Arriving now and doesn't know what the TCHAIK PROJECT is about? Start here =)
Readings of the week:
September 10th, 2019 - Tuesday
Hello! It’s not everyday that I’m overthrown by anxiety. There are days when I’m overthrown by a huge stomachache as well. But I’ll try to practice anyway. I’m still not satisfied with the consistency of days I practice nor the time I practice in one day, I think it’s not enough. I don’t intend to practice 8 hours in one day, I don’t even have this amount of time available in my routine. My goal right now is to practice 5 days a week (my professional schedule stops me from practicing every single day) between 3 and 4 hours each day. My good concentration does not last more than that.
- Body warm up
Random to warm up (20’)
- Open strings very close to the bridge, no metronome
- Staccato
- Vibrato
- Trills (half step and whole step)
- A major scale in 3 and 4 octaves with correspondent arpeggio (and already using the fingering I’ll use in similar passages of the Tchaik) (4’)
Tchaikovsky - 1st movement Cadenza
Random (30’- 2’2"to each mini section)
- Chords in the beginning
- Sequence of double stops up a chromatic scale in the end of the first page
- Double stops up a chromatic scale on the 2nd line of the 2nd page
- Shiftings of the several A - Bb in the end of the Cadenza
Tchaikovsky - Recap of the 1st movement
Random (35’ - 3’to each mini section)
- Bars 219 and 220 (find out notes, think of fingering, left hand alla Benedetti, all very slow)
- Bars 238 to 242 (singing and checking)
- First I did bars 294 and 295, in the second time I started from the previous bar and in the third time I started from bar 292 (very slow, watching for shifts and playing the double stops separately)
Today was difficult to concentrate and I got very tense.
September 12th, 2019 - Thursday
Professional commitments took all my week. I have a little more than 1 hour to practice and decided to use passages of the Concerto to warm up.
- Body warm up
The weather went hot and dry too fast in the last days. The violin is all weird, the pegs of the lower strings are super loose and the instrument is out of tune all the time. Mushy violin, ugh!
Quick random (20’)
- Staccato of the 3rd movement on open strings (still slow searching for the same sound with up and down bow)
- Vibrato (using sequences of notes that I find in the Concerto for each string)
- Trills (with 2nd and 3rd fingers, trills that appear in the Concerto)
I recorded a video, than played the first 2 pages in a messy way, no method, just to see what happens. Sometimes I repeated a passage practicing a little, with occasional pauses to check for tension. The ways I’ve been practicing are already having an effect, but I’m only in the beginning of the journey. I realized also that I’ll have to practice my mind a lot, because I felt in my fingers the ability to play, but the ability to wish for the sound in my mind a tempo is still not formed. For that: mental practice. A lot of tension in the left thumb and shoulder.
September 14th, 2019 - Saturday
Hangover day of the week. Work hangover, from Monday till yesterday at 1am occupied with this commitment. I got tired! And I practiced very little this week…
- Body warm up
Random
- Open strings 4, 12 16 beats per bow at 60bpm and Staccato of the 3rd movement
- Vibrato (7th position)
- Trills on E string, half step
- Schradieck/Benedetti XV 3.
Tchaikovsky 1st movement
- Exposition (from beginning to the end of exposition, practicing in short blocks and recording some videos in the middle)
Today, as well as last practice section, I entered in this mode “play to see how it goes”. To do this once in a while is good. But to do that 2 practice sections in a row maybe is not a good idea, specially because of all the tension that already resides in my muscle memory of this concerto. I saw that today was falling into chaos and decided to record some practice videos, at least with a camera (even thought it’s just my phone) I get it together and practice a little better.
I remember practicing like this 10, 11 years ago, sort of playing, sort of practicing, “seeing if it comes out”. Maybe I fell into this chaotic old mode for the following reasons: the practice memory this music brings to me, the tiredness of this week, the lack of “mental space” to think of how my practice section would be - which left me with no plans - and, of course, the wish of playing this Concerto soon! I take the opportunity to plan tomorrow’s practice section:
Technique (Open strings and double stops at least)
Cadenza (Fast arpeggios and things I didn’t see yet)
Recap (see how I am and choose between things I’m already practicing and new things)
September 15th, 2019 - Sunday
I’ve been thinking of yesterday’s practice and about an interview I did with Rachel Barton Pine where she says it’s important to play something you are able to play well everyday, something that makes you feel good about yourself and where you can be expressive. Would that be the reason why I just played, breaking my plans to strategically attack the most difficult spots?
As if reading my thoughts, in my email box there it was the last Bulletproof Musician article talking about something that relates to that. There in middle of the text it was something that might be important: to mix difficult things and easy things (in the case of this article he was talking about our tendency to practice only the easy because it brings the sensation of high productivity). I’ll try then to practice not only the things that terrify me most, but also the juicy parts of the Concerto: the slower melodies. The introduction and the second theme will be inside my practice from now on. Of course they are not easy, but passages where the expressiveness is approached right away, where I have to think about the phrase first, notes later. Let’s see what effect it has. What do you think?
So, rewriting the plans of yesterday:
Technique (open strings and double stops at least)
Cadenza (fast arpeggios and things I haven’t seen yet - melodic parts)
Recap (beginning of the recap immediately after the Cadenza or first theme, end of recap with double stops in triplets, fast scales)
I have one and a half hour, let’s see what I can do…
- Body warm up
Random practice
- Vibrato
- Thirds, 2 octaves in A major (first lower note as reference, then with upper one)
- Octaves, 2 octaves in A major (first with 1st finger as reference, then listening for the glissando of the shift with both notes*)
*I practice like this to tune the path between one octave and the next, because I understand that when an octave is out of tune, it’s not the fingers that go out of tune, but the path of arm and hand until that place, or the angles of elbow + hand
Tchaikovsky 1st movement - Cadenza (30’)
Random
- 1st arpeggios of A major in the beginning (lightness of left hand with bow distribution)
- Quasi Andante (intonation)
- Meno Mosso close to the end (discovering the notes, thinking of fingering)
Tchaikovsky 1st movement - recap (30’)
Random
- Very beginning of the recap, bars 213 to 218 (singing, watching bow, tone, bow distribution, fingering and intonation)
- Scale of bars 243 and 244 (singing and checking the note, with no bow alla Benedetti, trying to find a fingering)
- Bars 274 to 277 (first I played slowly to remember it and check for fingering, then without bow alla Benedetti, then very slow counting the rhythmical distribution of the 32nds and fingers of the left hand with light and extreme mobility)
In the end I played the beginning of the Concerto, to have fun, see if I find more stuff to work on. It was the first time I played with metronome (4ths at 80, as marked on the score) and it is impressive how many weird rhythmic habits I have in this part! With metronome, this first melody of the Moderato assai got lighter and more cohesive, the bow distribution also got easier.
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The Tchaik Project is part of the Master’s Degree Research of Helena Piccazio, enrolled in the Master’s Program in Music at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP).
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