In-Depth Post #5

Hi all! Since the last blog post, I had another meeting with my mentor.

Progress update

As promised, I’ve been working on the second section of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It actually turned out to be quite short, and was easier than expected. For the next meeting, I will put the whole song together and add some ornaments (extra notes) to wrap it up.

 

Learning this section brought up a very important skill that I started learning about – shifting. In many pieces, there are patterns of notes that are very unnatural to play with the left-hand fingers only positioned at the end of the fingerboard. To make these more playable, it is helpful to move the fingers up the fingerboard into other positions. In order to shift properly, it is necessary to develop muscle memory for the different positions. I have been trying some exercises in one of my mentor’s old books to help me with this.

In the past week, I have started doing regular warm-up drills from this amazing video. One of the most important ideas I learned is that the vibrato sounds best when it is below the note, with the high point of the vibration being the actual note, rather than having the vibration rise above and below the note. This is a mistake I have been making for a while now. Although I have seen improvement, my vibrato is still too slow to sound very good. I intend to continue to work on this skill and do my warmups for the rest of this project, as vibrato seems to be an ongoing skill that is never really mastered.

In my next meeting with my mentor, I also want to pick one or two more songs to work on for the rest of this project.

 

Questions about my mentor

What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?

My mentor has a lot of old books that he used which are very helpful for introducing me to new concepts. They contain exercises and pieces that are designed to incorporate them and make the process of learning them more interesting. For example, the book about shifting that I mentioned earlier was one that was lent to me by my mentor.

What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?

My mentor and I have been trying to pick pieces that incorporate the new techniques that I am learning. I have found the RCM étude book to be really helpful for picking short-term studies. The order of the studies are in a way that corresponds to the RCM levels, which I have found very logical. At the beginning of the book is also technique exercises, such as scales and arpeggios that I do often.

What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?

Sometimes a helpful YouTube video pops up in my reccomended feed. I often watch them if I think they might be particularly useful or interesting. Often the most valuable part of them is being able to watch someone else play, rather than trying to interpret written content on particular ideas. An example is the video that I showed earlier about the vibrato warm-up exercises.

When you get together what do you talk about?

Our meetings are pretty much structured the same as a normal practice session for me, except that my mentor is there to comment and provide feedback throughout. We start with technique from the étude book (scales and arpeggios), and then we do warm up exercises, and then the studies and pieces that I am currently working on. I also like to talk about things that I noticed during my practice and pieces, and he teaches me about new ideas usually.

What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?

At this point, we have developed a meeting structure that works very well. Because of this, we are efficient and waste no time during our meetings to decide what to do. It is also good because it makes it easier for me to ask questions because there is more dedicated time for that.

What are you learning about one another?

I am learning about how my mentor doesn’t actually remember a lot about being a beginner at violin. Sometimes he doesn’t remember to teach me about a certain topic until I bring it up when I notice it when playing, or if he notices it when I am playing. I think one reason for this is because RCM doesn’t cover some skills that may not be as necessary as others, such as vibrato.

I also learned that my mentor is quite busy sometimes. He recently had to cancel a meeting and it was took a while to reschedule.

Thanks for reading!

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