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Technique (1h)
I practiced in Random mode, which made the practice happen in the following way:
- Whole bow staccato (E and A strings)
- D major scale in one string (D)
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm (A string)
- D major scale in one string (A)
- String crossing (G-D strings)
- D major scale in one string (G)
- Whole bow staccato (D and G strings)
- D major scale in one string (E)
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm (D string)
- Double stops - octaves/thirds
- String crossing (D-A strings)
- Double stops - thirds/sixths
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm (E string)
- Double stops - sixths/fifths
- String crossing (A-E strings)
- Double stops - fifths/octaves
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm (G string)
Today it was only technique, that’s right, to wrap up the year. Tomorrow I start a mini vacation and my 2020 only starts after that.
January 6th, 2020 - Monday
Happy new year! Yes, my year starts now. I took some days off and, even though I’m still on vacation mood, I’ll start practicing already. I’m not totally recovered from last year, but I want to make the most out of these days without professional commitments to advance in the Tchaikovsky.
- Body warm up (yeap, I do it every. single. time.)
Technique random practice
- Opens strings with 12, 14, 16, 18 e 20 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Vibrato without bow
- Whole step trills
Technique random practice
- Schradieck
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm
- Shifting on G string starting with 3rd finger
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. - Middle section
Random
- Bars 160 and 161 (I worked on rhythm by playing the melody with phrase direction but with the bow subdividing everything in sixteenths.)
- Bars 162 to 165 (bow, slurs and articulation, but I got lost in the practice because I was in doubt about which slurs division I should make…)
- Bars 168 and 169 (Benedetti for left hand)
I ended up playing the hole middle section to have a better ideia of what I should practice more and targeting what. I’ll call 1st part of middle section the part that goes from the beginning of the violin line (160) till the end of 175, and from bar 176 till 188 is the 2nd part of middle section.
Well, I need to practice the 2nd part a lot more, understand how I want it to sound like, what are the notes and how is the bowing - part of the bow and amounts - because I cannot play through even in a very slow tempo.
The 1st part needs less work but it’s a tricky one, because since I can already play through (not very well, though) it’s difficult to have the patience to stop and do the more refined and thorough work, which in this case is: make a more sophisticated intonation, clearer phrasing, cleaner sound, connection between the little parts and, more important, better rhythmic pulse!
I remember a similar point 10 years ago, of not knowing how to move forward in this 1st part (which by the way is one of my favorite passages of this Concerto) and having no ideia of how to begin to approach the 2nd part of the middle section.
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random
- Bars 53 to 64 (mobility alla Benedetti, but then I decided to practice only bow and found out that my biggest difficulty is not the sequence of sixteenths, but the articulation in bar 57, then I lost focus trying to play to see if I figured where in the bow should I be and how much bow is needed to play the articulation. I’ll watch a bunch of videos to search for clues.)
- Bars 208 to 242 (first time that I took a look at that, it is so pretty that was just playing, and I had a lot of fun in bars 235 a 242)
- Bars 65 to 80 (I was supposed to practice left hand mobility, but the way bar 76 is written drives me crazy. It is harmonically correct, but for the eye-hand association it is hell. I ended up spending the time writing the way it’s easier for me to read and sticking it to the music.)
January 7th, 2020 - Tuesday
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| I also read this wonderful book today... |
- Opens strings with 12, 14, 16, 18 e 20 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Vibrato
- 3 octave scale, arpeggios and scale in alternate thirds in D major
Double stops random practice in D major
- Thirds on A-E and G-D
- Sixths on G-D and D-A
- Octaves on D-A and A-E
I have to deal with the fact that I’m not gonna find a “system” where I practice ALL possibilities of technique in one day or two. It's hard to accept this…
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. - Middle Section
Random
- Bars 186 and 187 (intonation and mobility alla Benedetti)
- Bars 183 to 185 (intonation and the transitions from one double stop to the next, practicing opening the hand for the 10th.)
- Bars 180 to 182 (intonation, getting to the conclusion that, on the double stops between 180 and 181, and between 182 and 183, both C#/E to D/F, it’s going to sound better if I use the fingering 3/1 to 3/1 than if I use 3/1 to 4/2. This particular opening of 2/4 right after this particular 3/1, in the right speed, is painful, gets out of tune and the 2 notes never fall together.)
In this 2nd part of the Middle Section I’ll adopt the same strategy I used in Bartok’s Raphsody (did I ever mention this here?), to practice only the intonation and the between-notes for a long time before I put rhythm or bow articulation. In the Bartok there was this double stops passage in E major that I felt was impossible for me to play. For a little more than a month, all I did was to practice intonation note by note and the movement of the hand between one double stop and the next. To imagine the next note, practice first the lower note, than the upper one, keeping the fingers on both, thinking about the guiding finger for shifts, etc. After practicing only like this for a month, I tried to play one day and the passage was practically ready!
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random
- Bars 65 to 80 (mobility of the fingers alla Benedetti)
- Bars 189 to 196 (intonation, first the lower note, then using the Henryk Szeryng suggestion - found out in the interview with Enrique Diemecke - which is to practice with harmonics, since the distance between 1st and 4th finger is the same for the octaves, and harmonics don’t lie!)
