I don't know what the norm is for beginner violinists, so I'm not sure if this is out of the ordinary to be starting so soon on vibrato, but still, I feel really cool even if all I'm doing is rubbing my finger back and forth on the A string.
I also had a nice little victory yesterday, usually I avoided playing on my G string because it sounded so scratchy, but I started playing on it a bit more yesterday and discovered I actually like it. I also learned that if you play a song in the sequence of notes on any string, it'll sound the same. There's probably a name for this, but since I'm completely new to music and music theory, I have no idea what it is!
I'm really happy that I got to drop Aunt Rhody yesterday. I've been playing that song since FOREVER, (okay 3 weeks, but it felt like forever) I don't actually mind it THAT much, I just wanted to move on. Now I'm playing May Song or Song of May, something like that out of Susuki book 1 (not the actual name, but something like that)
I played for so long yesterday that my fingertips started bruising, 2nd time that's happened the first time was on the 14th of November and I found it kind of disturbing because I couldn't figure out what was going on and since I was doing research for a story dealing with blood cancers and bruising is one of the symptoms of them, I had a kind of freakout session, but it faded, so everything was cool. This time however the bruising faded on all of my fingers except for my left pointer finger, that finger actually has not feeling in the tip after about an hour worth practicing everyday. It feels REALLY weird, especially when I touch velcro, (the rough part) normal or not, I have no idea.
Yeah, so the side effects of practicing for so long have some lovely pros and cons.
Pros, I'm getting better, Amy Miller, my violin teacher says I'm starting to get the artistic flow of my right arm, I never was that jerky to begin with, but it makes me happy to hear, I feel really cool when I hit the notes right, and I'm better able to read music.
Cons, my arms start to ACHE after playing for so long, and then my legs start to hurt so I feel like I just did a full body workout just by playing the violin for an hour. My fingertips on my left hand are loosing feeling in the tips, they hurt, and they bruise.
Personally I think that the pros outweigh the cons, I've never done anything (beyond write my books) that made me feel so totally awesome, since I have problems with self-worth, it feels REALLY great to be able to feel beautiful and awesome.
Things coming up
December 13, my first recital, I'm really nervous for it, I've never played in front of so many people before!
For you, pretty soon I'll be posting character sketches (are they called that?) so you can get to know my characters in my books so you'll know what the heck I'm doing when I start dressing up as them and playing the song that best fits them, (see I figured it out!)
So yeah, that's my 2nd post, first time I've ever posted a second post on a blog I set up so I feel really accomplished already.
Any tips on playing in front of a lot of people without throwing up backstage, missing notes, or passing out cold on the stage? I could really use a few tips, I'm a nervous shaking mess just thinking about it.
That's all :)
