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My Journey with My Violin Since May 1716.
A probably unusual way to learn improvising via baroque play-alongs.
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MACJR

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I am still very new at playing the violin again, but I have started, in small bits, to improvise here and there. Usually, after I have messed up the piece I was trying to play correctly.   ;)

Sometimes, I keep messing up in the same spot, because it feels wrong to me. It should have been this other way. Then I go back and try to do it as it was meant to be done.

I do plan to work more on improvisation later though, once I get better at the basics.

MACJR

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Demoiselle
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Do you play guitar or a keyboard instrument? Or maybe banjo, ukulele, accordion etc.? You need to get a feeling for chords. I met players of wind instruments on jam sessions who never did that. Session organizers always want to get rid of these guests because they constantly play false notes without realizing it. If you feel like improvising, you should work on chords. Greensleeves is definitely not suited for beginners--the chords aren't extremely tricky, but nonetheless not easy: You definitely need to hear the transition from D minor (tonic) to A major (dominant) on all  three notes of  the triad. From D minor to A major and back to D minor--each time you must be able to hear right away what changes. Which is no rocket science--anybody can learn that by doing. The best way is at the keyboard. Back to Greensleeves, it is a bit long for improvisation beginners. There are two parts and the chords of the second part differ from the first part. Not easy to not be off-key there.

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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MACJR

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Demoiselle said
Do you play guitar or a keyboard instrument? Or maybe banjo, ukulele, accordion etc.?

No. But that is a no as in not yet.

I do plan on buying a guitar within the next year. I am also thinking about getting a keyboard, but I am not sure when I can budget that in. I already have a long list of items I plan to buy over the next several months, including that acoustic guitar that I have already picked out. I want a viola and an electric violin before I buy the guitar, then I will think about a keyboard.

My budget is very limited, but I can get a few nice things now and again. It just takes time, planning, and research.

MACJR

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I also meant to add, I am already at the point where I am speeding up my playing at times. And yes, speeding things up does help make playing slower easier. It is because you have to gain more control when playing faster. Learning that control when playing faster does help maintain control when playing slower too.

I am still less than four months into playing again. I still need more control, and to refine my skills, but I know I am getting better, fast. I think I impressed someone last night. She had heard me play, over the phone once, early on, when I was just getting to be able to play Mary Had A Little Lamb (which was my very first violin tune as a child, and again as an adult). I was only so so at it then.

Now, I can play a fair number of tunes, and although not always perfectly, they, or at least some, are starting to sound pretty good. At the time I was playing yesterday, I did not know if she was listening. She is taking chemotherapy treatments, and it drains the energy out of her so much that she drifts into sleep often. The other end of the phone just goes quiet. Still, I played on as if she could hear, and would say a few things now and again when I would take short breaks. Turns out she heard at least some of my playing, and she agrees, I have come a long way fast.   :)

MACJR

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BillyG
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December 22, 2016 - 4:16 pm
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Ha !

I've played fiddle over the 'phone-line as well !  ( Usually "Happy Birthday" with some variations - or - come New Year maybe Auld Lang Syne and a couple of other Scottish airs to the one or two friends I still have left - I've lost a lot of friends since I started playing fiddle.... hmmmmm ???? )

Hope your friend is doing well, my best wishes !

I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh - guntohead.JPG

Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)

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MACJR

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@Demoiselle - I figure that the reason you could improvise right from the beginning is that you have extensive experience in music.

For me, I only had about a year and a half of training when I was 11-12. After that, music was lost to me until I bought my violin last September. I had to start over, from the very beginning level then. I did not even know how to read sheet music in September, although I had already started researching it in August. The reason it took several practice sessions to finally be able to play Mary Had A Little Lamb again is because I had to learn how to read the notes and translate them into fingering the strings. I did not have the skills to try an improvise much of anything then.

Now, I can read sheet music. The notes, anyway. There are some details about reading sheet music that I still need to study about in more detail. I know the basic, other things, I still need to find out just what that means. My focus has been on bowing, fingering, and note reading until now. I need to start working more on timing and learn more of the details of reading sheet music now though, for playing the tunes as they are written. At least my fingers are cooperating more now, at getting to the right string and the right note.

