Back to Work ... and blogging

Today, after nine weeks of varied activity and travel, I finally return to teaching my wonderful students. It seems like an age since I have seen them. I'm sure all the young ones will all have grown like mushrooms and some of the older ones will look more mature. It's amazing what a difference a holiday makes.

Will they have practised? Some will, most will not. Is this a good thing? I think it is in some ways. There seems to be some process that goes on in the brain when you take a break from playing. As a child, I rarely practised in the holidays. Sometimes I did, but I think that was probably when I ran out of other things to do! And it did me good. I remember coming back to pieces that I had struggled with in the previous year, and, miracle of miracles:  I could play them! It intrigued me, and still does, as to how a break affects one's playing.

When my children were born I had an even longer break from playing. I had four children in the space of 6 1/2 years - there was really no time for much playing for me, especially as we were home-educating as well!

So, 10 years later, I started teaching and also playing again. Yes, 10 years! It was hard at first. My brain knew what I wanted my fingers to do, but my fingers refused to co-operate. It was hard work. My muscles got a bit sore - not just fingers either. Arms, shoulders and sometimes my back, all complained at the "ill-treatment". But I kept at it, and I started remembering things, things I'd learned way back when I was at the Conservatorium as a student. I'd remember things my teachers had told me, ways of practising difficult passages and scales, double stops, different types of bowing etc.

And then I noticed something even more interesting: I was playing far more in tune than I remember myself playing before. My fingers just seemed to instinctively know where to go; my double stops were working well and the sound seemed a lot less scratchy than I remember. Perhaps my memory of my previous playing was bad? I'm not sure. I have one recording of my final performance at university. I don't like listening to it. My memorisation was patchy and it shows in the playing.

Yes, I passed the course but it's only now that I feel I'm really playing well. Is it a confidence thing? Maybe. Becoming a mother certainly has something to do with it! But all in all, the break did me good. And I'm hoping this long holiday will have done all my wonderful students just as much good.

Student Concert

Yesterday I had a student concert at the library.  It was one of the best concerts I've had in a long time I would say.  I had quite a few little ones playing and they all played soooo well!  I think having a bit of pressure sometimes helps them to put in that last bit of effort.  A couple of them really surprised me with the dramatic improvement in their playing since I had heard them at their lesson earlier in the week! 

Just before the concert I had gone to the supermarket to get some extra things I needed for the afternoon tea. As I walked in the lights all went off and then came on again.  Then they did it again, and again, and again!  I think it would have been 10 or more times in all. In the end I went to Woollies because I was running out of time - it was about 1:30 and I wanted to start the concert at 2pm and still hadn't set anything up!  I made a conscious effort this time not to worry about starting late.  I mean it's good to start on time but not if it's stressing me out!  So it ended up being a really relaxed concert as well.  Many of the parents came up afterwards and said how much they enjoyed it.

My week felt like it had a few days missing

I haven't got a lot to write as I have spent the most of last week resting, sleeping or teaching and very little else due to a cold. And it really does feel like some of those days didn't even exist.  However, I managed to accomplish a couple of things which had been in need of doing.  On Wednesday I went to the dentist and got the all clear (rather good as I hadn't been for rather a while).  Then on Friday I bought a micro SD card for my mp3 player, so it now can hold 4GB in total.  I never thought I'd need that much but there you go. It's rather increcible that you can fit so much on something so tiny - the wonders of modern technology eh. 

Pretty happy!

I recently bought an mp3 player.  I've been wanting one for a long time as it's much more convenient to listen to stuff when you're doing mindless tasks like vacuuming or washing up. The one I ended up with is a SanDisk Sansa e200.  I can organize all the files and find things quickly and easily.  It can also store photos and videos, but they have to be converted to another format so I haven't got round to trying that yet.  Anyway, I was reading an Age article the other day about mp3 players and mine came up trumps because it has a micro-SD memory card slot for more storage!  (Read more)

The only drawback was not being able to recharge without a computer so I bought an AC USB adapter which works really well. I think it might even charge better as we don't appear to have any high speed USB ports on our computer. You can also use the mp3 player while it's recharging with this adapter - something you can't do if you're recharging it on the computer.

Here is one very satisfied customer!