Thursday, May 25, 2006

Practicing technique does strange things

I don't quite understand how it works, but after doing my steady diet of a "row" of Sevcik for 26 days in a row, I know that I am a much better violinist. I feel a little bit like I did 30 years ago when I was in the process of "acquiring" technique on the flute. I feel like anything is possible. I feel like there is nothing that I cannot (eventually) do musically. When I am not practicing I think about practicing. When I'm sleeping, I dream about the violin. Last night it was a dream about my grandfather and the music in his violin case.

One interesting difference between now and 30 years ago is that now I can appreciate and enjoy the process of learning. When I was young I had my sights firmly set on the future. I only wanted results, and getting to where I needed to be technically seemed like an eternity. Now that I am older (47 to be exact), it takes far longer to learn something than it did when I was in my 20s, but it somehow means much more, and the process seems to go more quickly.

1 comment:

Michael Leddy said...

Older? What're you talking about?

You sound good Elaine, and your dreams sound good too.