A Find

Very funny:

http://xkcd.com/

Listening

I live with another violinist. Another violinist who teaches pretty regularly throughout the week. This isn’t really a problem with me, except for the fact that a majority of these students are beginners [bad] or tone deaf.

How long can you perpetrate the myth that becoming a musician is good for a person? Or that someday, with the right amount of hard work and discipline, you will even become one.. Anyway, the point is, I can’t help but listen to these lessons, and I’ve found that my reactions have instilled a sort of fear about the sounds that come out of MY violin when I’m practicing or rehearsing.. If these kids can’t tell the difference between ear-bleed pitch and A440 while they’re scrubbing away, then how can I be sure that my own sounds aren’t equally as repulsive to an even higher trained ear?

So I have come to the conclusion that ~listening~ is very important when you’re producing sounds.. Concentration is so powerfully focused on the actual process of making the sound – the placing of the fingers – the holding of the bow – that I think sometimes we forget to actually listen to the product. Maybe this is why the hyper-analytical korean boy rushes – he is fixated on getting to the next note like a video game.. or why the plump country bumpkin plays consistently a quarter tone flat – she is looking in the mirror and making sure she isn’t slumping and her perfectly polished nails are sitting on the fingerboard at the ideal angle to reflect their pearlescent shimmer.