Breeze

jon laa wrote on June 17th, 2009, 9:40 pm

Breaks can be good, sometimes. Picked up the violin after much procrastination, set the metronome to 80, worked on the lower half of the bow. Guess what? My hand doesn’t shake anymore, no idea why.

Maybe I was so used to the old-bow-hold which is causing the shake and the long break somewhat detaches me from that old-bow-hold. Good, good. Did exercises up to crotchet to 100, as written by the teacher, and it worked out fine. Not adventurous enough to move on to 120, probably need more time.

Did some speeding through the bach’s piece, pretty pretty. Dynamics are somewhat hard to control, transition between dynamic markings suck. Not interested in the bach’s piece at all, dvorak’s worse.

Maybe after some good few weeks of good harvest, the drought is here. Progress seems minimal and motivation is at its lowest.

And people are telling I’m enlisting soon, time flies. No, my enlistment still feels far away actually. But time flies, still, when I realise my to-do-list is still as long as ever. I need to get things done, that’s what I say.

Moving on from that delicate wooden irregularly-shaped box, singing is getting better too.

Lots of minor details to work on, I attempted to read the translation of the piece last night and couldn’t understand what the piece is about. Tsk. Not going back to it till when I need to get the program notes out. Laziness is getting on me, like the usual. Besides, understanding the song too well can affect my singing. Like, getting all emo and ending up compromising on technique, good sound, etc.

Bah!

Jaws are getting tighter, a dramatic recent change. They never felt that tight before. Good thing I noticed it early and putting my fingers at the jaw joint somewhat helps, I feel. Going to work on relaxing the jaws, isolating the vowels from consonant, which should help diction too. There are some fast bits where the vowels and consonants are too mashed up and it sounds like a complete mess.

For the least we have some direction and some pointers to work on. Beats those days when my voice type is flaky and sound is almost repulsive.

Long way to go, I know, but at least there’s hope now. Or rather, at least I feel there’s hope now.

Need to start running again. Gold for ippt, I told myself. Intervals, speed training. Target before enlistment, 400m x 10 in 1:45. Idealistically, I should be going for 1:40 but I’d be glad if I can manage 1:45. 1:50 will be a good start and I’ll probably be better doing some long runs too.

Kayaking, gosh, I need the hip flick. Gah!

And I need God.