I plan and program and think that everything is going to be smooth sailing. But then I have to work, and practice, and prepare, and deal, and be ready for a lot of different things, all of them important. This is reality striking me with a clear message: not so smooth sailing... Besides dealing with an edge of burnout, this time I bring a funny story of a backwards learning, of how I organized a strategy for practicing through a video I disagreed with!
If you are new here, you can watch this video to see what this is all about.
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October 15th, 2019 - Tuesday
- Body warm up
- Whole bow staccato
Random
- Vibrato
- Schradieck VX 5.
- Shifting starting with 3rd finger on D string
- Double stops, interleaved 5ths and 6ths
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Random, last page of exposition
- Bars 107 to 110 (intonation)
- Bars 111 to 113 (intonation)
October 17th, 2019 - Thursday
Crisis, little practice, extreme tiredness. I had to take a few hours from my obligations to do simply nothing, before I get into a paralyzing burnout. This is why I haven’t been practicing a lot. Good thing I made those pauses, little by little I start to recover.
I have 2 hours to practice, and a lot more to practice than those 2 hours allow, so let’s go to the urgencies: some technique for intonation (after a few orchestra rehearsals, ears and hands start to come out of place), orchestra rep, contemporary piece, maybe a little of the 3rd mov. of the Concerto to do something new.
- Body warm up
- Open strings with 12, 14, 16, 18, 4, 3 and 2 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- 4 octaves major scales with correspondent arpeggios (G, Ab, A, Bb)
Random
- Orchestra rep
- Tchaikovsky 3rd mov., bars 73 to 80 (mobility alla Benedetti, then slow with bow articulation and mobility of left hand, metronome at 100 = 8th note)
- Contemporary piece
October 20th, 2019 - Sunday
- Body warm up
Random of open strings (20’)
- Open strings 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Staccato in the middle of the bow subdivided in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 notes per beat at 60 bpm
- Whole bow staccato
- Double open strings with 4 beats per bow at 60 bpm
Random of left hand technique (35’)
- Vibrato without bow
- Half step trills
- Shifting starting with 4th finger on D string
- Schradieck XV 6.
Random of repertoire (30’)
- Orchestra rep
- Tchaikovsky I mov., bar 111 (intonation)
- Contemporary piece
Random of repertoire (30’)
- Orchestra rep
- Tchaikovsky I mov., bars 112 to 114 (intonation)
- Contemporary piece
October 24th, 2019 - Thursday
Changing strings day, therefore, I can’t practice anything that involves intonation… But I can analyze the progress ‘till here.
There is a funny phenomenon (not to say tragic), that happens to me. When I realized my practice is having results, I sat back and started to practice less. Even less! I was already practicing not enough! How do I reverse this, can someone enlighten me?
Ok, I have to consider that I am at an absurd tiredness level, stealing time from myself not to do anything so I don’t fall sick in bed (which is the way our body uses to makes us stop).
To practice the Tchaik Concerto is to me much more than a physical endeavor, it is also psychological and emotional (of course all that tension is a symptom, not a thing in itself). To deal with and remember what I was living and feeling at the time I practiced the Concerto for the first time is essencial to understand what are the associations my body made, so I can transform them. This is not easy, it is to dig in the past and, consequently, alter something in the present. This is really hard because it is being done in all levels of who I am. Yes, like therapy. This was foreseen, I knew it was going to happen. And yes, this is super difficult and takes a lot of energy.
In this period, ends of October of 2019, I’m still practicing very little, not enough energy to practice and I’d say that I’m a little afraid of all this change, which perhaps makes me avoid practicing.
Because of that, if you are enjoying all this work I’m having, let me know! (yes, this gives me an energy to practice you cannot imagine!)
For now, what to practice when I just changed strings? Open strings, of course. I think I’ll take the opportunity to practice 1 minute bows, long time since I’ve done it.
