MUSICAL(?) WEEKEND

 

I had my first recital on Saturday night. I was incredibly nervous, and my bow arm kept shaking making for a very strange vibrato sound. I also had a complete fiasco while tuning my instrument before the recital started. Generally my violin stays tuned for weeks with only minor adjustments, but I got to the recital hall, and for some reason my violin seemed way out of tune, so then I tightened (or loosened, it's all just a blur) the strings around, and judging from the sound, never quite got it back to the right notes.

Some people perform better under stress, I seem to self-destruct!

On Sunday we went to a mind blowing concert produced by this over achieving doctor who is a first violinist in my orchestra. She assigned the task to 7 Northwest composers of writing symphony pieces featuring a solo instrument that he/she did NOT play. So, the solo instruments included bagpipes, drums, the didgeri-doo, cembalo, tar, and even a flamenco dancer (that was the piece composed by the doctor herself!) It was really fun. My favorite piece was the bagpipe one. It started with some other sort of Scottish pipes (Uilleann) playing with the symphony a very pastoral sounding piece, and then in the third movement a soloist playing the Scottish bagpipes marched on stage in full regalia with his pipes playing at fortissimo. I started crying at the pure awesomeness of it.