I do want to be able to improvise, but that is not my main goal right now.

@BillyG - I have only inflicted my violin playing on one person, so far.   ;)

Maybe it is not such a nice thing to do to someone so sick? Or maybe it helps, just a little bit, to get her mind off other things for just that little while.

It is still too soon to say if she will make it through this latest battle with cancer. All I can do is try my best to encourage her to not give up... and talk to her even when she cannot find the strength to do more than just listen.

MACJR

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Demoiselle
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MACJR said
I also meant to add, I am already at the point where I am speeding up my playing at times. And yes, speeding things up does help make playing slower easier. It is because you have to gain more control when playing faster. Learning that control when playing faster does help maintain control when playing slower too.

I am still less than four months into playing again. I still need more control, and to refine my skills, but I know I am getting better, fast. I think I impressed someone last night. She had heard me play, over the phone once, early on, when I was just getting to be able to play Mary Had A Little Lamb (which was my very first violin tune as a child, and again as an adult). I was only so so at it then.

Now, I can play a fair number of tunes, and although not always perfectly, they, or at least some, are starting to sound pretty good. At the time I was playing yesterday, I did not know if she was listening. She is taking chemotherapy treatments, and it drains the energy out of her so much that she drifts into sleep often. The other end of the phone just goes quiet. Still, I played on as if she could hear, and would say a few things now and again when I would take short breaks. Turns out she heard at least some of my playing, and she agrees, I have come a long way fast.   :)

MACJR  

I see, you're a positive thinker and you are very realistic concerning your goals. This makes me very optimistic and I think this is also the reason of your fast progress. So many people are blocked by negative thinking since they bought into general negative narratives full of negative clichés.

I guess, buying a guitar is a good thing for you, because it sounds like that's what you would like. It empowers you to make sound recordings of short and simple chord patterns and improvise over them. And you learn to understand the harmony behind melodies by starting with simple pieces and slowly progress. I can assure you, there are very simple examples for an easy start and there's vast material of medium standard to slowly develop.

Which is a big chance to completely understand music and not just being dependent on notes written by others.

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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MACJR said
I do plan on buying a guitar within the next year. I am also thinking about getting a keyboard, but I am not sure when I can budget that in. I already have a long list of items I plan to buy over the next several months, including that acoustic guitar that I have already picked out. I want a viola and an electric violin before I buy the guitar, then I will think about a keyboard.
My budget is very limited, but I can get a few nice things now and again. It just takes time, planning, and research.
MACJR  

Wait, you want a viola before you feel safe on violin? Isn't that messing up your violin routine while you're trying to gain sense of space, especially on the fingerboard? Learning various instruments over many years is okay, but I think you should give your violin at least 2 years to grow together with her. Starting on too many instruments at one time is not a good idea.

I was just thinking about guitar and keyboard again and came to these conclusions: I would not start both of them, but either decide for guitar or keyboard. Guitar has a thorny downside: You have to press the strings down way harder than on violin and many people complain it would hurt. That's why guitar players grow lots of horny skin on their fingers, so it doesn't hurt anymore. At age 17 an aunt gave me a guitar banjo as present, but I soon gave that up. It was a stupid idea and wiser to focus on piano and trombone.

I'm really afraid, if you start keyboard and guitar at the same time, you will remain in the lowest stage of dabbling. Maybe I was wrong before, assuming guitar would be great for you. On a keyboard you see everything clearly before your eyes, you hit chords with the left hand, while the right hand playfully figures out what scales belong to what chords. This is something anybody can handle pretty soon, guitar contains a technical barrier which is not to underestimate, while trying to manage the violin.

If violin is your main instrument, a cheap keyboard could be your theoretical tool to understand music. And the cheapest keyboards really do for something like that. I wouldn't say that about violins, since my first violin in summer 2015 was really horrible. How about getting a used keyboard? Or how about lending a guitar to see how it is? It's definitely not gonna be easy on guitar.

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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Probably the last video upload from my concert sound recording: House of the Rising Sun.

