My Two Epiphany moments today.

Published: Aug. 1, 2007 at 5:27 PM
Doing away with my shoulder rest took guts, but I'm past that now and putting things back in place technique wise. One epiphany today involved understanding what others were doing with shoulder pads and adapting something along those lines.

I took three rubber bands and non-obtrusively but relatively securely attached my leather like pad to my instrument with no loss of sound. It works wonderfully and I'll still be able to put my instrument away with said pad attached. It's not the most secure setup I suppose, but I handle my violin with kid's gloves anyway, so I can see it doing the job for the foreseeable future.

Finally getting in the the Hahn practice spirit was my other epiphany over the past four or so days. After scanning the last three Suzuki pieces in book three, I started learning Becker's Gavotte.

Not experimenting, and containing the impulse to just play allowed me to learn the entire thing with correct bowings in just a few passes--though of course I have a long way to go to get it to really sing. I seem to have some problem remembering bowings, I think because there is no really fixed pattern as in running scales on piano.

But it was beyond the bowings that I finally got the HH spirit. I just forced myself to slow down as perfectly as I have been able to do so far. I've been working towards this for some time, and the diversion in ditching the rest, putting my bow back to the strings, and finding my centers seems to have created the luxury of space and time to allow me to just hit it note per note, phrase per phrase, detached note per detached note, and finally with continuity in getting through the entire piece.

The restless setup also served as a deterrent for me in getting the Hahn practice gig going. I respect the need for flow and relaxed posture as at no other time, and thus my focus has had to adjust to this 'do not slouch!', attitude.

I thus wonder if all people approaching particularly violin and viola go through this finding one's self body and posture wise? And does cello have it's own unique physical considerations? There is something that feels above and beyond getting my callus on guitar, compared to getting my tuck on violin--very above and beyond--at least for me.

Anyway, learning the Gavotte without that unfocused not-really knowing what was going on was somewhat a first experience for me. I won't say that other learning has been completely chaotic, but I will say this focus on slowness was especially calming and rather stress free.

I found it most notable that I found the ability to stop myself when I had lost my place; and, found the discipline to not try and memorize it without really knowing 'exactly' where each bowing was going. It was 'that' level of detail.

Epiphany is cool, even if it does sometimes only involved the smallest aspects of something.