Mid-20's violin learner.

I started playing at 24, and still struggling, but it's getting easier!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Done, for now

Sadly, my time with the violin is up for now. The amount of time I have to practice (and am motivated to practice) is just not worth the cost of violin rentals and lessons. It would be different if I actually owned a violin, but I also can't drop that amount of money right now (I have high standards so I would have to spend at least $600+ on a violin I would be happy with).

I learned so much in almost two years with the instrument, however. It does disappoint me to give in so soon, but at least now I know that I can pick up a violin and a piece of sheet music and play it.

I'll try to see what the cost of buying my rental will be when I try to return it tomorrow, but for now, I think I will take a break until I have the funds to support this effort.

For all of you who have doubts about learning an instrument as an adult, please don't. As long as you have the time and patience for it, it is well worth giving it a shot!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

I got the awesome opportunity to watch Lindsey Stirling on stage at Club Nokia last Thursday. If you haven't heard of her, she is an incredible classical meets EDM violinist who also dances. She was a contestant on America's Got Talent, but didn't make it all the way... but joke's on them, because she is selling out shows all over the world at the moment. She's also done collabs with Pentatonix, John Legend, and Dia Frampton, to name a few.

Anyway, the video above is one of my favorites from her, called "Shadows". I think watching her live has motivated me to keep going on with the violin. Lindsey was on the Billboard Music Awards tonight to present an award, and it was weird to see her without a violin. I don't think I'll quite get to that level, but it certainly is inspiring to see people who are so passionate about what they do, that it just becomes a part of their identity.

A year and a half in, and I'm finally getting the hang of vibrato. My teacher was impressed last week. Keep on chuggin' along!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Finally starting to get vibrato.

On one note.

Better than nothing...?

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Adventures in vibrato

AKA I want to chuck my violin across the room. Had my first lesson after a month last wednesday. I told her I didn't practice... busy month at the office... but I picked it up like I didn't even stop practicing, which was nice. Breaks can be good every now and then. We're a couple songs into the second Suzuki book, which are the dullest songs ever, in my opinion... but she went ahead and introduced vibrato to me. Anyone who's ever learned vibrato will understand that it's a complete pain, and I probably won't get it for a while... work in progress. I am trying to practice more regularly though, so we'll see what happens!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Practicing

Recently, I've been pretty terrible at practicing... and my teacher knows it. I'm so close to finishing the first Suzuki book and I know I have it in me to finish it (and finish it pretty well)... it's just that life and work get in the way, which cuts into my practice time. So I've actually taken to practicing in the early mornings before work... which takes all the willpower in the world!

Except I've been practicing the piano rather than violin, so that's why I haven't been progressing much in the violin. But anyway, she's since moved me to start the second Suzuki book! Although I haven't completed Gavotte yet ... which is totally doable, if I just take the time to practice.

This has been a ramble about me not really accomplishing anything. 

But, I'm completely bragging when I say that when I finish this new song I'm learning on the piano I will have taken it to a whole different level.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Teaching the Piano

In conjunction with my constant want to learn all the instruments, I tried my hand at teaching the piano today, to a friend that is willing to act as my guinea pig.

Now, I don't claim to be a professional pianist, but I like to think I'm pretty good at it, and I enjoyed theory (and I realized this after I took all those tests). I'm a little rusty because it's been a while, but all in all, I actually really enjoyed it. This is, after all, the 20th year since I began this musical journey, and I'd like it to continue for as long as I can in my life and future generations. 

Meanwhile, I need to practice violin for my upcoming lesson this Wednesday ......

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

End of the Year Lesson Cont'd

Today actually went pretty well for not having practiced too much during the holiday week. 

the G melodic minor scale is not sounding as bad as I thought it would. It's because I crammed it into yesterday night.

I ALSO. FINALLY. FINISHED. EXERCISE 4. Let's talk about Exercise 4 a little bit. Exercise 4 is one that teaches you how to properly place your 4th finger (pinky) as well as skipping over the 3rd finger (middle) back to your second (pointer)... in layman's terms, it's a pain in the ass. And for some reason, my pinky just did not want to do what I was trying to tell it to do for the LONGEST. TIME.