When playing the subject at the beginning there are some issues. Partly this comes from not enough rosin (after House of the Rising Sun was a longer break and I took more rosin, so the second half of the concert was better). On the other hand I have to admit, that I avoid investing much time into practicing subjects, because IMPROVISATION really is the key to fast progress. And this progress includes getting to playing subjects right off the cuff without practising.

https://youtu.be/cMaaCuk0sAo

Improvisation can be a never-ending etude, fitting your personal needs at any moment. Many people refuse to believe it, but I am really convinced, if you do it right, improvisation is way more effective than classical schooling. Well, at least it can be extremely effective. The point is, I will learn to play melodic subjects just by the way anyhow, the better I improvise. Some improvisers tend to revolve around themselves, by repeating themselves forever, which is not the key to perfection and probably comes from indifference and laziness: At a certain point they feel like they know everything, but actually we should never stop learning.

THAT IS WHY WE CONSTANTLY HAVE TO LISTEN TO MUSIC! IN THE KITCHEN WHILE HAVING BREAKFAST -- IN  THE CAR WHILE DRIVING -- IN THE BASEMENT WHILE CLEARING UP.... SIMPLY EVERYWHERE.

The guitar player of my 1980s swing combo often gave me a lift in his car and he NEVER was sitting in his car without listening to jazz. When we then left his car and went to his apartment he switched on his CD player and there was again jazz. I said it before: music is not just coming from God--musicians need stimulation all the time, they constantly have to tank new ideas. Which is the secret of great musicality. Why do Arabian people play Arabian music and Western people Western music? Because humans play what they've heard before. And the more you listen, the bigger will be the pool for your personal creativity.

Not preaching to a certain person, but rather to everybody. Because many people out there struggle with music and it's making them sad, while music should make us all richer and heal us--heal the world. Because music is the supreme human language in this world. I also think, music is kind of holy. ;)

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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I think the biggest problem of getting a viola is having to learn the alto clef while still working to master the treble clef. However, I can read notes fast enough to play now, so it might not be that hard to stretch myself a little more and learn alto clef as well.

As for fingering issues, I will see. The violin is my primary instrument now, but only by default. I think I might like the viola better, but I need to try one before I will know for sure.

As for the guitar verses the keyboard. Your thoughts on that are worth considering. In fact, I am not totally committed to getting a guitar, and when, or if, I do, it will not be right away. Buying a keyboard first, or instead, might indeed be the better plan.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.   :)

MACJR

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Demoiselle
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MACJR said
I think the biggest problem of getting a viola is having to learn the alto clef while still working to master the treble clef. However, I can read notes fast enough to play now, so it might not be that hard to stretch myself a little more and learn alto clef as well.
As for fingering issues, I will see. The violin is my primary instrument now, but only by default. I think I might like the viola better, but I need to try one before I will know for sure.
As for the guitar verses the keyboard. Your thoughts on that are worth considering. In fact, I am not totally committed to getting a guitar, and when, or if, I do, it will not be right away. Buying a keyboard first, or instead, might indeed be the better plan.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.   :)
MACJR  

Yes, if you feel like viola might be ideal, you probably shouldn't wait, try it out and make that decision soon.

Other question: What musical style do you prefer? Many people then answer like, "Oh, I like any kind of music, I listen to all of it...." Which is not really making me happy, because I feel like it's a good idea to have a favorite style. Be it folk, jazz, funk, whatever.... When I started at age 15 I was crazy about New Orleans jazz and had no idea that I would perform as swing musician in my late 20s, and that I would be regionally famous as singer and composer of soul melodies during the 90s. And of course I did not assume, that I would later go back to my childhood love Handel and start improvising in his style as well.

In other words: Around age 17 I was a New Orleans jazz fanatic, in my 20s I changed to a swing jazz fanatic, in my 30s I tried to be a soul diva, and in my early 40s I became a fanatic of historical baroque style (which I still am). So I did many-many thing, but not all at one time. I was all the time specializing and I did it for at least 5 years.

Fanatics like that have many-many CDs of they favorite style and hear them over and over again. Because vast musical stimulation is always first before it is possible to be creative.

