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More Reflections on Playing the Violin and Writing

Thursday 30 June 2011
Written at 2:27 AM (EST)

My first reflections, as can be expected, were written out of ignorance and intimidation. After I had my first lesson, however, my fears and doubts were dispelled. As far as tuning is concerned, my teacher told me what I need to do to tune properly, and that she recommends that I tune (or at least, try to get into the habit of tuning) even though I'm a beginner--because I'm an adult.

I've been having lessons once a week since the beginning of April. According to my teacher, I'm progressing at a fast pace, which is certainly good news. However, there are obstacles which I must overcome if I am to continue playing the violin: a) losing my tenseness when playing, and b) hearing the music first in my mind, and then sending my fingers (so to speak) to play the music. These obstacles are especially difficult to overcome because they require a lot of mental work. After all, I can't just convince myself to lose my tenseness so quickly, or to learn to hear the music before playing it. But... this is something I have to learn to do, and I can't repeat to myself that it's difficult because then it will be difficult. :P

Speaking of self-fulfilling prophecies, my teacher came up with a wonderful idea: to play a violin piece (both me and her) on my sister's wedding. While that sounds fantastic, one of the first thoughts that ran through my mind was, Oh my God! There's going to be so much pressure. I don't know if I can do that. What if I fail?! I expressed my doubts to her briefly, and her answer was something I expected and knew deep down, "If you think it won't go well, then it won't go well." Yes, exactly. I need to not stress about it so much.

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Ah... I need to write more often in my blog. I realized that I've been absorbing a lot of information lately from articles and whatnot. While it's good to read a lot, I feel like I should also produce something as well. Maybe I should write blog entries to comment on articles that I read, for instance.

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