5. I must say that I really hate the C# minor scale because my bass’s fingerboard stops at C natural. So when I ever have to play a C# or an Eb up there, I’m potentially screwed. I remember Paul Nemith telling me that one can pull the notes instead of pressing on the fingerboard–I have to experiment with this. I know I can do it for the Eb, but I haven’t been very successful with the C#.
I understand that this phenomenon comes about from the string shortened at the point of the finger, but I need to watch out for a harmonic. I’ve also noticed that I have an easy time doing this on the violin–an extremely easy time. But the space between the notes are very small . . . WAIT. The space between the notes on the bass in that register are very small . . . hmmmm. This is getting more interesting by the second.
I managed to do the scale slowly at 7 seconds per note, but that was hard. Kind of fun though. Can’t wait until I get to 12–hahaha. Sadly, when I have to concentrate on the bow so much, everything else starts slipping. My right shoulder started moving up a little, although I was able to notice this and fix it while doing the scale. Also, my lower back unstraightens sometimes, but I was able to fix that too. My vibrato is still out of whack when I’m in the stratosphere. My hand turns to line up with the the strings, which Mike Gorman said was okay, but my arm is so extended, that my arm can’t use the back rotator cuff. So I still have to experiment more on this.
My shoulder transition is smoother on the way up to higher positions, but in the reverse, my transition is very clicky. Plus, I need my left hand to continue touching the neck so that the bass doesn’t fall over when I’m coming down to lower positions.
I attempted to do Kreutzer no. 5 at 160 bpm, which was okay, but not great. I had stops and goes, but I was able to do it in parts. One major thing, at 160 bpm, the right hand motion is almost entirely made up of wrist.
Practice Aug. 3, 2006 August 4, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 90 min.
Today, I didn’t do so much workout stuff. I started off by playing along with “Waterfalls.” Then I sight-read more of the third movement of Dragonetti. Then I started the E major scale work, but I only did the first quad, the slow bow scale. I was working on getting it up to 7 seconds per bow. Then I took a break to watch 7 Samurai. When I came back, I decided to just work on the Dragonetti II.
I’m still working on the shoulder transition.
Practice Aug. 2, 2006 August 2, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bow & Right Hand, Posture, Practice.add a comment
Time: 65 min.
Today was a pretty good practice. Today was the first time I’ve tried using my room, and it’s sweet. The mirror helps while the AC is lovely.
First, I played along with the Will Smith Wild Wild West theme. Then, I sight read a little more of the Dragonetti mov. III. Then I worked on the C# minor scale. That’s it. But I tried to focus on smoothing out my shoulder transition. I’m wondering how I should go about fixing this problem. I’m assuming I should do it really slowly. I’m not sure, that might be a fine tuning device. . . . hmmm
Note on the bow hold. It seems fine to me. I do remember Mr. Kolivas’s saying that my pinky should rest on the spot on the frog. There seems to be better bow control. And I don’t seem to have a problem conflicting with posture. Good.