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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BillyG
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December 23, 2016 - 12:35 pm
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@Demoiselle said -

...... Because many people out there struggle with music and it's making them sad, while music should make us all richer and heal us--heal the world. Because music is the supreme human language in this world. I also think, music is kind of holy. 

  Precisely !   I could not agree more.  hats_off

  And @MACJR - I think the piano is a great device to really explore chords, keys and modes.   It is so "visible".   All the 12 notes of our western chromatic scale are right in front of you.   Understand the basics of major or minor keys - you can pick out anything really quickly.  Modes or other "unusual" scales - pentatonic or minor-blues - suddenly fall into place - and you don't have to be a virtuoso on the piano.   I've had arguments - well - let's just say "discussions" - with others regarding this - "knowledge of the piano has nothing to do with playing violin" I am told.   I totally disagree - and on the contrary - I see it as the one instrument that simply, and visually with its white and black keys just "SHOWS" you how scales, chords, majors, minors, modes, "special" keys are formed with just a little bit of time and thought.   You can then carry that knowledge of how"music is shaped" onto the fingering of the violin.   I used to play piano with one finger - well - OK I was better than that - but - it was never my instrument of choice - but it SURE taught me a lot.    These days, if I want a keyboard (not for live playing - I mean for providing a backing track) I'll just use synth voices from the computer or my (very) old CASIO rack-mounted MIDI synth...   bunny_pole_dancer   Yayyy for technology !

I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh - guntohead.JPG

Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)

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@Demoiselle - The music I like to listen to the most are a bit moody, like The Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues. What I listen to, mostly, though, is just pop and rock. These I can have playing in the background without distracting me too much. If I am feeling troubled, or moody, or contemplative, then I dig out the deeper stuff. Even some Ray Lynch from time to time. I find his instrumental music soothing.

What I love to play, the music that my soul want to play, is classical. I am not refined enough in my musical knowledge to list genres and classes, but the old stuff, the really old stuff, the stuff that resonates with my soul. I love to play it... but oddly, I do not listen to it all that often. I just like to play it.

@BillyG - I am not sure why I resisted the piano so long. Part of me always did want to learn to play they keys. There are several uncles who play piano, and one is especially good at it. He was the keyboardist in a popular local band for a time, but he never made it big time. Although I was often over at my grandparent's place, where there was a piano, I never did more than play with it, not play it. There was some attempts, by one of the uncles close to my age, to teach me chop sticks and such, but no one took serious interest in teaching me more than that. When we came to visit, we kids  (me and siblings and our two youngest uncles) were all more focused on playing and having fun, not playing instruments.

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Demoiselle
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MACJR said
@Demoiselle - The music I like to listen to the most are a bit moody, like The Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues. What I listen to, mostly, though, is just pop and rock. These I can have playing in the background without distracting me too much. If I am feeling troubled, or moody, or contemplative, then I dig out the deeper stuff. Even some Ray Lynch from time to time. I find his instrumental music soothing.
What I love to play, the music that my soul want to play, is classical. I am not refined enough in my musical knowledge to list genres and classes, but the old stuff, the really old stuff, the stuff that resonates with my soul. I love to play it... but oddly, I do not listen to it all that often. I just like to play it.

Pop music is no helper for learning improvisation, because hardly anybody improvises in that stuff. I always tended to soul, but even for that you need a jazz base. At times you hear improvised sax, trumpet or trombone solos in commercial soul hits, but happens too rarely. I really liked Whitney Houston, but her stuff couldn't help me as a trombone player. To get impulses for trombone I went out to by jazz CDs with hard bop and instrumental funk. No CDs with singers! They sing almost all the time and that's mostly it. Take a CD of the funk trombonist and you have a CD full of trombone:

 

I wrote my own soul 'hits' in the 90s, sang and added trombone solos. So it was wise to not just listen to Whitney Houston, but also listen to funk stuff like this. But you're not going to to play trombone.

Maybe I can help you to find out what kind of classical music you like? Mostly they start classical music with baroque (like Bach and Handel), the next style (very roughly) would be the Viennese School (Mozart, Hayden), and after that the romantic period (Beethoven etc.)

