Breathe Bowing

breathe bowing
doing a physical techical exercise in time with my natural breathe is interesting.

it is extraordinarily difficult breathing in a pattern whilst playing. i guess when I sleep i breath in a rhythmic pattern, so why is it difficult. if ican do it sleeping i can do it awake right?

i've found, after each 15min session it's important to put the instrument down and do something else (e.g. write something like this) rather than take a few minutes to change the music and perhaps pause. to change the use of the brain for a minute or so. enough time to feel as though the instrument feels slightly foreign again, to learn something new about it's physicality.

rather than stretch the fingers into position, let the fingers fall out of tune and let the wrist / arm slide the finger into position. it loses up the muscles and begins to reduce the distance between fingerings through relaxation.

it's important to engage the analytical mind whilst play / practicing the violin...

the iphone is great as a metronome, stop watch / time keeper and tuner!? it's free and portable!?!

perhaps the schradieck should be practice as a whole rather than looping through each bar. I find hat setting a suitable tempo for the entire exercise / page and working through the whole thing helps. Then increase tempo until happy with the 'lesson'.

Shifting:
- don't fear the shift. drag it out and analyse the mental / physical tension and then drag out anything else that is of concern. slow it al down.
- don't stretch, shift fractions of a tone.
- shift when it's not necessary just to let the hand losen up.

i think it does help to play thing through at a given tempo.

it is surprising how bad i am at breathing whilst I practice. That 'dry back of the throat' feeling comes from not breathing and swallowing saliva properly. bizarre, i can do that whilst i'm sleep?!

the purpose isn't to perfect the study. the challenge isn't to resolve the difficult section. the purpose is the improve. chose a study, or a section of a study, that is going to teach the most whilst offer a few road blocks of frustration or boredom as possible. Play it from start to finish at a suitable tempo and notice how the body handles the journey.