Click here to see the introduction of the TCHAIK PROJECT and know what it is about. =)
And here are the links to all the practice diaries of this PROJECT.
January 20th, 2020 - Monday
- Body warm up (5’)
- Centering (5’)
Technique random practice (30’)
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 65 bpm
- Vibrato
- 1234 on A string (intonation exercise)
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. (30’)
- Bars 111 to 114 (intonation note by note)
- Bars 181 to 188 (intonation note by note)
- Bars 247 to 250 (mobility alla Benedetti with rhythms, with metronome at 60 = eighth, then at 100 = eighth. It is still raw, but at least I can already play it nonstop in medium tempo.)
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov. (30’)
- Bars 65 to 80 (left hand articulation: mobility alla Benedetti with accents in different notes, with rhythms, paying attention to patterns/groups/sequences of notes already with memorization in mind)
- Bars 294 to 313 (my focus was to understand the difference between the bars I mentioned on January 16th [298, 302 and 306] because they are similar, but not exactly the same. I observed the difference of the note grouping on the 3 runs so I can memorize it. I could play the whole passage by heart very slowly. I tried to play with metronome at 100 = quarter note, it was a little tripping, but I played. At the end I practiced it alla Benedetti without looking at the score.)
- Bars 601 to 612 (on bars 602 and 606 there is this annoying string crossing, so I practiced it shortening the note before the crossing, then pausing immediately before playing the next note - which I played searching a more bitten attack, cause it was sounding too blurred. I practiced some shifts on the passage and at the end I could play at 100 = quarter note.)
I noticed something interesting and important - I mean, I keep noticing, because it’s not exactly a novelty - which is the fact that I need to understand to memorize. There are many ways to memorize music, each person has its main form: visualization of the score, muscle memory of the arms, hands and fingers, memory of the sounds etc. This article by Noa Kageyama on the subject is very interesting. Me here, I need to understand, otherwise I won't memorize. I need to map the piece and the passages, understand from the macrostructures to the micro, going through the keys present in the piece, similarities and differences. Just repeating doesn't work for me, I don't trust that I know, I have a blank and ciao ciao. I still don't know how it will work in the end, but I already understood that I have this need for a more intellectual understanding of the score.
- Orchestra repertoire (30’)
January 23rd, 2020 - Thursday
Technique random practice
- 1 minute bows
- Shifting positions, starting with 2nd finger on E string
- Schradieck XV 11.
And that’s all I had time for…
January 24th, 2020 - Friday
- Whole bow staccato
- Vibrato
- 2 octaves major scales in fixed position (I felt tension in my face. Really?!?)
- I played to check what I have memorized of the 1st mov. (from the beginning until the end of the 1st page - which in my part is bar 53 - I have in my head; on the next page I have the structure, harmony and rhythm, but I’m missing some notes, which I was already looking at and trying to memorize. For this I found an advantage of being myopic, I practice without my glasses and even if I have the instinct to look at the part to check something, I see nothing but big blur, which makes me use the ear memory or stop and really check the part.)
January 27th, 2020 - Monday
Technique random practice (25’)
- Whole bow staccato
- Vibrato
- 1234 on D string
Technique random practice 2 (20’)
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 65 bpm, subdividing the beat in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8
- Trills 1/2 step
- String crossing at 60 bpm, subdividing the beat in 2 and 3
- Memorization =)
- Contemporary repertoire
- Tchaik 1st mov, tricky triplets (bars 50 to 56)
January 28th, 2020 - Tuesday
Technique random practice (1 hour)
- Open strings with 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1/2 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Vibrato
- 1234 on G string
- Schradieck
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
Aleatório (35’)
- Música contemporânea
- Bars 54 to 58, the tricky triplets (mobility alla Benedetti, shifts, trying to memorize. The structure is quite advanced in the memorization process.)
- Bars 107 to 110 (played with bow in sextuplets at 60 = quarter note, repeating each note 3 times, paying attention to bow articulation, lightness of left hand and intonation, already memorizing because it is easier to play and to tune)
- Bars 166 and 167 (intonation, bow distribution and constructive rests because the tension makes the sound really ugly, scratchy and out of tune)
This middle section, at least until bar 175, doesn’t it seem like a drunk person?
