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This could just be in my head (mentally but also literally as I'm having issues with my sinuses) but lately everything has just felt off. "The notes sound sour and it feels like there's something stuck in your floo."
I don't know what it is but as soon as I took my cheater sticker off my violin last month it feels like I can't hit any notes right.
What do you guys do to get things "straight" again?
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." - Sharon Begley
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You are probably improving, seriously it happens to everyone.
Sinuses may be down to your rosin.
Whats the cheater sticker, I honestly don't understand.
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Nah, I'm allergic to everything in the air where I live besides the Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Carbon Dioxide lol. We have grass pollen, tree pollen (oak, pine, cedar, and more), petrochemical industry in the area, even dust storms from North Africa during the summer/hurricane season, and marsh fires/wild fires year round. The rosin is the least of my issues lol.
The cheater sticker that I got when I bought my Midnight Edition from here.
It's not just the music, though, I've been struggling with procrastination and executive dysfunction trying to finish stuff at work. That's what the "feels like there's something stuck in your floo" part of the lyrics is referencing. Like I know what I need to do, it just feels like a climbing a mountain to even get started.
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." - Sharon Begley
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Ah, see what you mean with the cheater sticker, I hadn't heard of them. Good move taking it off, some people on here think they are good, I think they hold you back in the long run. It's hard enough developing your ears without relying on visual aids.
We get the sand storms as well, I am up at Liverpool, my car is often covered in red dust, if we get warm weather, if its not raining that is.
To be honest you sound like you need a break, a week in Spain , is good for restoring motivation, as long as you don't drink too much red wine that is.
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@Cajun -
It's understandable, I've been blaming the weather (a lot), lately - MUCH longer than a month!
I'm not having issues hitting the notes... just ZERO impetus. 😞
New tunes help keep me interested & new strings DEFINITLY helped, but still another dreary day - in fact going to commit to "The Mildew Reel" today, just cause it seems appropriate.
If I have trouble 'hitting the notes', I usually find out my fiddle is out of tune! I don't check tuning very often, cause my strings stay very stable.
...playing does help take my mind off my 'state of mind'. 🥴
Btw, one exercise that helped me tremendously with intonation - 'One String, One Finger Scales' (especially starting at 2:30 in the video), up each string.
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Gotta be patient with yourself.
There are many, many ways to get it wrong on the fiddle. We don’t always know why, at a given moment, it’s not working.
Maybe it’s allergies, maybe it’s that goofy E string that won’t hold tune, maybe my mind just isn’t properly focused, thinking about distracting things. Maybe that violin was just feeling grumpy or maybe it was mad at me, haha. Often I never figure out exactly what was making my fiddle sound bad.
Sometimes the best course of action is simply to take a break and then come back to it 5 minutes or 5 hours later. Other times I just need to power through the blockage, grinding ahead until everything falls into place again.
I find that if I’m willing to accept the ups and downs of trying to play this crazy challenging instrument, it eventually works out. The magic goes away, but it always comes back -- on its own schedule!
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