1. We had our orchestra concert last week. It consisted of all contemporary Chinese composers, which was very interesting for the Westerners playing the orchestra as the music itself was foreign. The concert was on Thursday of last week, so we rehearsed almost four hours everyday from Monday to Wednesday. Then we found out (I say this, because we had to ask random people, no one actually told us) that we were supposed to meet at the front gate at 8:45 Thursday morning to get on buses, go to the venue and have a dress rehearsal. Now we think to ourselves, "Okay....so we'll get there around 9:15...rehearse from 9:30....we can't be there past 3:00, so we must come back and change, etc. and then they'll take us back for the concert in the evening." This was definitely not the case. We showed up at the bus and half of the Chinese kids were already dressed in concert black. Needless to say, we altered our plans immediately. We literally stayed at the venue from 9am to roughly 10pm or a little later. But the concert went well and in the end, it was an experience all its own.
2. My lessons with He Xuan have been improving. We are now working only on technique, or so I thought. But then this week, he asked to hear the Mozart Concerto I was working on. Unfortunately I had not practiced it for about two weeks as I was dead intent on being able to to all of the technical excercises/scales/double stops that he asked for. He's a little bit concerned for me over the technical exam in January where every violinist in the conservatory performs the same scale in single notes, thirds, sixths, octaves, fingered octaves and tenths, then the same Paganini Caprice along with another caprice of ones choice. Basically I want to prove to everyone that technique is the easy part. Ha. This could be more difficult than I thought.
3. Chinese is going well. It was weird, actually having to study something again, after the summer and then two months of just practicing. We had midterms this week, so studying was definitely required as yes, I would like some credit for going to three hours of Chinese every day. But there was really no need to worry, I know more Chinese than I thought I did, as I passed the test with flying colors. I did it so quickly too that I had time to practice for an extra two hours before my next commitment!
4. Speaking of practicing: that's about all I do. This is the reason that I have no pictures of the last two weeks here. All I've done is go to rehearsal and practice. Needless to say, my violin hickey is huge and seems to be permanent now (this I'm actually not so happy about). However, I think if I can keep this up, by January I will be ready for the technical exam and just about anything else. There just can't be any slacking off.
5. It's gotten quite cold and gloomy here. This makes practicing and getting things done a little more difficult. All I really want to do is snuggle up in my bed with a good movie/book and hibernate. This desire is amplified by the fact that there is hot cocoa sitting on my shelf now and it calls to me often! Alas, I have a lot of work to do and a house-warming party to attend later today. Hibernating will have to wait.
I will do my best to update more often, but who knows. When things get busy here, things get really busy.
1 comment:
It's good to know that you are still alive and working hard! We can't wait to hear the new improved you!!
Mom
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