Fall break, Mr. Hurst, and the last few days October 14, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Misc., Practice, Private Lesson.add a comment
I finally did it. I found him! I got a lesson from Mr. Hurst during fall break and it was great. He recorded our lesson on a cassatte tape, so I’ll need to blog about it in depth with a cassette player near me. But mainly, I’ve changed my routine, and I’m dropping Dragonetti and moving onto Bottesini.
Midterms!!! October 7, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Left Hand, Misc., Private Lesson.1 comment so far
This week has been very busy, so I haven’t kept up with my blog, but times are changing. My lesson with Lee went well. I should consider using harmonics more so that I can hear the correct intonation more so. I should also consider playing a drone when I do scales. Problem: I have to find one. . . . grrr. He also should me the usefulness of not pressing the string down for a nice vibrato. I have to see what Mr. Hurst says about this–yay, I get a lesson with him on Tuesday.
Lesson w/ Lee Sept. 22, 2006 September 22, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bow & Right Hand, Left Hand, Private Lesson.3 comments
We started off with scales. He says that my tone is a lot better. So relaxing my arm was a very good thing. He wants me to work on bowing things when I practice Kreutzer and scales.
Lee gave an interesting story about a Chicago Symphony trumpet who openned out his fly in a concert. He was so worried about being embarassed that he nailed Pictures (at an Exhibition). “Sometimes, you just got to take chances.”
Lee also said to shift by moving my hand, not my entire arm–it’s more efficient to do so. If I bring the entire left hand down, I have to eventually turn it after it hits the bass before going into thumb position. So if I let the hand guide the arm, everything works out better.
Lee also curves his pointer finger a lot in thumb position. Ellison and Rabbath promote collapsing the fingers in thumb position, but I remember Hurst telling me that I should aim a little to the side of the string. I need to experiment with this.
Lesson w/ Lee Sept. 1, 2006 September 4, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bow & Right Hand, Private Lesson.add a comment
Today was my second lesson with Lee, and he’s good. He’s not Mr. Hurst, but . . . he’s still good. I must admit: He’s a great player. We started out by doing scales. Sadly, I forgot about the fingering for the 2-8ve D major scale in the 4th position. After that we worked on Beethoven, Brahms no. 2, and Mozart no. 35.
He also said to imagine a string pulling from the tip of the bow around my body to the hip on my left side in order to put weight into the tip of te bow.
Private Lesson Jul. 13, 2006 July 13, 2006
Posted by 06kahao in Bow & Right Hand, Misc., Posture, Private Lesson.add a comment
My lesson with Mike Gorman went well. Because I have this blog, I was able to go to him with a full set of questions that lasted the entire lesson. First of all, we went over putting weight into the tip of the bow. In the long run, it was about equalizing the weight, not forcing, not over doing it, and using muscles in my entire right arm. Since my first finger and forearm seemed to be the area of pain, I’m considering that I should into torquing my entire arm. Also, the transferring of weight made me think about center of mass. I think that could especially help. He also said to left my arm when I reach the end of a down bow. This kind of goes against Hurst’s “keep your elbow close to your body”, not unless there’s a compromise. I don’t think I have to raise it as much as I have to torque it.
Mike Gorman also played something really slow and loud–that was cool.
Then we addressed the scapulae. Appearantly, I’m not supposed to round them forward either, which I do when I’m bowing near the bridge. I seriously need to experiment with this because the answer to the problem conflicted with leaning forward too much.
Another great thing that I learned was that I should warm-up my muscles before I stretch them. Damn! I didn’t know I was supposed to do that. Think about it, a warm-up to a warm-up . . . jeeze.
