Presently thinking a lot about syncopes and hemiolas, which can make long note phrases interesting. I never thought about syncopes in gavottes, but it looks like a gold standard to me now. The hemiola must be an actual form of syncopated triple time. I don't see anymore how it's not, having seen examples on Wikipedia.

@Schaick Thanks! I was a violin hater all my life, because violin players' vibrato drove me crazy. I was already 40 when realizing I was listening to dated Handel CDs and then bought nothing but real ancient music, not played like classical music. Many people don't know, there is a difference between classical music and ancient music. Authentically performed baroque music is closer to folk than most people assume. There vibrato is just an effect, involved like spice on long notes now and then. But not even on any long note. We don't throw all the spice into every dish of our menu, do we?

I think developing a nice vibratoless sound is a question of what I listen too. If I listen to classical violin all the time, my brain kinda gets sort of basically vibrated factory setting. Vibrato then will be part of my basic technique. You hear that a lot on YouTube: People just play a little scale and obviously cannot switch off their vibrato mode without carefully controlling all their phrases.

I had classical voice lessons and it took years to suppress sustained vibrato. The first measure is to throw away all CDs with classical opera voices on and only listen to authentic ancient music. Nonetheless, at times I hear a final note from myself, with vibrato on where shouldn't be any vibrato. And then I really curse myself.

Yes, I do quarter-syncopes, but yesterday was first playing syncopes with eights, not realizing it weren't quarters. Because I have eights in my ear from jazz. I didn't even know, rhythmical shifts in quarters would be syncopes until yesterday. But I'm really surprised how nice it sounds, although technically not difficult. That's what I wanted: Play more long notes, but make those more interesting than just plain long notes.

Just a test, whether I can insert an image from my blog (it's my own handwriting)

My gavotte solo didn't work out so well, because the stage light showed me all the shining skin oil spots on the fingerboard where my fingers usually hit. Which funnily means I'm able to finger blindly, without knowing it until Saturday open stage. After my complain, the stage light would be too much and irritate me, they faded it down a bit and everything was fine: J.C. Bach's Wedding Cantata and Now Rest All Forests. Those skin oil spots had helped me over months. I should now learn soon to ignore them at full stage light as well.

I'd like to share my new method: playing while constantly dimming the light and finally play in the dark.

I had started dimming weeks ago. While playing in full light I'm able to see the little skin oil spots on the fingerboard. They helped me to find the right places since taking off my First Frets in February. By dimming I was able to find out, whether I was able to play without seeing those spots. But still the pegs of the patch box gave me a little orientation and I still needed to see that.

Today I dimmed more and more and finally played completely in the dark, which worked like a dream. When the light is on I can focus on the bow but after some time will look at the fingerboard again because I'm used to it. But tonight I just played a complete Aebersold play-along jazz track without any light on. So now I'm absolutely sure I can do without looking.

Dimming down works well to wean off the habit of watching my fingering.

MrYikes said
It is inspiring to read your posts, but I'm exhausted, I need a nap and its 7 AM.  Just kidding.  Your plans are logical and it takes an exceptional person to be so dedicated.  It gives me hope that just maybe I can get my fingers to do as they are told.  

I see it this way and I have just been pondering it after waking up this morning.

Our body has two downsides which are hindering the goals of our mind:

1. laziness
2. fear

That's why the mind must constantly find out ways to trick the body.

Let's say, I'm able to rave over a couple very slow ballads out of the Aebersold repertoire. It doesn't sound great, it just works so-so. Which is a good start! Then I try "I can give you anything but love", which is medium tempo, I find very hard and it seems I will never manage to play that. It tires me and it's 'only' medium, but I find it pretty fast and this is encouraging me a lot.

