Viola Day!
Wow well yesterday was full-out viola day - intense, but VERY interesting and a LOT of great stuff taken out of it.
I must say though, I haven't been sitting for such long periods of time ALL DAY in the longest time... and since I tend to cross my legs when I sit, can you believe that by the end of the night my hips were actually feeling all that sitting?! I mean usually I stand when I practice, so to be sitting so much was really new for me...
Garth Knox - a relatively well-known and respected violist, especially in the contemporary music field - was in town this week. I saw his concert on Tuesday, which was AMAZING - for a sample of the kind of stuff he does:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4y7IADJ5oc
He played this among with other INSANELY creative pieces he wrote at the concert. He also played other composer's modern stuff and even Vivaldi - on viola d'amore! A completely different animal, really. More on that later.
So yesterday we had the chance to sign up for masterclasses with Garth Knox. It was a really good experience! I'd signed up first at 10 am, which is kinda "stupid" in the sense that - 10 am's really too early for some people around here, believe it or not >.> So when I played only one other person was there :-( Matthias had said he was also very curious to hear him teach, but he didn't make it from Vienna until after I played. A pity, so many missed me play! Oh well, lesson learned - don't go first!
But I still played well and got a LOT of great tips. Garth is really sooo musical and creative, and he had a lot of great analogies and images for the music, and just spoke a really musical language. He has a very calm manner about him, a kind and gentle way and is also very positive.
So I stayed for the two people following me to see more of what he had to say, then biked it back home for lunch and went back for the next two also. Following a coffee break, he had a 2 hour talk explaining some of his compositions (like the youtube video above).
Like the description says, they were made somewhat as exercises in order to make modern music not look so "scary." They each focus on a certain technique, which are actually often technqiues already used in classical music, he merely expands them to the limits and beyond.
Very creative stuff! After he went through his "viola spaces" Garth then showed us a medieval fiddle, our ancient ancestor, and then the viola d'amore.
A viola da gamba is played between the legs and usually has frets, but the viola d'amore is smaller and played on the chin. It has 12 strings all together - 6 strings that are played on and 6 'resonance strings' that you don't play on, but are tuned to match the other strings, so it has an effect much like when you press the pedal on a piano. It has a somehow softer tone, and it's quite big actually and next to the viola very difficult to play!
However in some sense it could be easier - use of the open strings is pretty easy and creates ease of chords and double-stops.
He also explained something very interesting - in modern viola repertoire, one classical concerto which is often demanded was written by Stamitz. Turns out, Stamitz was a viola d'amore played and wrote a lot of music for viola d'amore. The concerto is written in D Major (also a favorite d'amore key).
So the theory is that he actually wrote the concerto for the viola d'amore - NOT the modern day viola. And while certain passages are horridly hairy on the modern day viola, when you play the same stuff on the viola d'amore - it is AMAZINGLY EASY!
If that wasn't enough, a dinner break was followed by the school's String Institut concert. Marta was playing on it, in addition to a few other people I knew - and also people I didn't know!
I was struck by some of the guitar pieces and how multi-faceted guitar can be. I'm constantly being impressed by other instruments lately - the capacity of piano, as I get to know it in my lessons - and this guitar player played this movement of a piece in such a tender and singing way, it was very impressive!
Then a young girl played a flashy violin piece - and usually I'm not impressed, BUT she has SUCH courage, confidence, not only virtuosity but also this attitude in playing - she was AMAZING. It really caught my attention. She actually also sounded lyrical in the 'more lyrical' passages of the piece, and yet other times ripped into that violin with no fear. It really caught me like no other string player did that night.
Following were a couple drinks with Marta, her new boyfriend, Hannes of course, and Matthias. More shop talk! Reviewing Marta's performance, talking about how impressed Matthias was with Garth Knox and glad he came for the day, and making observations about the concert.
So I didn't practice all but 2 hours yesterday, but the immensely enriching musical experience I got out of it cannot be compared. It's a shame that other people pass up rare opportunities like this to say "But I have to practice." And I've said it before too, but I also find it just plain unprofessional, uncollegial. My colleagues work very hard too, and they deserve to be heard. I can take a few hours of my week to listen to them, for all the 10s of hours they've dedicated to this little space of time.
There are some people who are constantly doing other things and sacrifice too much practice time, and others who do nothing BUT practice. Both people will always be missing something. I like to think I have a good sense of balance, of when I have to sit down and say, "No, tonight's practice time," and when I have to allow myself to put down the viola and experience something that could bring me farther than those hours in the practice room ever could.
It's not JUST about how much you practice. It's WHAT you practice and HOW!
