Winter (Spring?) Term Review

Where has this term gone?  The weeks have flown by.  It has been a busy term.   I have worked hard on some challenging repertoire and my playing has moved forward.

Pieces for this term:
Arnold - Sonatina (all 3 movements)
Vivaldi - Sonata in C minor (all 4 movements)
Bougeouis -  Fantasy Pieces for oboe (first 5, now working on number 6)
Berkeley - 3 moods (currently working on number 1)
Bellini - Concerto in Eb (have only just started this)

Most of these pieces have been challenging from both a "number of notes" and a stamina perspective.  I've  put a large chunk of my practice towards exercising my fingers and building exercises based around the tricky bars in these pieces.  This was especially true of the final Arnold movement (very fast scales), the final movement of the Vivaldi and the Berkeley piece.  I've had to change my practice routine as a result and have pretty much dropped all of the "technical exercises" I was doing.   I now do some scales to warm up and move straight into my studies and pices.  I wouldn't have time to get through everything otherwise.

The Arnold piece is now resting - I won't say finished as it does require more work, but I think I've taken it as far as I am capable of doing for now.  I will come back to it later.  The Vivaldi will soon be put to one side too.  I spent weeks battling with the final movement of this, without feeling like I was getting there but it then seemed to come together eventually.    I am loving the Berkeley which is challenging in both notes and interpretation. The Bellini feels like a bit of light relief and is lovely.

Studies - I have finished working through the 48 Ferling studies.  My teacher has taken me through these quickly so that I get the notes under my fingers  She has pointed out that these are studies to keep going back to all the time. I need to work out the best way to do this.

My new study book is the Loyon 32 Etudes and I have the first one to do over Easter.  It is fiendish - perpetual semi quavers triplets.  There are too many notes and accidentals per bar, I have to work through it slowly and systematically to make sure I am playing the right notes. I am slowly getting there. It is also in quite small print, so today I gave in and made an enlarged copy,  It helped more than I thought it would.  It will be interesting to see how I can play the Arnold once I've worked through all of these!

Summer term starts again a week on Monday!

New things to think about

The holidays are over, practising has settled back into a routine and I had my first lesson of 2013 last night.   I have some new pieces to look at and some new things to think about imrpoving.

This week I have a new Ferling study to look at - no 42.  The keys get worse as the book progresses and this one has lots of flats to get my head around.  I am also starting the Derek Bourgeouis Fantasy Pieces.  I don't know if these are technically studies or just unaccompanied pieces but I don't suppose it really matters.  I haven't had chance to try the first one out yet but the performance notes indicate that a very smooth legato is required and carefully graded dynamics so I think it could be quite tricky.

We spent most of last night's lesson on the Arnold Sonatina. I  need to make the first movement more quirky and spirited.  Make sure that I don't slow down through the cantabile sections - or at least make sure that I pick the speed up again when required.  We also looked at the beginning of the second movment which will challenge my tone and stamina.  This is a great piece for working on vibrato and thinking about how to vary the speed of vibrato to add interest and colour.

I still need to work on the Vivaldi though we didn't look at that last night.

Key points to think about over the next few weeks -
  - keeping the quality of the tone consistent throughout register.  This was picked up in my previous Ferling slow study where my top A's tended to be more pronounced than the notes around them and disrupted the line of the phrase.
 - I need to breath more quietly and also make sure I don't nod my head forward when I breath in.  I wasn't aware that I was doing this so need to do more work in front of the mirror (or maybe get round to filming myself again) to train myself out of this. 

Orchestra practice starts up again tonight and I have an all day Shostokovich 4 rehearsal on Sunday so it is shaping up to be a busy week!