Violin Recital II

Tonight was my second violin recital. I started taking lessons in September of 2009 and have been playing for three and a half years. I have kept track of my practice time and am almost to 2300 hours.

This recital was much like the first. It was informal and everyone played together to warm up and then each person played one piece. This time, the teacher played with most of the students.

I was less nervous than I was at the first recital, but I still had a harder time playing accurately than I do in practice. Being nervous doesn’t help, and I am not used to playing with accompaniment.

I had planned to play a short piece, but the teacher wanted to also do a long duet. I had learned the duet a couple of months ago, but it still took a week and a half of practice to get ready for the recital.

The duet was the third movement of the Bach double. The first movement for the second violin is at the end of Suzuki book four and is considered one of the milestones of learning violin. It is the first time you play a “real” piece where the two violins together create the melody instead of having a melody and accompaniment. The first violin part of the first movement is at the end of book 5 and so the first movement is often played at recitals by two students. The third movement isn’t in the Suzuki books and is a bit harder than the first movement.

I made a video of myself practicing the piece. I am wearing headphones to listen to a recording of the second violin and piano accompaniment. Unfortunately, I had to slow the original recording down from 90 bpm to 60 bpm which makes the recording sound weird.

https://chadweisshaar.com/pictures/2013/Recital-2a.wmv

The piece that I had originally planned to play is called Tambourin by A.E. Gretry. It is in Suzuki book 8 and was the piece I was learning when the recital was first planned.

https://chadweisshaar.com/pictures/2013/Recital-2b.wmv

One thought on “Violin Recital II”

Leave a Reply