I don't make New Year's resolutions

[lerite]

And then I follow them anyway. For some reason, since moving (possibly because I brought the darned thing all the way up here) I've been practicing violin again. Not, you know, a lot, even by non-musician standards, but I just googled for a metronome and a tuner so that I could force myself to learn the first song in my favorite songbook.* The metronome was important, because I knew I wasn't timing the thing right but couldn't count and wiggle my fingers at the same time. I still don't have sufficient intonation (is that what you call being-in-tune-with-your-fingers?) or practice to, you know, hit the right notes, but at least I was hitting the wrong notes at the RIGHT TIME. And you know what? It felt good. Usually sucking at playing a song makes me not want to play anymore,** but something about the metronome today reassured me that I was going to get better if I just did it, like, twenty more times. (And I might get good at it around the two hundredth time.)

Also, I still kick ass at sight-reading, compared to my self-taught but way more musical friends. The limiting factor on my ability to play sheet music sight unseen is my fingers, not my eyebrains. So that's good.

Anyone out there struggling with basic chords on a guitar or piano want to totally suck together at some point? All these folk songs have the little letters above the measures to tell you what key to be in.***

Unrelatedly, I also read a book and learned to say "My grandmother likes coffee" in sign language. I'm becoming a worse version of hermitgeecko.

Edit: aaaaand my bow seems to have broken; it no longer tightens enough to be usable (even though I've been storing it loose). Crud. Guess I should save up for a working violin, maybe with tuning pegs that hold position (ooh, and FINE TUNERS).

*"Scandinavian Old Time Music Book I," by LeRoy Larson
**And then I stop, which is why I'm not a musician
***What are those things called, anyway?