I started Exercise 4 back in the beginning of October. This exercise ONLY HAS 4 DIFFERENT NOTES and took me almost 3 months to complete! But I finally did it! She finally looked at me and said, "I think this one is done" and I said, "Wow, I never thought this day would come!"

Anyway, I was pretty excited about that. It shows how much more control I have over my fingers, and how muscle memory is starting to take control as well.

Minuet No. 3 will probably be done by next lesson, just need to relax a little more, and perhaps the Happy Farmer as well. I have quite a ways to go on Gavotte, but overall, it's getting easier for me to just figure out how to control the bow and place my fingers.

Great way to end off the year. Suzuki Book 2 should be on it's way soon.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

End of the Year Lesson

I have a lesson tomorrow, so of course I spent some time today to practice. I've finally moved on to the last piece in the first Suzuki book, Gavotte. It's actually a lot of fun... I like it a lot more than the Happy Farmer, that's for sure.

She also gave me a new scale... G melodic minor. I pretty much hated the melodic minor scales on the piano, and violin is no different... it's just kind of annoying. Whoever invented the melodic minor is evil.

Happy new year to all my followers and aspiring musicians! 2014 promises to be a musical year.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

The other instrument

Christmas is always a time where I get pretty excited about music. Let's by honest, playing Christmas music on the piano is really fun because everyone can sing along and have an awesome time. Obviously when I get better at violin, I'll pick up some Christmas music for it as well... but maybe we'll leave that for next year.

So when I was at the music store earlier today, I bought a new Christmas book. I also bought a book of Chopin songs. 

Chopin is my favorite composer. It's hard for me to find a piece of his that I don't like. In my almost 20 years of playing the piano, I've learned a lot of his songs. While I'd love to be able to learn all his songs, obviously I don't have the time (or even commitment) to do so... but anyway, I always have my goal songs. One of them is Waltz Op 64 No 2. Beautiful song, kind of mysterious. Probably pretty easy to sight read, but very difficult to get the emotion and dynamics down.

The other is Ballade in g minor. This one became popular in the movie "The Pianist", in which he plays the song near the end of the movie in a freezing cold house for a nazi. This one is way, way difficult in terms of technique and could take me months and months of intense practice to learn.

Anyway, I'd like to post my progress on these two songs on here as well, if I can. To be honest, I haven't really learned any truly difficult pieces without a teacher, so this would be a challenge in itself.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

One year later…

… I wouldn’t say that I’m that bad based on the fact that I didn’t even know how to HOLD this instrument exactly a year ago. I also never used tape to figure out where the correct placement of fingers were, based on my teacher’s pure faith in me… STILL figuring that out, obviously, but I’m finally starting to get it.

My biggest hurdles in the past year (outside of learning how to properly hold the darn thing, which took like 5 months) were bowing straight and intonation. Both are still a work in progress, but definitely improved.

As of now, string crossing and bow control are the biggest things I need to work on. Having good dynamics requires pretty good bow control, which you can see is not quite there yet. I’m also not at the point where I can learn vibrato, but maybe if I bug my teacher enough at the end of the year she’ll start to teach it to me.

Anyway! Enough rambling. Here I am 365 days after I held a violin for the very first time, playing Minuet No. 3 by Bach.

If people keep telling you that you can’t learn how to play an instrument at ___ age, that is a lie. Motivation and dedication are all you need.

[panubthewizard]

This is extremely inspiring. I’m 23 and looking to buy my first violin/lessons. Keep it up!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Thank you!! I started when I was 23. Starting the journey was a little rough, but I promise it gets better if you're diligent :)

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

One year later...

... I wouldn't say that I'm that bad based on the fact that I didn't even know how to HOLD this instrument exactly a year ago. I also never used tape to figure out where the correct placement of fingers were, based on my teacher's pure faith in me... STILL figuring that out, obviously, but I'm finally starting to get it.