P.S. I'd actually seen Garth Knox before, at the International Viola Congress in Iceland. Funny enough, during the concert on Tuesday I got the feeling he kept glancing at me, and at the very end of the day yesterday I'd mentioned I'd seen him in Iceland. He said, "Ah that's it! I thought I'd recognized you but I couldn't remember from where!" Nice how it can be a big world but a small community :)
I must say though, I haven't been sitting for such long periods of time ALL DAY in the longest time... and since I tend to cross my legs when I sit, can you believe that by the end of the night my hips were actually feeling all that sitting?! I mean usually I stand when I practice, so to be sitting so much was really new for me...
Garth Knox - a relatively well-known and respected violist, especially in the contemporary music field - was in town this week. I saw his concert on Tuesday, which was AMAZING - for a sample of the kind of stuff he does:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4y7IADJ5oc
He played this among with other INSANELY creative pieces he wrote at the concert. He also played other composer's modern stuff and even Vivaldi - on viola d'amore! A completely different animal, really. More on that later.
So yesterday we had the chance to sign up for masterclasses with Garth Knox. It was a really good experience! I'd signed up first at 10 am, which is kinda "stupid" in the sense that - 10 am's really too early for some people around here, believe it or not >.> So when I played only one other person was there :-( Matthias had said he was also very curious to hear him teach, but he didn't make it from Vienna until after I played. A pity, so many missed me play! Oh well, lesson learned - don't go first!
But I still played well and got a LOT of great tips. Garth is really sooo musical and creative, and he had a lot of great analogies and images for the music, and just spoke a really musical language. He has a very calm manner about him, a kind and gentle way and is also very positive.
So I stayed for the two people following me to see more of what he had to say, then biked it back home for lunch and went back for the next two also. Following a coffee break, he had a 2 hour talk explaining some of his compositions (like the youtube video above).
Like the description says, they were made somewhat as exercises in order to make modern music not look so "scary." They each focus on a certain technique, which are actually often technqiues already used in classical music, he merely expands them to the limits and beyond.
Very creative stuff! After he went through his "viola spaces" Garth then showed us a medieval fiddle, our ancient ancestor, and then the viola d'amore.
A viola da gamba is played between the legs and usually has frets, but the viola d'amore is smaller and played on the chin. It has 12 strings all together - 6 strings that are played on and 6 'resonance strings' that you don't play on, but are tuned to match the other strings, so it has an effect much like when you press the pedal on a piano. It has a somehow softer tone, and it's quite big actually and next to the viola very difficult to play!
However in some sense it could be easier - use of the open strings is pretty easy and creates ease of chords and double-stops.
He also explained something very interesting - in modern viola repertoire, one classical concerto which is often demanded was written by Stamitz. Turns out, Stamitz was a viola d'amore played and wrote a lot of music for viola d'amore. The concerto is written in D Major (also a favorite d'amore key).
So the theory is that he actually wrote the concerto for the viola d'amore - NOT the modern day viola. And while certain passages are horridly hairy on the modern day viola, when you play the same stuff on the viola d'amore - it is AMAZINGLY EASY!
If that wasn't enough, a dinner break was followed by the school's String Institut concert. Marta was playing on it, in addition to a few other people I knew - and also people I didn't know!
I was struck by some of the guitar pieces and how multi-faceted guitar can be. I'm constantly being impressed by other instruments lately - the capacity of piano, as I get to know it in my lessons - and this guitar player played this movement of a piece in such a tender and singing way, it was very impressive!
Then a young girl played a flashy violin piece - and usually I'm not impressed, BUT she has SUCH courage, confidence, not only virtuosity but also this attitude in playing - she was AMAZING. It really caught my attention. She actually also sounded lyrical in the 'more lyrical' passages of the piece, and yet other times ripped into that violin with no fear. It really caught me like no other string player did that night.
Following were a couple drinks with Marta, her new boyfriend, Hannes of course, and Matthias. More shop talk! Reviewing Marta's performance, talking about how impressed Matthias was with Garth Knox and glad he came for the day, and making observations about the concert.
So I didn't practice all but 2 hours yesterday, but the immensely enriching musical experience I got out of it cannot be compared. It's a shame that other people pass up rare opportunities like this to say "But I have to practice." And I've said it before too, but I also find it just plain unprofessional, uncollegial. My colleagues work very hard too, and they deserve to be heard. I can take a few hours of my week to listen to them, for all the 10s of hours they've dedicated to this little space of time.
There are some people who are constantly doing other things and sacrifice too much practice time, and others who do nothing BUT practice. Both people will always be missing something. I like to think I have a good sense of balance, of when I have to sit down and say, "No, tonight's practice time," and when I have to allow myself to put down the viola and experience something that could bring me farther than those hours in the practice room ever could.
It's not JUST about how much you practice. It's WHAT you practice and HOW!
P.S. I'd actually seen Garth Knox before, at the International Viola Congress in Iceland. Funny enough, during the concert on Tuesday I got the feeling he kept glancing at me, and at the very end of the day yesterday I'd mentioned I'd seen him in Iceland. He said, "Ah that's it! I thought I'd recognized you but I couldn't remember from where!" Nice how it can be a big world but a small community :)