Friday, September 12, 2014

Lessons starting back up

Warm up
Let's start with the d minor key this week.  Start with a single octave and work up to the two octave scale.


I would shift to third position on the E string between the 2nd finger G and up to the third postion first finger A.  Notice that the half steps in the scale are different on the way up than on the way down.  Make the half steps extra tight at the top of the scale.

Skill building
Two goals this week.

First, start working on vibrato by slowly sliding on each finger up and down the string.  This shouldn't be fast, focus on large controlled motion on most of the fingerboard.  Feel how the point of contact for the finger shifts as you slide.  This motion will become your vibrato.  Take it slow and don't try to speed it up for now.  Practice each finger and string with a clear tone.

Second, use the song you have chosen to practice writing and reading music.

Song of choice

 From E's initial playlist we are going to focus on the "I am the Doctor" theme.  It turns out that Dr. Who fan's love making you tube videos playing the music.

Some of them are quite sophisticated covers:


 An acapella version:


 A good violin cover:


I like what he is doing with the spicatto and rythm. Looking past the hat and hair, this version is one that has a lot of good principles to learn.

 My favorite is this string quartet version:

They could have made it a little livelier with some spicatto rhythm elements, but trickier.

The string quartet sheet music they posted at dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q03146om7r4hzq5/QWtBQIWynf

Various sheet music versions are available from Musescore. Here is a violin and piano version that is pretty good.

http://mus.cr/1qPfC6G