- Bars 111 to 116 (thinking the fingering)
January 11th, 2020 - Saturday
Technique random (1h10’)
- 1 minute bows
- Vibrato
- Trills
- Shifts on G string starting with 4th finger
Played the entire 1st movement to see how it is and what should I work more. The amount of tension is already diminished. I need to work a lot more from the Middle Section to the end. Specially the bow. The sound is dirty and the articulations aren’t defined or clean enough.
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Random (25’)
- Bars 61 and 62 (intonation, mobility alla Benedetti without bow, then playing with accents in different notes)
- Bars 101 to 104 (intonation and shifts)
- Bars 63 to 66 (mobility alla Benedetti without bow, then playing with accents in different notes)
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Random (25’)
- Bars 107 to 110 (mobility alla Benedetti, articulation of the bow only, then with metronome at 80 with the bow playing in triplets, with one note per beat; finally playing with accents in different notes)
- Bars 112 and 113 (just bow, then just intonation, then in groups of 3 notes)
Lunch
Mini body warm up (only 3 of the usual exercises)
Tchaikovsky 1st and 3rd movs.
Random (30’)
- 1st mov. bars 288 to 290 (intonation)
- 1st mov. bars 317 to 320 (intonation, then with accents in different notes)
- 3rd mov. bars 111 to 116 (shifts and a way of practicing I just came up with to make the shifts faster and more fluid, without bumps or abrupt moves.)
What I came up with is a variation of what I was suggested by a teacher a long time ago, of practicing slow with the shifts fast, so when I speed up the shifts get even faster. So, this is what I came up - and still need to check its efficiency: Let’s say the shift is between 2 notes that are in a group of 4 sixteenths. After practicing the shift itself, learning the distance and movement, I play each of the 4 notes of the group 4 times, turning each one of them into 4 sixteenths. The shift is happening only in the last of the 4 repetitions of the note before the shifts, restricting the movement only to the last quarter of the note. When speeding up, this proportion maintains, getting a lot less perceptible in the fast tempo.
Today I started a new plan of distribution of my time. Since the beginning of the year I was trying to do the Tchaik Project/Masters things in the following way: to read the reference literature and deal with texts (post diaries on the blog, translating quoted articles, transcribing interviews, writing the masters paper for the qualification exam) all of this after lunch. In the end of the afternoon I’d start practicing the violin, because according to this article, the time I like to practice is in the evening.
But it wasn’t working.
I'm in vacation, so I allowed myself to wake up later and, suddenly, I was going to bed in the middle of the night and waking up close to noon. Everything got too delayed, I didn’t read or write enough, and in the end I had too little energy or time to practice violin (I can practice until 10pm here). Apart the fact that I always felt I had done too little, almost nothing.
One of the important conclusions was: I won’t be able to handle it all, or conclude everything in one single day, nor will I be able to practice all the scales and double stops in all possible keys and open string exercises in one day. It’s a lot to read, think, research, write, translate, practice, experiment. And the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is very long, one of it’s acknowledged difficulties is having the stamina to play it through with high energy!
Another conclusion was: not designating my whole day to the masters, have other things to do. Every music has a rest in it, right? The article about random practice says the brain is a little more awake every time we come back to an activity, so, using that principle, I decided to do that with the other activities of the masters as well. I thought about splitting those into 2 blocks every day, divided by a long break after lunch: in the morning I practice violin, in the afternoon (the period of the day I like the least) I do something else, in the end of the afternoon I come back with readings and writings.
The following texts helped me:
- The article “Why the ‘Task Completion Bias’ could give you the illusion of productive practice, but make you less productive in the long-term” on the Bulletproof Musician blog. When I re-read it I realised I’m doing the same thing with my routine: solving little things, like errands and chores, and leaving the important things to the end of the day.
- This post here: “How to Motivate the S*** out of Yourself”, that speaks about willpower in a very interesting manner.
Today I managed to wake up earlier and started practicing in the morning. Even though I started an hour later than the schedule I wrote, I was already VERY happy! Yesterday I finally finished the book “The Art of Possibility” and today read a little bit more of the Tchaikovsky letters’ book.
January 13th, 2020 - Monday
Random opens strings practice
- Staccato whole bow
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm
- String crossing at 60 bpm
- B minor one octave scale, arpeggios and scale in alternate thirds in the same string.
- Double stops thirds, sixths, octaves and tenths (at first guiding myself by the lower note, then by the upper note. I payed attention to drop both fingers at the same time, even playing one of the strings first, to train the dropping together avoiding future problems…)
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random
- Bars 565 to 584 (first just bow, then just intonation note per note, then intonation again but already trying to use the bow as it’s going to be in the end)
- Bars 602 to 612 (notes, intonation, shifts, mobility alla Benedetti, with accents in different notes, all still very slow)
- Bars 585 to 593 (bow to the chords and intonation separately)
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random
- Bars 488 to 507 (I practiced releasing the tension between the octaves making little rests to loose without getting out of position, then all the passage slowly with rests in different places, then articulation of left hand, got to 60 = quarter note.)
