I remember wanting to play the violin when I was a little kid, but joined choir instead of band in school. My parents had me take piano in elementary school, played a few recitals… but I didn’t like it much, fought my way out of it and forgot everything. In my teen years, my goal was to play the drums, guitar and bass… I wanted to do it all, hahaha… so I ended up learning one song on the guitar, one song on the bass, and I could play a beat on a drum set. Now that Rockband is out, my 7 year old could probably play better than me, lol. So it has been a long time since I have played any instruments. I don’t know why or how… but one morning about a week ago, I woke up and decided that I would like to play the violin!! Fortunately I had an excellent week financially and had just enough extra money to get a pretty nice violin and some lessons. I started today, and I love it!! To me, the violin is magical… I love the sound. It was one of my favorite moments in Italy on our Honeymoon last year, hearing a violin echo down the streets in Florence.
Here is a video of me playing what I learned today:
Update: A few days after lesson #4 (one month of playing!)…. BTW, I am taking one class a week for a half hour, and practicing about 30-45 min a day. After watching this, I realized that on the first song, my bow is slipping all over the place. There are so many things to remember while playing, like bending my thumb, trying to keep the bow in the middle, certain amount of pressure on the bow, the notes to the songs, etc, etc. Can’t wait until it is all 2nd nature! We set goals at my last lesson, I am going to try to use my pinky which is short and stubborn. I didn’t even try using it in this video because I didn’t want to put you through that, haha.
Update: Its been about 3 1/2 months now and I think I have slowed down on learning a little due to being really busy over the summer. Here is me playing Perpetual Motion from Suzuki book one. I am having a super hard time playing it all the way through with out making mistakes, including on this video, lol.
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Update: 12-2011 – We had our first recital. I totally botched my solos, lol, my nerves got to me! So here is me with two others playing Carol of the Bells, which is full of mistakes… but more pleasant to listen to than my other videos, haha.
