Learning to play

Music is like a language, the language of the heart. From each first tender moment to each flamboyant finale, the music speaks to us, no matter the culture, religion or language. For some mysterious reason, certain combinations of notes will elicit tears while others will bring joy. And once you have managed to learn the language of the heart, you are free to invent your own story, weaving complex melodies or elaborate chords. It establishes connections between us and the masters who came before us, hundreds or even thousands of years ago. In some small way, their spirit lives in the music that they have created, with each tone and moment of color.

Today I'm trying to play the D major scale first with an entire bow for each note, then half a bow, then up to 4 notes for each bow. I'm still convinced that I am playing out of tune more than half of the time, but I think my ears are slowly training themselves, and the moment of hesitation before placing my fingers on the strings is becoming shorter and shorter. I realized that I can play the D major scale starting from the D string, all the way to the high D on the A string. There is an F sharp and C sharp built in to the pattern, how convenient! The only trouble is, once I get to the E string, I have to remember to play a G natural directly following the F sharp. Sometimes its not easy to find my way back to that G natural.

For the first time in a while, I actually feel soreness in my left shoulder and arm. I was ambitious enough to try to play a few different versions of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major (see previous entry), although I only got through the first page or so. It's hard to restrain myself to slow down because I want to play the melody, its so tempting to speed up to satisfy my ears. However, more often then not, I'm rewarded not with a beautiful melody, but a wrong note or out of tune one. That reminds me, maybe I should sign up for that violin class... I haven't been motivated to read the Violin for Dummies book, playing is just so much more fun than reading!

By the way, you might be wondering why I haven't written any entries on learning French, well, that's because I haven't been learning too much these days. I'm going to start making my 20min commute count by listening to Starting Out in French from Living Language. More to come soon on the French front. Ciao for now!