Tchaikovsky 3rd mov.
Random (40’)
- Contemporary repertoire
- Bars 148 to 163 (intonation, bow and shifts. I noticed that I’m tensioning and rushing the movement of the left hand before the shifts when I “play it for real”, hence the notes out of tune, the hand doesn’t travel the right distance nor has the calmness I want. Next session I should practice it with constructive rests before the shifts and also play the melody slowly with faster shifts.)
- Bars 180 to 188 (articulation of the fingers with accents, rhythms and mobility, already trying to memorize.)
- Bars 290 to 313 (mobility alla Benedetti and trying to memorize the sequence, the structure is already by heart, but not in the same speed for all the notes.)
February 8th, 2020 - Saturday
I had a mini vacation, organized the to-do list of the semester, freaked out and came up with this horrible pain in the abdomen. Lots of anxiety, of the paralyzing type really. I paralyze on the procrastination, I do everything BUT practicing violin or whatever is the main activity of the day (like writing). I wash the dishes, go to the supermarket more times than I need, organize papers that are accumulating on the table and do other little things, and it all happens during the time I reserved for practicing.
- Cycle 1234 (an Alexander Technique exercise taught to me by Eleni Vosniadou)
Right side random practice* (30’)
- Open strings with 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Open strings with 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1/2 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 65 bpm, subdividing the beat in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8
Left side random practice* (30’)
- Vibrato
- 2 octaves major scales in fixed position
- Trills
*I chose to call it the right “side” instead of right “hand” because it’s not just the hand that we use and work on, but the entire body, with focus on the right side, which comprises all the structure of right arm and hand, even though the focus here seems to be more on the hand than the arm. The same thing applies to the left “side”.
Tchaikovsky 1st movement, run through of the exposition (beginning till bar 127) with metronome at 60 = quarter note. Observations:
- Introduction and 1st theme till bar 50: I can play, but it’s very raw, sound is not clean, floppy articulation and some notes out of tune.
- Tricky triplets (bars 50 to 58): I tripped, couldn’t play at 60 not even with wrong notes, noticed lack of continuity between the groups of 6 notes.
- Rest of the transition for the 2nd theme (bars 59 to 66): tripping a lot, but even with wrong notes I could play.
- 2nd theme: out of tune, specially between bars 71 and 83. Go figure…
- Transition to Codeta (bars 97 to 106): I need to restudy the fast scales because I’ve already forgotten everything, and also bars 103 and 104 because I never really practiced them.
- Codeta: I was surprised with how much it already improved. Left hand is light, even with some notes out of tune. Bars 111 and 112, which I thought were going to get stuck in tension, didn’t, it was a looot better than I expected. Bar 113 I need to practice a lot, too many mistakes. From 114 to 118 it’s how I left it, just the skeleton.
Random practice
- Tchaikovsky 1st mov., bar 113 (since the violin has new strings, I practiced more the memorization of the note sequence than their intonation. I played a few times just thinking/memorizing, then with metronome at 60 = eighth. I sped up 10 points on the metronome each time and got to 120 = eighth playing from bar 107 to 114, with mistakes and all, training to be loose when I perform even if it comes out ugly.)
- Other repertoire
- Other repertoire
I heard this podcast and OMG!!!! Jennifer Johnson on Bulletproof Musician: https://bulletproofmusician.com/jennifer-johnson-on-learning-to-play-more-effortlessly-through-a-better-understanding-of-the-true-design-of-your-body/
February 9th, 2020 - Sunday
Keep trying, whatever you can do… (any practice is profit!)