- Bars 594 to 601 (shifts and articulation of left hand with accents in different notes and with rhythms, got to 60 = quarter note)
- Bars 628 to 636 (notes, fingerings and shifts)
Lunch
- Mini body warm up (on those minis I do some of the exercises only, not all oh them).
Tchaikovsky 1st mov., recap
Random
- Bars 243 to 246 (articulation of left hand: mobility alla Benedetti, with accents in different notes, with rhythms. Here I note something I’ve been doing in this passage as well as in its relative passage in the exposition: I practice slowly, but diminishing the rest between the groups of 9 notes. I do that on purpose to get used to the very little time to prepare for the next group of notes.)
- Bars 274 to 277 (mobility alla Benedetti, singing the subdivision with metronome at 60 = eight note, revising fingering because of this rhythm…)
- Bars 288 to 291 (intonation note per note)
One more day I managed to start in the morning! Woohoo!
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| Some translations: Trinado means Trill Fáceis means Easy Difícil means Difficult |
I didn’t sleep much, so I decided to make a lighter practice plan for today (which I wrote on my phone, hence, the screen shot here…)
Warm up/ technique random practice (20’)
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 60 bpm
- Vibrato
- Whole tone trills
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random (30’)
- Bars 376 to 384 (intonation/shifts: first really listening the glissandi to learn the distances, then with harmonics replacing the octaves, then with really heavy bow and left hand as light as possible*, then harmonics again)
*this way of practicing I came up with for when I realise my left hand is squeezing too hard, usually it gets “forte” together with the type of tone or character of a passage. So, when I let the right hand a lot heavier than whats is asked for the passage, even cracking the sound, while the left hand is so light that barely press the string, it's a way of creating another association between the efforts of both hands during that passage, the association that the left hand is light even when the music is strong.
- Bars 295 to 313 (notes, fingerings, mobility alla Benedetti)
- Bars 445 to 459 (I started to practice and realised the big difficulty of the passage is not the intonation, but to maintain the hand loose enough for the recapitulation of the theme right ahead, so I practiced making constructive rests)
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Random (30’)
- Bars 331 till the end (intonation, bow distribution in staccato, bow in the chords)
- Bars 313 till top of 318 (intonation and articulation of left hand using Benedetti, accents in different notes and rhythms. In the end I played at 60 = quarter note)
- Bars 291 to 295 (intonation)
And so it is that the plan I made helped me practice today! =)
Video of the day: Ramsey Musallam - 3 rules to spark learning
16 de janeiro de 2020 - quinta
Technique (maximum 1h, figure it out how to do it!)
- 1 minute bows
- Shifts on E string, starting with 1st finger
- Schradieck XV 10. (always the Benedetti way…)
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Random (40’)
- Cadenza, 2nd page, chords followed by descendant scale (intonation, fingerings, then with constructive rests, then just intonation of the chords coming from the previous notes to see the movements on those transitions)
- Bars 238 to 240 (first singing the next note and checking, then alla Benedetti without bow, then with the bow grouping the notes 3 by 3, then a play through at a moderate tempo. I could play at 60 = quarter note in a calm effortless way. Yoohoo!)
- Bars 247 to 250 (first alla Benedetti without bow, then playing slowly with accent in different notes, then I tried to play with metronome at 100 = eight note, but noticed some fingerings won’t work when I speed the passage up because they get my hand stuck, next time I practice this, I’ll change them.)
- Bars 266 to 271 (definition of fingerings an intonation, which in this case means to find a way of my fingers fit on the notes!)
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random (40’)
- Bars 124 to 144 (mobility of left hand: constructive rests and Benedetti, then I played at 80 = quarter)
- Bars 294 to 313 (for gods sake, someone help me with bars 298, 302 e 306:
they are too similar, it twists my mind! I practiced intonation, imagined next note and practiced mobility alla Benedetti. I also practiced the last line making a rest on bar 311 before the 2 last notes, to start internalizing that on that spot the melody changes direction and pattern.)
- Bars 333 to 349 (remembering notes and fingerings, mobility alla Benedetti, with rhythms)
- Bars 368 to 376 (intonation, just bow in staccato, then I played all together and realised that in the end it won’t be staccato, but on the string with short bow. All this passage till bar 400 reminds me of the Petroushka fair, why?)
January 19th 2020 - Sunday
Unfortunately I couldn’t do all the practice and productivity I wanted for this vacation time. Will I feel like this forever???
- Body warm up (5’)
- Centering (5’)
Technique random practice (30’)
- Whole bow staccato
- Vibrato
- 1234 on E string
- Practiced orchestra parts for work (40’)
- Practiced orchestra parts for work (50’)
FROM NEXT WEEK ON (01/20) CRANK UP THE STACCATO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOW TO 65!!! AND ON THE STRING CROSSING EXERCISE, ADD THE TRIPLETS SUBDIVISION!
TCHAIK PROJECT 11 - Focus on memorization >>>
<<< TCHAIK PROJECT 9 - End of 2019
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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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