Violin

My violan teacher suggested that I work on the first two pages of vivaldi's violin concerto in G minor found in suzuki violin book 5 this week. There are four pages. My violan teacher believes that it is better to have the notes polished than to learn new notes and not have the notes from previous parts of the piece be up to their full potential.

In my opinion, this violin concerto is actually quite easy. There are just a couple parts for me that need a little tidying up. The measures on pages 1 & 2 that I find need a bit more attention are: 36-47, 65-75, and 84-95. For the last couple of days, I have been just zipping on through the first two pages of the concerto, not polishing up the suggested parts. I would call the last couple of days of violin practice anything but progressive.

I knew I needed to solve this problem, so I came up with another practicing technique!

What I did was I decided to rephotocopy the first two pages. Then, I cut out each line, stacked them all together, and shuffled them together! What this does is it allows you to focus on just the notes on the small sliver of paper! 

If you are going to do this, photocopy your reportoire first! Do not cut up your reportoire with all of your markings!!! Also, if you have already memorized parts of your reportoire that are not on the lines, then this excercise might not work for you, but if you think this excercise is going to help you, then you will need to force yourself to stop playing once you have gotten to the end of the line!

I hope this helps!! Happy practicing over this fine summer!!!

Viola

Today was the last day of Raspberry Ridge! We also had our recital!

Orchestra: Good, good.

Ensemble: We got our group together, we thought we were going to be fine!

Free time: Last couple of minutes to practice as a quartet without the cello.

Choir: Boring...but not with Kendall around!

Lunch: We had a guestspeaker that could sing and whistle at the same time!

Sectionals: Fine!

Tennis: I lost every match! Yay me!

Theory: I got to take home a timeline that will become quite useful when school comes around again!

Snack: We had to leave early!

Our quartet peice at the performance: I thought I did terrible! I got really nervous! I hit all the right notes but my bow wouldn't stop shaking! It was awful! I also forgot to repeat a section! I need to find out how to get less nervous! The audience said we did great! My dad who has musically inclined hearing said he heard the first violin (ehem, ehem) make tons of mistakes and not me! Well, this year's chamber peice was better than last year's! Last year, I froze up during our chamber performance! I need to find out how to get less nervous!

Viola

Penultimate Day of Raspberry Ridge! I hope I spelled that right!

Orchestra went well. I think we will be okay for our performance. My ear started bleeding again, so I missed 10% of rehearsal!

During ensemble, I thought we were fine! We will do great during tomorrow's performance!

Snack was normal. I don't even remember what we ate today.

During free time, I practiced Bach's Cello Suite in G Major 1st movement. I sounded fine. I have been practicing that peice for a long time. I have been practicing that peice for a long time because I might audition for MYCO on that piece.

Choir practice was awesome with Kendall!

For lunch, we had a little recital by the Pendergraft siblings! One played the violin while the other played the cello. They played 1D & Wade in the Water! They did great!

After Lunch, I had sectionals! We are fine!

I played tennis! I lost and won a match! Yay Kt!

Theory was interesting too! 

For snack, we had these awesome strawberry shortcake bars!

 If you ever find these in a store or if someone offers these to you, take it! No exceptions!

Soccer was fun! Then I went to my lessons! It was awesome! I learned so much!

Viola

Third day of Raspberry Ridge!

Orchestra: We practiced Handel's Messiah. I practiced that as soon as I got home today!

Ensemble: I got some help from a fellow violist named Hannah! She helped me out during free time! If Hannah & I have one thing in common it's that we both know that our quartet recital is now less than 72 hours away & that we have to pull it together! At this point, I don't care if our first violinist is getting all the notes (yes, he says he practices, but nobody is perfect) I just care about myself getting all the solo parts!

During free time, Hannah helped me out with the viola solo part-in front of everyone on the camp's basketball court, but being that there were ensembles everywhere and a private teacher helping each and every one of our qaurtet members, it wasn't very unusual.

"It's not the music that you remember, it's the people."-Hannah

During choir rehearsal, Kendall and I were separated. Very clever, conductor. I never saw that coming!

During lunch, Dr. Holly was a guest speaker. He spoke about his hidden talent which is how he had memorized the dates of when composers were born and when they died. He memorized quite a lot of composers. However, I stumbled him on Viotti (1755-1824)! I need to remember to ask him next year to see if he will remember!

Ensemble: Normal!

Tennis: I learned that our tennis instructor, Clare, was learning Spanish because her husband is Bolivian. I talked to her some en Español.

Theory: I explained the definition of vernacular. Vernacular is the local language of a location. For example, if someone in, let's say, Germany, says their Bible is written in vernacular, that means that their Bible is written in German! I also talked to Ms. Boyce about Ms. Bierk. I hope she is doing better! If it weren't for Ms. Bierk, I wouldn't be where I am now!

Free time: We had a guest speaker named Chisun. She had a very inspiring story to tell. She talked about her story of how she became a believer in God. She talked about how she was applying for colleges and how she kept on getting letters back saying "we can't accept you into our college". The more rejection letters she kept on recieving, the less she started believing in God. Chisun soon came to a point where she thought this whole God thing was bogas. Chisun soon got accepted into UNC. She didn't really want to go to UNC, but soon figured out the reason God decided to put her there. As a college, UNC has the second largest Christian community. That is why God put her there, so she could return to her faith. Chisun told everyone that she would be happy to talk to anyone abot their problems and I decided to talk to her. I talked to her about my whole chaamber story and she gave me her advice:

"they can practice for hours, for days, or maybe not at all, but Kt shall be the one that will end up excelling!"-Chisun

That was my day. Thank you Chisun!

Viola

Today was my second day of Raspberry Ridge camp.

