A couple of notes

Note 1: I feel like a real violin student!  I’ve had four lessons with my *new* teacher and they both have been great!  We scheduled a time, I practiced beforehand, we had the lesson, and I worked on the stuff we just did afterwards. She came in, gave the lesson, and left. Professional. We’re on the schedule of two 30-40 minute lessons a week, which I really like. With my teaching schedule this semester, Thursdays and Saturdays work fairly well and they seem to work for her also.

Now I’m not saying I play particularly well during the lessons because, well, I don’t.  It’s surprising how nervous I get when someone else comes in.  I’m no Heifetz, but by myself I can get into a nice groove – nice sound, tempo, etc.  When someone else comes in and the pressure’s on, it doesn’t even feel like I’m doing the same thing.  The violin feels strange and foreign as my left hand gets weak and my right hand leads the bow over all the wrong strings, causing the violin to whine and squeak.  Of course, the violin whines and squeaks a little when I’m alone, but with someone else, it’s magnified.  It shows how valuable having someone else to play with really is.  It also shows how valuable listening to recordings can be to get used to the sound of two violins – not just one.  Also playing with a metronome is helpful to have something else making noise while playing, causing chaos.  Basically, anything to throw me off during practice is a good thing since performing is such a stressful situation.  I teach math in college and tell my students all the time to make their studying as stressful as possible, setting up exam conditions as much as they can, and that way during the exam, hopefully some of the inherent stress will be relieved.  It took me a little while to take my own advice.

So, let me introduce my new teacher.  Several weeks ago, one of Mr. Lipsett’s students, Evin Blomberg, asked Danielle her advice on how to get students since she was interested in teaching.  Getting a violin studio isn’t easy, after all.  This gave Danielle the idea of working with me and five lessons later, here we are.  Evin caused quite a commotion around Colburn when she showed up a few years ago.  I work as an RA and we got word that Mr. Lipsett had just accepted a 15 year old who had already graduated high school into the conservatory!  At the time it was unheard of for a student that young to live in the dorms with college kids, but we were assured that Evin was mature for her age and would get along fine.  That was two and a half years ago, and she’s still doing great.  As you can imagine, she’s a little bit of a genius, which can be extra scary, but I’m used to being around virtuosos so that’s a plus.

Here’s a video we took two days ago from our fourth lesson.  We played it together quite a few times, but I couldn’t focus and get through it.  We took a break, learned some of the new stuff, and then at the very end, right before she had to go, we gave it one more try running through as much as we could:

I like this video almost more for the parts where I mess up (which I do a few times) than the parts I don’t.  I’m getting better at pushing through the mess ups and just keep playing when I’m performing.  Not great, you understand, but better.

The second thing I want to point out from the video is how hard we’re both working.  Does it seem like, compared to Evin, I’m working a bit too hard?  It reminds me of a story when I went to the Air Force Academy, when I was a glider instructor pilot.  If you’re not familiar with a glider, it’s essentially a small plane with really long wings and no engine, so it just sort of glides along.  It has similar flight characteristics to a small airplane like a Cessna, and in the pattern (the pattern is the “setup” for a landing) the characteristics are almost identical, as you throttle down to let the Cessna come down on its own.  Going up, though, we tied the glider to a tow plane with a 200 foot long rope, let it tow us up, and then released from it when we were high enough.  One of the most difficult things for students to get was staying behind the tow plane; as you can probably imagine, getting out of position too high, low, to the side, etc could be dangerous for everyone.  I remember a point I used to make with a student who was miserably out of position – I would take the plane, get it back into position, then thrust my hands toward the front of the plane (the instructor sits behind the student, so the student couldn’t really see the instructor when they were in the air) and say “You see my hands?  We’re still in position.  Stop messing it up!”  That’s one of the things she pointed out in this early going – I move my elbow probably a little too much to change strings, which can cause playing on the wrong string.  Moving around while playing can be great, but I think I’m a little out of control.

Note 2:  Danielle’s benefit concert last weekend was superb!  Lynn Harrell was the guest artist and Alan Chapman from KUSC was the MC.  Her students played and they also played the Center Stage Strings 15-minute documentary.  All of the music was incredible, but the last piece – Danielle and Lynn played Handel-Halvorsen – was something extra special.  They are both such amazing musicians, and really looked like they were having a lot of fun.  We have video of that, so hopefully I’ll be able to put it up soon.

During the reception afterwards, Danielle came up to me and asked if I had talked to the guy who came for me.  I said, “whaaaat?”  Apparently someone read about the benefit concert on the blog and ended up coming.  I’m not sure if he came to see me (which is the way Danielle put it) or if he just came because I had advertised it, but either way I didn’t get to talk to him.  I felt bad about that, as I would have liked to say hello.  If you’re out there, thanks for coming!  Leave a comment and tell me how you liked the benefit!