My biggest hurdles in the past year (outside of learning how to properly hold the darn thing, which took like 5 months) were bowing straight and intonation. Both are still a work in progress, but definitely improved.

As of now, string crossing and bow control are the biggest things I need to work on. Having good dynamics requires pretty good bow control, which you can see is not quite there yet. I'm also not at the point where I can learn vibrato, but maybe if I bug my teacher enough at the end of the year she'll start to teach it to me.

Anyway! Enough rambling. Here I am 365 days after I held a violin for the very first time, playing Minuet No. 3 by Bach.

If people keep telling you that you can't learn how to play an instrument at ___ age, that is a lie. Motivation and dedication are all you need.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

I did that thing again where I posted something that was meant to be on my normal tumblr... but I'll just leave it there because it's true!!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

New Pet Peeve

People making up throwbacks for everyday of the week. Okay, flashbackfriday, whatev. Today I saw waybackwednesday.

Like really .... why

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

Today's lesson

It's been quite a while since my last lesson... a month, actually. We've just been so busy that our schedules just never matched up.

Anyway, I got my violin restrung and a replacement bow to stop the squeaking. It's working, so far.

The lesson itself was pretty good. It was at a late time because that's the only time we both had available... but getting past the tiredness, I played well. She could tell I've been practicing my scales. My intonation is getting better - she seemed to be pretty proud of me today! Take that, who needs tape to learn this thing?? But anyway.

Minuets are in good shape. They'll probably be done by the next lesson. That pesky exercise 4 is getting there.

Overall,I just need to stop being so tense when playing, and not to think about it too hard, and not stress about it too much.

In two days, it will have been a year since I started this craziness. Look how far I've come ... not stopping now!

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

No lesson today

She told me to stay home because I'm a recovering sickie. My office even kicked me out early to go home and rest. lol. It's okay, because since I had my violin and car with me I had time to go get my strings replaced. I also replaced my bow because no one could explain the weird squeaky noise that was coming from it.

So instead of the lesson, I'm just practicing at home now. Nice, new strings and a nice, new bow makes all the difference.

A year with the violin in a week. Crazy how time flies.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

I feel a little better

This is how today's lesson went. My teacher will now go by "A" just for blogging purposes.

A: Hey! Your tones are sounding a lot better! Except overall it sounded sort of messy. Me: Yeah, that's my problem, I don't know how to make it sound ...... pretty.

Then she did her little magic with just telling me what to adjust and how to adjust ... then suddenly my playing actually sounded decent ... like I would actually want to listen to myself play.

Then we figured out why I've been making squeaky sounds during practice. There's something weird going on with my bow ... at first I thought it was me, but then it happened when she was trying to demonstrate something ... and I was like "AHA IT WASN'T JUST ME".

Thankfully, I'm able to joke around with her while the lesson is happening. A's definitely a keeper. I like her a lot.

Oh, also, she was on an episode of Glee. So naturally, I looked it up, and lo and behold, she was. It was the episode where Rory (the Irish transfer student) was singing Michael Buble's "Home". There's a glory shot of all the musicians and she's the violinist to the far left. Therefore I knew about her before I even met her. The universe works in interesting ways.

It's almost been a whole year since I've picked up the instrument - I'll try to post a video of my progress soon.

[jonalynlearnstheviolin-blog]

A real post

I'm still stuck on the two Minuets and The Happy Farmer. Minuet No. 2 feels like I'm almost there. No. 3 is a different story. The Happy Farmer is getting happier, at least.

Great news is, I feel like I'm improving.

Bad news is, I feel like I'm not, at the same time.

My darn pinky still does not want to cooperate. In fact, she taped my pinky to my ring finger last lesson to see if it worked. It did not, but that's because she taped my joints together. It was kind of hilarious. I tried it with a rubber band when I got home and it worked pretty well.

But I can't play with a rubber band forever! 

How do I fix that?!