- Cycle 1234
Random technique practice for the right side (30’)
- Open strings with 4, 3, 2 and 1 beats per bow at 60bpm
- Whole bow staccato
- Open strings with 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 beats per bow at 60bpm
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 65bpm, subdividing the beat in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8
Random technique practice for the left side (40’)
- Vibrato
- Half step trills (all on G string, which is harder)
- Shifts starting with 3rd finger on E string
- 2 octaves minor scales in fixed position
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. (Spots to practice picked up from what I noticed on the run through of the exposition I did yesterday)
Random (30’)
- Bar 42, the shift from the 3rd to the 4th beat of the bar (here what happens is that to prepare the fingers of the left hand for the C-F# tritone is uncomfortable and ends up taking longer than it should, that may alter the rhythm making it sound more like an eighth and 2 sixteenths than a triplet. In this practice session I noticed that the secret is placing the 1st finger on the E string still during the 3rd beat of the bar, because this is the finger that gets late. So I practiced this detail very slow, with metronome at 60 one beat for each note of the triplet, with fingers in all notes, but bow only playing the upper note. I didn’t sped it up.)
February 10th, 2020 - Monday
I’ve been upset that I always end up having less time to practice than I planned, that the time spent practicing flies a lot faster than I would like, that the technical part that should last one hour lasts hell of a lot longer and in the end I spend much less time in repertoire than I need…
- Cycle 1234
Technique random practice (45’)
- Staccato in the middle of the now at 65 bpm, subdividing the beat in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8
- Whole step trills
- 3 octaves major scales
Tchaikovsky 1st mov.
I played the middle section with metronome at 60 (obviously the Cadenza without metronome). It’s too raw, I’ve been forgetting this part, specially the Cadenza. The first half of the middle part, bars 160 to 188, has some serious bow problems, the articulation is floppy and I don’t know how much bow to use nor in which region. The next part I play in the Middle section is the Cadenza, which lately I neglected solemnly! I couldn’t play one bit after the other not even with a bunch of mistakes. And lots of tension. It’s also worth saying that the work I’ve done before in this part is still here, the thing is that I’ve done very little.
I went to YouTube to see how great soloists use the bow in this passage: Itzhak Perlman, Julia Fischer, Janine Jansen, Joshua Bell and Sayaka Shoji.
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. (middle section)
- Bars 162 to 165 (I realized that soloists use a lot less bow than what I was using. So I practiced slowly, focus on bow distribution but practicing with notes, playing twice each note inside the staccati slur so I loose the fear of not having enough bow. After doing it slowly without metronome, I made it at 100 = sixteenth, 60 = eighth, 80 = eighth and 100 = eighth)
- Bars 176 to 185 (Here I noticed that the soloists use very little bow and quite close to the frog, so I practiced it slowly, also practicing the continuity of all the passage, which so far I only practiced in fragments.)
- Bars 166 and 167 (again, practiced very slow, focus on the bow…)
In the end I played the whole, from bar 160 till 188, in medium tempo, focusing the attention on my body. I managed to go till the end without exaggerating the tension! Yay! Although I need to work on the looseness of the thumb, it’s not because it works while I’m playing that it has to make more effort than necessary.
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. Cadenza
Not in random mode.
I still don’t have much of an ideia of how I want to play the Cadenza musically speaking, so I was practicing in sequence, watching if I see/create relations that look like a musical narrative. I subdivided the Cadenza in little pieces from A to I (according to technical patterns) and inside those pieces I draw measures so I explain better how I practiced.
A - bow and intonation of the chords, gotta remember that I don’t need to use the whole bow…
C - first I sang, with metronome at 50 to each group of 32nds, with the subdivision of each group, then I practiced mobility alla Benedetti without bow, then with bow, then watching the string crossings and organizing them.
D - intonation and bow. The first chord is shorter, the second more “spreaded”, like the 1st theme on exposition, even though the bowing is different
E - just played… need to practice this “falling”… but it was good to see that the movement of the octave shift is quite tranquil and tuning a lot easier! What I practiced before is maintaining.
F - I practiced more the trill in the end of the part, trying to understand what to do with the bow. I need to practice the bow on the triple steps to make the lower note sound more than the others.
H to I - I went straight to part I, put the triplets on the metronome because the rhythmic proportion wasn’t good and it was bothering me. It was wonderful! Even the shifts were lighter and it was easier on the faster spot, since proportionally it’s not that faster. I played at 80 = quarter note. Then I decided to play from before and noticed that it fits a 4/4 bar. Play at 80 since H. I need to practice better the descending scales on H.
