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Practiced shifts for F# Minor and F Major including D minor and D major.

The second octave for F# Minor was repeated about 10 times.

A run through of the songs Vortex, Tour of California, Sinfonia in D and Emperor Waltz was done. Each song was played twice.

Solos Bourree II, Gavotte in G Minor and Gavotte I were played through, each song was played once.

Advanced Orchestra piece was listened to and played through slowly, shifts to third position was practice three times in every place it was needed.

The whole practice was about one hour and twenty minutes.

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The orchestra pieces have been the sheet music that I've been
reviewing most often. I begin with running through the piece once and
making a mental note of which passages I’m playing wrong. Whether it pertains
to bowing, tempo or intonation I memorize when I did wrong at that moment. Most
of the time my string changes are extremely sloppy as well as using my fourth
finger so when I acknowledge this I try different bowing methods (starting at
different bowing points [up bow, down bow, balance point, frog, tip]) to see
which is easier for me to make a change with or helps me to match my dynamics
better. Since Santiago Duran has always been whining that by bowing is always
wrong on emperor waltz and tour of California I pay extra close attention to my
run throughs of those pieces. My dad has four speakers that he was able to hook
up to one wire so he was able to connect them to my phone and now the metronome
sounds through the entire apartment… its helped much better and my tempo for
tour of California and Afterburn have improved. Over all my intonation of good
except for the fourth finger, I still need much more improvement on those so a
constant run through of my scales is what I use to fix that problem. My solos
are going well, two of them are near perfect. Those would be Bourree II and
Gavotte I. I need the last 15 measures in Gavotte II to be improved and that
one will be near perfect as well. I have been practicing after lunch frequently
with Dania Viveros, Justin Elue and another beginning orchestra bass player. During
those times I mainly focus on intonation. For my advanced orchestra practicing I
asked a beginning orchestra boy (who clearly deserves to be in symphony since I
mistook him for a junior in symphonic orchestra) to help me with the tempo and
intonation and he gave me the advice to work on my posture and hand position in
order to inprove everything…

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Minor: http://youtu.be/c_uwruvf86Q

Major: http://youtu.be/YVPiRBY19G0

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This week my main focus during practice was tempo.  Extensive repetition of measures 49-53 and 59-63 for Tour of California, measures 104 to the end for After Burn and the ritardandos in Vortex was extremely efficient in clearing up all the kinks in the transitions of the rhythm. Intonation was another problem especially when it came to the 4th finger E flats and low first finger B flats on the a string, to fix this repeated the B flat major scale and used a chromatic tuner to measure how high or low my flats were. Throughout each song I would match my Gs and Ds in order to make sure that all my other fingers were in the right place. For the scales that had the highest shifts, F Major and F# minor, I paid close attention to my bowing making sure that I was playing close enough on to the bridge. A few squeaks and harmonics would surface so I still need to work on that. My shifting for F Major, F# Minor and E Minor still need work, occasionally C Major. I need to make sure that when I shift back to first position for the first octave that I don’t shift too low since that’s what mainly happens on my D Major making the second part of the first octave minor sounding. My bowing continues to be scratchy, especially on the G and D string which means I have to pay more attention to my right hand. My left hand collapses a lot and needs to be fixed for the larger shifting scales so I’ll continues to repeat those particular scales. My solos are coming out nicely except for the final part of Gavotte in G Minor. My tempo in Bourree II varies slightly and I keep repeating in my head “lowering dynamics doesn’t mean to lower your speed”. My accidentals need to be fixed as well but most of my intonation is good, just the extended fourth finger on the E string need polishing. And for Gavotte I I can play through it all pretty smoothly except my dynamics really need to be fixed including my string changes. I keep playing open string when it’s supposed to be a fourth finger.  But overall they’re coming along nicely. For my extra pieces Eine Kliene is helping me improve my shifting to third position…I can play about 10 measures of Partita II BWV 1004 pretty well but the accidentals and double stops are crazy… needs so much work but I’m willing to put as much effort as I need into that piece.

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This week my main focus during practice was tempo.  Extensive repetition of measures 49-53 and
59-63 for Tour of California, measures 104 to the end for After Burn and the
ritardandos in Vortex was extremely efficient in clearing up all the kinks in
the transitions of the rhythm. Intonation was another problem especially when
it came to the 4th finger E flats and low first finger B flats on
the a string, to fix this I repeated the B flat major scale and used a
chromatic tuner to measure how high or low my flats were. Throughout each song I
would match my Gs and Ds in order to make sure that all my other fingers were
in the right place. For the scales that had the highest shifts, F Major and F#
minor, I paid close attention to my bowing making sure that I was playing close
enough on to the bridge. A few squeaks and harmonics would surface so I still
need to work on that. My shifting for F Major, F# Minor and E Minor still need
work, occasionally C Major. I need to make sure that when I shift back to first
position for the first octave that I don’t shift too low since that’s what
mainly happens on my D Major making the second part of the first octave minor
sounding. My bowing continues to be scratchy, especially on the G and D string
which means I have to pay more attention to my right hand. My left hand
collapses a lot and needs to be fixed for the larger shifting scales so I’ll
continues to repeat those particular scales. My solos are coming out nicely
except for the final part of Gavotte in G Minor. My tempo in Bourree II varies
slightly and I keep repeating in my head “lowering dynamics doesn’t mean to
lower your speed”. My accidentals need to be fixed as well but most of my
intonation is good, just the extended fourth finger on the E string need
polishing. And for Gavotte I I can play through it all pretty smoothly except my
dynamics really need to be fixed including my string changes. I keep playing
open string when it’s supposed to be a fourth finger.  But overall they’re coming along nicely. For
my extra pieces Eine Kliene is helping me improve my shifting to third position…
I can play about 10 measures of Partita II BWV 1004 pretty well but the accidentals
and double stops are crazy… needs so much work but I’m willing to put as much
effort as I need into that piece.

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Eine Kleine, Canon and Ave Maria are my extra pieces. For Eine Kleine I'll be learning both the first and second violin parts. For Canon i still have to find the second violin sheet music, hopefully i can find another violin, viola and cello that is willing to play these with me. I also have Ave Maria but finding a simpler sheet music is a challenge... I'll be using the more difficult one for the time being.

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The solos that i will be playing are Bourree II, Gavotte in G Minor and Gavotte I. I will be recording the first two.

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Read and taking notes on...

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Practiced shifts for F# Minor and F Major including D minor and D major.

The second octave for F# Minor was repeated about 10 times.

A run through of the songs Vortex, Tour of California, Sinfonia in D and Emperor Waltz was done. Each song was played twice.

Solos Bourree II, Gavotte in G Minor and Gavotte I were played through, each song was played once.

Advanced Orchestra piece was listened to and played through slowly, shifts to third position was practice three times in every place it was needed.

The whole practice was about one hour and twenty minutes.