I belong to the baroque period (mostly before Bach and Handel) and I prefer historically authentic CD productions--that means not played like in general classical music, but rather like it was played about 300 years ago. And here I had to learn the same thing, like in above soul & funk style--that this here cannot help me as a violin player!!! Although it is very awesome:

Why, it's wonderful, but I don't own such a big orchestra and never will! (By the way, they really play on historical instruments and very authentic, so I'm very happy I just found it.) I can listen to this to feel good and that's okay, but mostly I listen to that:

I really love Tanya LaPerrière, who's playing the violin, I have the CD this video refers to and hear it over and over again. Well, this is also baroque style, but just for small band--violin plus rhythm section we would say in jazz. In baroque it's called violin with basso continuo. There's only one violin and it's even the leading instrument. Half a dozen violins at one time, like in above orchestra, aren't helping me.

And this isn't all. How about this Spanish woman?

I'm not buying CDs like Four Seasons, Concerti Grossi, Brandenburg Concertos any longer--I buy violin sonatas like this. They can be heard like improvised music and they influence my style of improvisation all the time.

Or do you rather like that Mozart sonata, which is another period:

Maybe if you hear sonatas for violin and piano all the time, you will start improvising in that style one day.....

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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Jazz and funk are okay in moderation, but not really my thing.

As for the type of music I liked best, of the other samples you posted, I liked them progressively better going down the list, although I listed from the bottom up.   ;)

They are all good though.

No, I do not see myself playing in a large orchestra either.

That Mozart sonata was very nice, but it would take years to learn to play that. It was also very long, standing there that long, without a break would be murder for my back. I have to slipped disks, the one in the middle back causes the most pain... but when the lower one pinches a nerve, it disables me more. Good think it does not act up often. But that middle back one is a constant pain I have to live with.

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Demoiselle
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MACJR said
Jazz and funk are okay in moderation, but not really my thing.
As for the type of music I liked best, of the other samples you posted, I liked them progressively better going down the list, although I listed from the bottom up.   ;)
They are all good though.
No, I do not see myself playing in a large orchestra either.
That Mozart sonata was very nice, but it would take years to learn to play that. It was also very long, standing there that long, without a break would be murder for my back. I have to slipped disks, the one in the middle back causes the most pain... but when the lower one pinches a nerve, it disables me more. Good think it does not act up often. But that middle back one is a constant pain I have to live with.
MACJR  

Well, when it comes to the question of improvisation, jazz is the best base to start from. There is so much out there to start with. Aebersold offers so many play-along tracks, this here is volume 130, and it's not his latest edition:

http://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/m.....F5G_FMrKM8

Baroque tends more to improvisation than Mozart and is very related to the kind of folk country people played in the 1600s and 1700s. In fact country people, towns people and court people shared a lot--peasant music was even imitated at courts and you find it as motifs in baroque music. I really like to call baroque music highbrow folk. Folks tends to improvisation anyhow, but baroque does as well.

The point is, after baroque the idea of the genius came up, the ubermensch who is almost seen like a God. A view which also later lead to fascism and naziism--leader/Führer cult. That's why the concept of classical music is still: The composer (leader) gives orders by determining nothing but notes and musicians are not allowed to add own ideas. Which was not at all the concept in the 1600s and early 1700s when professional musicians where required to do both: read notes and also improvise (like in a modern jazz big band). Today professional baroque soloists do not improvise, but what they play from sheets still contains the spirit of improvised music.

As you know almost nothing about music, I'd strongly suggest to look for books in libraries. I mean books about classical music which can make you an expert. You could easily become an expert in things Mozart's period (there were way more composers at his time and I surely don't know most of them!) and know more than I know. I'm just a baroque expert--don't know anybody who knows more than me there. But how will you be able to find out what music is right for you, if you don't know about the history of music?

But in order to have stimulation and models for improvisation, you need to listen to improvisers. You need to create your world of sound, which gives you enough ideas what to improvise. And if it is Mozart or Beethoven, their orchestra works will not help you at all. What you need is sonatas for violin and piano then. I think, if I would listen to that stuff for months, I would start improvising in Mozart's or Beethoven's style. Although their style doesn't tend so much to improvisation. But why not?

