#viola selfie

[violaproblems]

hi everyone- im in my 4th year of college in my journey to get my music ed degree with hopefully one more to go. while my account seems dead, it's mostly because im always busy with school and work. happy practicing this school year!!

[itsaviolathing]

Happy Viola Selfie Day!! 🎻🎶

I’ll put my viola story in a keep reading thingy, because it got really long, whoops haha

I’ve been playing viola for about 3 years now, having played violin for 7 years prior to that. I was first introduced to the viola by my school in February 2013 when they needed me to play it in an orchestra, since they never have enough viola players so usually force random violinists to play viola. My first experience wasn’t great, since I couldn’t read alto clef at all and spent most of the time in that orchestra completely lost, but later that year I was put on viola for my quartet and for another orchestra, and as I learnt to read alto clef I realised I actually really liked playing viola, so I started taking viola lessons in January 2014! From September 2014 I quit violin completely and made viola my first study, and I’ve come so far since then and have loved all the experiences I’ve got from playing viola! 

My viola is called Rowan! I picked out the name first because I really liked it and it seemed to stand out to me when I was looking through lists of names trying to find one that I liked. When I looked into the meaning of the name after, I found that a lot of its meanings are to do with the colour red, which seemed really appropriate since my viola is varnished in ‘deep red’! He was built in 2015 by a luthier called Rod Ward, who built him especially for me. It was really great being able to have a viola built for me, since I was able to ask for specific elements of the sound, I chose the wood for the back and the colour of the varnish, and my teacher specifically requested the size measurements, which means I’ve ended up with a viola which is exactly what I wanted!

(pls enjoy another photo of me and Rowan, I love him, he is fab)

(You may notice that my phone case actually says ‘Viola is my superpower’ on it with an extract from Harold in Italy by Berlioz, because I am that much of a music nerd)

Right now I’m learning Bach’s 4th Cello Suite (transcribed for Viola), Berlioz’s Harold in Italy (which there is a recording of me playing the first movement of here), and the first movement of the York Bowen Viola Sonata! Harold in Italy has been one of my goal pieces pretty much since I started viola and I never thought I’d actually be able to play it, so I’m super excited that I actually performed the first movement of it a couple of weeks back, I feel like that marks a milestone in my viola playing and shows myself just how much progress I’ve made!

This ended up being a longer post than expected lol whoops… Anyway, I hope everyone has a great day, I look forward to seeing and reblogging everyone’s viola pictures and getting to know the tumblr viola community today!

[shells-bells]

Well my hair looks like shit but I love this goddamn hunk of wood so much I wanted to participate. I haven't been playing him as much in the past year but here is my viola for Viola Selfie Day 2017. His name is Max and we get along swell. He's a 16", 8 year old babe from Germany. He got me through undergrad and grad school and now I'm working full time as a middle school orchestra director. Even though we don't spend as much time together he still knows I love him. We practice Vieuxtemps and Vaughan Williams together in our downtime. If any music ed majors have any questions feel free to message me. Speaking as someone who's been through the fire (smack in the middle of it now) I'm always happy to give some advice and whatnot ❤️

[halfway-unusual]

I guess it's Viola Selfie Day! This is Hazel, she was born in Germany in 1997 and she’s the light of my life.

[itsaviolathing]

PSA: I suck at taking practise room selfies

[tchaibrosky]

1st off, sorry for the terrible quality of the photo! I just took a quick photo when I heard it was viola selfie day! This is my baby, a 15 and a half I think, named Samuel. He has been the second viola I have been in posession of, and I have owned him for two years. -I used to be a violinist, and had been playing that for 5 years before I decided to change things up, which meant I switched to the newly found viola. I absolutely loved the tone (no E string!!), the size, and everything else about it. Now I have been playing viola for 3 years, it now being my main instrument, and have never looked back! I play in my local youth symphony, which is pretty good, and is almost, if not up to, par with the other local group, PYP. I also take part in a music summer camp, where we play symphonic music. So I have definitly worked on playing my instrument well, saying that when I first started, it took me around three months to learn the clef, and even longer to re-learn treble when I had to! Happy viola selfie day!

[satansthigh-highs]

everyone is doing viola selfies so eh why not