First we had orchestra rehearsal. We practiced Jenkin's Palladio (easy!), Dvorak's Waltz in A major (medium), and Handel's Messiah (I had to sight read that, but everything was okay). It was a good rehearsal.

I then had ensemble practice. I thought that I had my viola solos in our quartet down, but I was wrong. I individually told our coach that I would like to play the viola solos for him so he could tell me what I could do better on them & for some reason everyone else in the quartet had to stop and listen. I got nervous and all of last night's practice went to waste. Just the fact that we have about 72 hours until our concert scares me. Time is running out! To be honest, I really hope that our first violin is practicing, or else we are dead. That ruined my day (and my self-esteem).

I then had free period. I did some more art. Yesterday, I started painting a Day Lily.

See the red part? Well, everything about my painting was perfect (in my standards) until I started painting in the red part. Now it is ruined! That's the one thing I hate about art. If you mess up one tiny detail, you end up messing up everything!

I then had choir. I got to sit by my friend Kendall! We had so much fun making jokes that one of the counselors had to come over and tell us to be quiet! Made my day!

Then I had lunch. Kendall & I decided to try dipping veggi sticks into vanilla yogurt. It didn't taste like anything. We then dipped pretzels in the vanilla yogurt. That was awesome! We were so loud during lunch. All we talked about was food!

After lunch, I had ensemble. I got the Halelluia down. Yay me.

After ensemble, I had tennis. I made such a fool of myself, but it's always good to try something new everyday!

I then had theory. In my opinion, it is the most boring class I have ever attended. I really was thinking about skipping, but I have never skipped class before; I consider skipping class to be a taboo. 

Don't skip class! 

Ten minutes into theory, we got cut short because a priest from the Chapel Hill Bible Church was here to pray and give us a sermon. That didn't mean that class was cut short. But today's class was better than I thought. We talked about how Shiniki Suzuki met Einstein. It was very interesting! We also talked about the history of music and history in general through an amazing timeline. 

Camp was over. I played soccer. Life is good.

Viola

Today was my first day at Raspberry Ridge Strings Camp!

First, we had orchestra! It went better than I expected! I hate to brag, but I was second viola- only because there were 3 violas. 

Next, we had ensemble. I am playing viola in a quartet. Our Quartet piece is K421 4th movement by Mozart.

I really need to work on the viola solos- for the fourth millionth time! 

Next we had snack, chips & salsa. Then we had choir. It was fun. It started raining intensely. Then we had lunch, we got dismissed early from choir practice. After lunch we had sectional practice. We talked about the fact that the counselours might take out the Dvorak waltz. I really don't know what to say to that. The violins sounded really good downstairs when they were doing sectionals. The viola part is easier. Then, I had theory. I wish I could have kept that timeline. When I was getting out of theory, I learned from my friend Kendall that my viola and her violin were made by the same maker-Antonio Fiorini. I can't figure out whether that is a coincidence or not. No wonder they looked so similar! I then had tennis, but since it was raining, we played ping-pong. I got hit in the face. Then, I had theory, whoops mix-up in my schedule. Then, one of the teachers at the camp Ms. Boyce, showed us her old violins. They were really cool! Then we went home.

I must practice.

Viola

Tomorrow is when Raspberry Ridge Strings Camp starts! This is going to be my second year attending! I will try to blog everyday about how things are going! I want to do this because sometimes last year, the camp was very stressful music-wise & I really didn't have an outlet. I have really hard music this year! I am most worried about our quartet! I also hope that I am not put in the front of the orchestra!

Should I or Shouldn't I?

I am having a bit of a problem here.

I am both a violinist and a violist, but I am thinking about completely switching over to viola. I have been thinking about this for a long time. I have a few reasons to back up my maybe-soon-to-be decision.

1. Less people play viola. More opportunities! I remember a couple of weeks ago, I went to go visit our local violan shop, and a violin teacher was retrieving her violin. I remember her telling me this: "Violists sometimes have a reputation for being terrible violinists. However, if you embrace the viola, you will always have a home." Those words hit me. They inspired me!

2. I will excell further with viola. some people that I know that play multiple instruments are really not as good as, lets say, the cello than other people. That is because they can never focus their full time on that one instrument. It's one thing people really overlook.

3. I really have no reason to continue studying violin. I am a violist in all my orchestras, all of my recitals are just viola repertiore, and I only audition on viola. I wanted to audition for ERO on viola AND violin next year, but once I think about it, there is really no point in trying out on violin. When I came home after our ERO orchestra concert, I was all over the violin parts (both 1st and second). I just thought they were so cool because there were some pretty awesome chords in there & the violins always had the main melody. I promised that next year, I would audition on both violin and viola, because I wanted to get a really good seating. Now that I think about it, I really don't want to. There's no point in doing that. 

4. My Best Friend has Done that too! My best friend (not giving out any names!) before she rose into high school as a freshman/freshwoman (just like me!), she was an excellent violinist! She was the eigth grade concert master for her middle school! She came into high school and one of her orchestra mentors recommended that she should start studying viola. She did that. She bought herself an awesome viola (I mean it, it looks and sounds amazing!). She is in some awesome ensembles and she is just an inspiration to me! She dropped violin when viola become more of a thing she did in orchestras. She is an awesome violist! I basically have the same story, except I am not as musically inclined as her.

The only things that I have as con arguments for not continuing to study violin is I hang my violin on a wall. I just play viola and I never take it off. I feel as if I am neglecting it. A nice violin just hanging on a wall for eternity makes me sad.

My goal this summer is when I come back to school, and I play viola for the school orchestra again, I want people to NOTICE that I have made some progress. That I have improved. Will completely switching over from violin to viola help me or hurt me? Please tell me what you think in the comments below!

I think this awesome quote sums up how I feel with viola being my second love.