G - I started by the last 2 “measures” of G, changed the fingering and practiced with metronome at 60 = quarter note. Then I was looking the whole passage and noticed the chord progression, I practiced only those chords to see how I express this progression with the bow, because the first one is quite arpeggiato, the last ones quite tight.
February 11th, 2020 - Tuesday
Re-reading my practice diaries from 2005 (I was in Budapest) I see that since then my practice productivity varied a lot, the amount of hours varied a lot. I was already writing what I had practiced and the hours and minutes of each thing, but almost nothing about how I had practiced. Sometimes there’s a comment on how I felt generally, if I felt well, if I was sick, if I was happy with the practice session. Some everyday routine information appear, like what I bought on the supermarket. Funny how what we need from a practice diary changes over time...
Technique random practice
- Whole bow staccato
- String crossing at 60 bpm, subdivisions of 2 and 3 for each beat
- Vibrato
- 3 octave arpeggios (major, minor and diminished)
This thing with the arpeggios didn’t work out so well, consumed more time than I wanted. Would that be because there's a long time since I practiced arpeggios?…
Tchaikovsky 1st mov., Cadenza
I read what I wrote yesterday and set the timer for 35 minutes. Then I went through small issues on the Cadenza from beginning to end, 3 times down this path jumping from small thing to small thing, from beginning to end, which made the whole thing be a random practice session.
B - the shift from A on first position on G string to G# on 7th position on E string, to loosen the body during the shift and don’t do unnecessary movements.
C - left hand mobility (alla Benedetti and rhythms) with bow distribution
E - the octave fall in the end of the pentagrams. First I practiced playing the upper notes with whatever fingering so I understand the rhythm and the notes inside of it, to have the sound on my mind. Then I played again, slowly, with the fingering of the passage and both fingers on the string, but only playing the upper note. Then I did the same procedure with the lower note.
H - I tried to memorize because I didn’t get used to the fingering, I’ll see if I get used to it or my body - away from the influence of sight - suggests a better fingering…
February 14th, 2020 - Friday
- Cycle 1234
Warm up and technique random practice
- Staccato in the middle of the bow at 65 bpm, subdividing the beat in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8
- Vibrato
- G major 3 octaves simple and alternate scale, and arpeggios
- Double stops in G major
Tchaikovsky 1st mov. (45’)
I played the recap and coda at 60bpm (as I did with the exposition and middle section) to see how it was and what I had to work on. It’s very raw, I didn’t practice it enough to play it nonstop, not even full of mistakes. I stopped many many times, in almost every little part of the recap. Now I have to invest much more time here to prepare it. Curiously, the codeta (bars 285 to 295) was the part that sounded the best and I almost didn’t stop while playing it.
Since I had little time and a lot to practice, I decided to practice the first half of the recap, which I though was the worst. Random practice mode, of course. Next time I practice, I’ll take the second half.
- Bar 219, the scale (first I played so the ears understand the notes, then mobility alla Benedetti, with rhythms and, lastly, alla Sebastian.)
- Bar 242, arpeggios on last 2 beats (intonation, shift, several times slowly with attention and calmness)
February 16th, 2020 - Sunday
Technique random practice (30’)
- Open strings with 12, 14, 16 and 18 beats per bow at 60 bpm
- Shifts, starting with 4th finger on E string
- Schradieck
- 3 and 4 octaves scales, 3 octave arpeggios, 4 octaves alternate scale in Bb major (15’)
- Double stops on Bb major, 3rds, 6ths, 8ves, 10ths (12’)
Tchaikovsky 1st mov., recap
Continuing the work of last practice session, I did stuff on the second half, but only had time to practice twice each passage. Repeat the same passages next practice session.
- Bars 245 and 246 (I played to recognize the passage and put the notes inside the ear, mobility alla Benedetti)
- Orchestra repertoire (30’)
TCHAIK PROJECT 12 - The frog and the "hanger"tension >>>
<<< TCHAIK PROJECT 10 - Summer vacation and beginning of 2020
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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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