The advice I will always give myself is:

• Play hundreds of ballads from the Aebersold repertoire which are C, F, and D minor to make it as easy as possible. Ignore passages where the chords confuse you and ignore your false notes like they were correct (in this moment we want to technically step ahead--we can improve our hearing later anyhow, which is mostly a matter of listening to professional jazz recordings and experimenting with chords at a keyboard). Important is to forget all chords beyond C, F, and D minor, so the bar you have to jump won't be unnecessarily high. And really-really the slowest tracks you can find in the Aebersold pool. And you do that for about 3 months.
• The next step won't be "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", we're already afraid of. No, we choose "Indiana" http://jazzbooks.com/jazz/prod.....B2PMS0rKM8 which is insanely fast. I'm struggling to play even sustained quarter note phrases (if we consider the walking bass quarters). Never mind, just play slow phrases, try a couple quarters which already will be terribly stressful. Now we go back to "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and suddenly we find that not so difficult anymore, after escaping the hell of Indiana on Aebersold's BURNING CD.
• So now you can try more medium titles out of the Aebersold pool and from time to time you go  to burning and other fast tracks. You also go to other fast tracks which aren't as crazy fast as Indiana, which will help you to completely take the medium goal. Nice side benefit: Very slow will now be very easy and you can now fully live your creativity there.
• Longterm goal now is to also conquer fast tracks and use extremely fast tracks to make it not so hard anymore. Maybe 6 or 12 months later..... So maybe after a year or two you will be able to play sustained quarter notes in Indiana and after 6 years possibly even eights (which kinda is virtuosic, so if we won't ever reach that goal it'll be no drama).

If we manage to motivate ourselves every day for years to come and we stay healthy it should come over time.

In the Mood would be somewhere in the middle between the hell of Indiana and the song Unforgettable on Aebersold's #58. That job in the middle is doing Take the 'A' Train and "Savoy". Unforgettable is a ballad here in a medium tempo.

http://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/m.....B4qQy0rKM8

At the end of the practice day (it's now after 7 p.m. here) I went back to the slow ballads I have gathered on my MP3-player a year ago. And here it suddenly showed another result in a title from the same #58 "In The Wee Small Hours": I was not just able to play dotted eights (played like 6/8 in jazz) and triplets, suddenly I improvise even sixteenths up and down and up and down--without interruption. I do remember I tried small groups of sixteenth notes yesterday, but not sustained for a long time and so clear. So, there is an effect already showing.

Looking forward to the results of Sunday evening .....

You mean redhot election hell of Indiana? Is there anything red so redhot in the midwest? As far as I've heard Indiana has always been sort of cautionary tale in midwestern blue campaigning: "Don't play with the fire and go where the voters in Indiana went!" LOL

This is really funny, to see the Aebersold edition BURNING that way! Which will certainly not end in a discussion about what people should vote next Wednesday. I will never go there like I do on twitter because that's not what a violin forum is meant for. But I love this redhot Indiana pun!!

MrYikes said
A fun tune you might enjoy is "In the mood".

Demoiselle said

• suddenly we find that not so difficult anymore, after escaping the hell of Indiana

In this election year and because I live in Indiana,  This just felt so real.

  

P.S.: Once I was a regular listener of the Stephanie Miller Show via WCPT, which explains why I know more about American politics than 'normal' Germans.

Okay, now I know what calypso power fiddling does—muscles aching everywhere: arms, shoulder, décolletage, back....
I was able to speed up my phases quite a bit more. The Latin rhythms have been whipping me over the meanest cliffs. Otherwise I wouldn't have managed that.

On Sunday the German public radio aired "Gypsy Baroque", an interesting live concert which still can be listened to until November 13 here: http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/....._id=369161
(On the big photo is the grey botton "AUDIO" which starts the music--first a lady explains the music).

On YouTube I found something similar (which is not really authentic baroque like above radio program) and I found interesting to compare the gypsies to the rest of the musicians. To me the gypsies look like natural humans, whereas the rest kinda comes across like programed robots.

There I can clearly see where I see myself: not among those who have been adapted to the classical music assembly line. I see a lot of resemblence, comparing that gypsy phrasing to my above Latin stuff. It sounds similar and it's both the natural way to make music.

I am very happy. A month ago I still was a little afraid my concert in December might be a bad idea because too early in my development. I was still struggling with several pieces and at times too tired to play anything flawlessly. This has totally changed--today my violin technique was unwavering--more reliable even than my recorder fingering. All insecurities have gone and I'm no longer afraid of that concert. The speed training of the past couple weeks was a success, what I do in my concert feels like pure recreation now, which makes me feel relaxed and firm. Very optimistic.