Wed 0:55 (1204-1259)

I'm finding the @EmilyCello No Tension Challenge to be both fun and rewarding. Love seeing her Dvorak practice tips, and applying a few myself. Today I am working with this recording, and the additional challenges I added today were 1) talking a bit on the video 2) moving while playing, and 3) playing with a cat in the audience.

For practice, I started by warming up with open strings and slurps. First, I made the remarkable discovery that the bow change sound was hidden much better while letting up slightly as I changed direction, allowing the string to continue to vibrate until I caught it going in the other direction. Previously I had been trying all manner of bow change speeds but stopping the string as I changed direction. Cool.

I morphed into 1 note and 2 note string crossings, ala Vivaldi, and lo and behold, I can actually play the impossible string crossing pattern today. WoOt!

Moving on to Faure, I focused on just the two scale patterns, one ascending and the other descending, in the 8th line. I don't think I can even remember all the practice techniques I threw at those: add-a-note, double minting, add-a-note WITH double minting, using the harmonic to check intonation by alternating ringing and stopping. OK, I guess that was all the techniques, but lots of different patterns. I also tried to talk while playing - nope, not ready yet, but I could eventually say some of the fingerings out loud. I also tried to move a lot more, but I think today the movement actually induced more tension. That's OK, it will be better tomorrow.

Here we have 2 takes of the screechy half of Apres Un Reve. You can see on my face that I go in and out of "no tension," using movement to release when needed. I would say that is definite progress.





I'm not sitting on the notes today as well, but I'm not surprised, as between the cat, the talking, and the new movement I've made the task much more complicated. Tomorrow... well, let's see if I can think of a better way to move from distraction to no tension.