Alchemical Laboratory

Reflections on Playing the Violin

Thursday 24 March 2011
Written at 3:45 AM (EST)

Before I talk about what it's like to play the violin now, I want to go back in time to give the reader a picture of my experience with the violin. I started playing it in Jordan in 1996 and stopped in 1999 (in other words, from 3rd to 5th grade) before I moved to the US with my family.

Now, thanks to a friend of my mother's who let me borrow her violin, and who is willing to give me lessons, I now have a violin to practice on. I haven't had my first lesson yet, so for now, I'm teaching myself. I've been practicing for three days--not a very long time, but it made me realize something: how much I'm not accustomed to playing the violin. :P It may be obvious, but I only realized it after feeling the physical effects of playing the violin on my left shoulder and my fingers. Holding the violin still feels awkward and somewhat uncomfortable, and pressing my fingers on the strings feels very uncomfortable. It made me think, "Did I feel this uncomfortable back when I used to play the violin?" Probably not, which is good news. That means that in time, I won't feel this discomfort (or maybe not as much).

I'm also using a shoulder rest now, something which I didn't use when I was a child. But I still feel discomfort. I truly wonder how I was able to play the violin in the past without a shoulder rest... I guess my neck was much shorter. :P I watched many introductory videos about the violin, detailing everything from how it's supposed to be held, tuning it, etc. I also looked into the matter of shoulder rests, adjusting them, etc. and it turns out that playing the violin comfortably is more complicated than I thought. Not all chin rests are for everyone, and similarly, not all shoulder rests are comfortable for everyone (a video by the American violinist Hilary Hahn definitely shed some light on this matter).

Another matter I'm not quite comfortable about is tuning (and I should also mention that the violin is quite old). It looks like the A and E strings are out of tune, so I have to tune them (alternatively, I could wait for my teacher to do it). I tried tuning the E string using both the peg and the fine tuner. So far it looks like I'm close, but not quite there. The A string, on the other hand, is proving much more difficult to tune. The peg is not exactly cooperative (it keeps turning back), and I certainly don't want the string to snap. I think I've given up on tuning for now (at least, using the peg. I have more luck with the fine tuners). This is not the best option because, after all, I need to train my ear to hear the correct notes, and if the strings are out of tune, then I'm off to a bad start. But, since my first lesson won't be too long from now, I'll just wait until my teacher tunes the strings.

So, overall, I'm very happy, but I'm slowly facing the realities of playing the violin.

I need to start writing more often

Monday 21 March 2011
Written at 12:54 AM (EST)

So, I'm back to blogging again, after yet another unofficial hiatus. I fixed the problem with the comments. There should be no more problems after that.

Now, onto the subject of this blog: writing. I read an article on self-publishing not too long ago on DailyWritingTips. What made me start thinking about writing again was not the actual article, but the comments on the article (most of the ones I read disagreed with the main argument of the article). It made me realize that self-publishing is something I might actually be interested in sometime in the near future. After all, I didn't want to get into the whole publishing "nightmare" because I didn't want to try to satisfy the taste of the public. Even if my writing one day became "wonderful" in all aspects, I still can't imagine my book being a bestseller. It's not the type of book that would be a bestseller. Maybe abroad, but not in the US (yes, I read about authors who were more popular abroad than in their home countries). But that's beside the point. My point is: I think I could just attempt to publish my work as e-books. I don't care if they become bestsellers. As long as there are people out there who will be interested in my work, I'll be happy. And hey, maybe I can even earn a bit of money while I'm at it.

The main problem, however, is that I don't want to publish my "dream novel" (or at least, not yet), so I will have to create other stories to publish. That's... something I'm working on. However, what I'm more concerned about now is my writing. I really need to polish it (and expand my vocabulary) before I can even think of publishing.

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