- 1’ bows
- Staccato/spiccato in the middle of the bow at 65 bpm with subdivision in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8, getting closer to the tempo I want at the 3rd mov.
- Tchaikovsky, 2nd movement reading
October 26th, 2019 - Saturday
- Body warm up
- 1’ bows
- Staccato/spiccato in the middle of the bow at 65 bpm with subdivision in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8, getting closer to the tempo I want at the 3rd mov.
What happened yesterday with me in relation to this staccato articulation was funny… I was looking for some video on Youtube about how to practice this articulation, because last time I tried to play a piece of the 3rd movement it came out mushy. I found a video about this articulation, and when I heard what the violinist was saying, I found almost everything kinda strange. Actually, she said things we always hear when learning spiccato, things that are not wrong. But I disagreed of almost 100% with what she was saying. And by hearing and disagreeing, the reasons to disagree were forming in my mind, I mean all the things I learned from my last teachers and things I searched and found out myself. I say this story is funny because it was exactly a video with which I disagree that made me organize my ideias about what to do and how to practice this articulation. Then, a bit more conscious, I oriented my exercise for staccato in the middle of the bow in subdivisions each time faster (that originally I do to practice not forcing when playing orchestra rep) towards the articulation of the 3rd movement of the Tchaik. I liked what I heard and felt. I always did this exercise at 60 bpm, so now I’ll stay for a while in 65 bpm, than 70 and so on until 80 (which is a little bit faster than that movement’s tempo).
Note: in the video I disagreed with, the lady was saying things that a lot of people say and that are not, in anyway, wrong! What happens is that what works for me is different.
Random
- Schradieck (always alla Benedetti) XV 7.
- Vibrato
- Trills
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Random (30’)
- Bars 43 to 47 (intonation and shifts)
- Bars 55 and 56 (mobility alla Benedetti e backwards practice with bow distribution. In this practice I did it like this: I started with the sextuplet on the 2nd half of bar 56 and played it slow with light and exaggerated mobility of the fingers to make sure I was playing how I wanted. Then I played it 3 times - still slow - with bow distribution, that is, using very few bow, with lots of bow pressure and left hand as said before. Sounds awful, ok? Next I added the previous sextuplet, practicing whole bar 56. I played a few times to see if my fingers were falling where I wanted, then with bow distribution. I added the sextuplets one by one until I play bars 55 and 56 in this awful sounding manner which already contains the main elements I want in the fast tempo: agile fingers and right amount of bow.)
- Bars 61 and 62 (intonation and imagining the next note to make sure I know how and what notes should sound, shifts, mobility alla Benedetti with bow distribution in staccato and reduced rests. Once more I practiced increasing the difficulty and already adding what I want from the fast tempo: when I practice, even if very slow, with the rest smaller than what it actually is I train my brain and body to prepare to the next intervention quicker, taking away the anxiety of thinking that the rest is too short to prepare.)
Tchaikovsky 1st movement
Random (30’)
- Bars 103 and 104 (intonation and shifts)
- Bars 123 to 125 (intonation, angles of hand and elbow for more comfort and intonation of the chords, bow distribution and string crossing, practicing in staccato instead of slurred)
- Contemporary music
October 27th, 2019 - Sunday
- Body warm upRandom (15’)
- Whole bow staccato
- Vibrato
- Trills
- Orchestra rep
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
I just looked over the whole coda of the exposition and counted how many bits it has (in technique terms, not musical, even if they are almost the same thing). There are 7 micro bits to spread over the random practice.
1: bars 105 and 106
2: 107 to 110
3: 11 to 113 (which can be divided in 3A: 11 to 2nd triplet of 112; 3B: 112 and 113)
4: 114 to 118
5: 119 to 122
6: 123 to 125
7: 126
Violin still sounds like a can because of new strings, I decided to practice bits 1, 2 and 3, just the bow in random, paying attention to bow distribution, sound and articulation.
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
- Bars 162 to 165 (just bow)
And I reeeally need to continue the analysis of the full score…
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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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