Objectified

jon laa wrote on January 29th, 2009, 2:51 pm

It makes a lot of difference to have an objective in mind, to ignore everything else including the end result. I need to put that into my singing, I need to learn to stop listening to myself, but it isn’t that easy at all.

Day 1 of violin practice. It wasn’t anywhere near good but it wasn’t that repulsive. I realise it’s difficult for me to play scales which don’t start on an open string at this point in time. My fingers are still a little deaf, shall work on those scales which start on open strings for the time being.

I had the switchy feeling. The switch between being focused and being not focused. Like when I am absolutely focused, everything is perfect. Bowing, tempo, pitch, every single damn thing. But out of the hundred over times I played the scale today, I only managed to play a relatively perfect scale twice, or thrice perhaps. Long, long way to go.

For the first time in my life, I used a metronome. And since I don’t have one, I was using the one found here. It’s pretty good, but it doesn’t go up by a degree each time. If it goes up a degree at a time, it’ll be easier for me. I’ll probably be less fluttered.

Only managed one scale, there’s another one I can try on. And I’ll probably look for scales that start on an open string to replace the ones that don’t.

Oh, I finally managed using the full bow. It isn’t that difficult if you were to shut out the slips of the bow, which produces some horrifying shriek. And it takes a lot of determination to continue an out-of-tune scale. It’s more than jarring. I should be more determined to go through out-of-tune scales, I suppose it will deter me from doing that again. Haha!

Be back to singing for a while before going to see a doctor. I’m practising in the midst of feeling a little drowsy. Probably some virus attack, whatever it is.

And so, I am not at work today.

ETA: I did another hour in the evening, managed to work on the scale a little. It’s still far from being perfect. I never really played all four strings on the violin three years ago, I’d always try my best to avoid the lower two strings. Probably need more time to adapt.

ETA: The doctor said it’s some viral going on in the air. My throat is somewhat affected, but I am still going to attempt to sing in a while.