But then you really-really should play piano and rather not guitar. I could theoretically unmothball my small keyboard, make a recording in a simple Mozart style and try improvising to it to load that up here. But I don't want to musically distract myself. I practice with these play-alongs 'abusing' them as play-alongs for improvisations:

https://www.muziekweb.nl/Link/.....naten-Bd-1

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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Demoiselle
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MACJR said
No, I do not see myself playing in a large orchestra either.
That Mozart sonata was very nice, but it would take years to learn to play that. It was also very long, standing there that long, without a break would be murder for my back. ....

You can always steal a small part out of that long sonata and make something short out of it. You did not understand what I meant: You need music like this to listen to it and you need to listen a lot. You can take a simple children's song, make a simple piano accompaniment in Mozart style and  then try to improvise in the style you've heard above. If you own a pile of CDs with sonatas for violin and piano and listen to them over and over again, it is very realistic to get there some day. But I have to say, there's not so much out there for viola! You can bathe in CDs of violin sonatas, but the viola is not so very frequent. It is better than trying to find models for Mozart for didgeridoo but as violin player you can really find a lot stimulation. People love violins and soloist violin players have always been the stars in instrumental baroque and classical music. The viola was mainly meant to fill the tonal gap between violins and cellos in orchestras.

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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Demoiselle
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There's the original version of Marin Marais' Sonnerie:

This was my version on Decermber 4:

https://youtu.be/Wuk_na5qGck

The original version is over 7 minutes long, my version is under 4 minutes! So you can really think more flexibly. Monsieur Marais is not my boss and I decide how I play his stuff, how fast and whether I play his notes. Not his notes of course, they're way too difficult for me--I just took his chord sequence and bass line. I improvised on that concert. And by the way I also changed to recorder, which also made it easier at the violin. It also was my decision to add Frère Jacques as sung interlude, to have time for changing instruments and have some more variation.

I am the decider, not Handel, not Bach, not Monsieur Marais (a composer at the sun king's court). The ability to improvise makes me free and I can grow on that way.

My violin is a 3/4 violin, made for right-handed players, though I play it left-handed. As I felt she was the best in the shop of all 3/4 violins I tried and the luthier agreed. I prefer Obligato strings together with Eudoxa E string. Self-made bow, weight: 24 g / 0.85 oz

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BillyG
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December 24, 2016 - 11:01 am
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@Demoiselle wrote -

I am the decider, not Handel, not Bach, not Monsieur Marais (a composer at the sun king's court). The ability to improvise makes me free and I can grow on that way.

  LOL - so true....  it is all an "evolution" - and indeed - although often said, I don;t believe it - "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"  - no - personally I don't think it is.  What is more enlightening is to take some work, giving attribution to the original author / composer / player of course - and then "making it your own".   Which is precisely what you do !   So - keep on doing it !  thumbs-upthumbs-upthumbs-up

I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh - guntohead.JPG

Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)

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MACJR

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Demoiselle said

MACJR said
No, I do not see myself playing in a large orchestra either.
That Mozart sonata was very nice, but it would take years to learn to play that. It was also very long, standing there that long, without a break would be murder for my back. ....

You can always steal a small part out of that long sonata and make something short out of it. You did not understand what I meant: You need music like this to listen to it and you need to listen a lot.

Actually, I did listen, and understand what you were saying. I was making an observation about playing the full sonata, should I ever reach something even close to that skill level.   ;)

Since I have an interest in history, I do not mind looking into things now and again. History is not one of my main interest, but it is among my side interests.

As with art, I do not feel that you need to know, in detail, the history of art and artist to make art. I feel the same about music. It may be beneficial, in many ways, but not essential. Just how I see it.

As for music, I will learn more about what I like as I gather and play more and more sheet music. A lot of old folk songs are fun to play, as are some of the classics.

I do like Beethoven works, but there is always, and I mean always, at least one set of measures that throws me off every time, in every tune he did, that I have played so far. It is like, where the heck did that come from, and why?

Some like to spice up their music with things like that, but for the unsuspecting beginner, they are like traps or mine fields.   ;)

MACJR

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