Summit Day 9

Today is one of those days where you realize how much worse you are than you actually thought ...

Day started off w/ Jr. Orchestra & a Mendelssohn symphony - pretty easy stuff ... Youngerman is an interesting conductor...

then came Sr. Orchestra ... it was nice to see Richard Clark again - he's a cool, eccentric, intense guy. We're doing Variations on a Tchaicovsky theme by Arensky (which is pretty challenging - nothing too ridiculous though) & we're doing Bartok's Divertimento for Strings ... um, holy shit ... not only was I struggling to read/keep up (in a manageable way), but then it busted out artificial harmonics, which I've never actually had to do before ... and a lot of it was insanely fast ... so wow ...

Richard put it perfect: It's not about how well you sight-read it for the first rehearsal, it's about how well you woodshed it for the concert ... and indeed it is ...

Tomorrow we're spending the whole rehearsal on Bartok, and I've got to seriously find some time to read through it!

It's really good training/preparation in general, and it's exciting to see the level he expects of us ... this is what I wish I had during the school year ...

Edit:

I may be playing for the Gruber Masterclass tomorrow .. not sure ...

I had a lesson w/ David, we worked on: Scales and bowing, Thumb Position & Sevcik Position Exercises

He had the following advice:

Scales: keep elbow down, practice lifting bow at 3 quarters and then going into next one ... this eventually becomes just a mental thing. Don't let go of sound at the end of the note.
Thumb Position: Thumb is Anchor, when practicing Octave double stops, they are one note - never tune from the top (as Dr. B would say - from the bottom of my heart), relax hand
Sevcik: Use ghost note when sliding (how much is a matter of taste), Use upper arm to help shift, let go of note before shifting ..

Concert later ... I think I'll stay after to practice ... I really need it badly ...