As I played the first movement of this piece this past summer at Avanti Summer Music Fest, there wasn't much to practice for this blog. However, the one run that the violins and violas play together (measures 176-184) has always given me trouble, so I decided to work on it again.
This time around, I slowed the tempo down during practice to work on the intonation of each note. At Avanti, it was difficult to get every note perfect first, because we took the song at concert tempo at the first rehearsal and never slowed down, and second, because we only had five days to master each piece. The time restraint and the inability to play each song slowly made things besides intonation top priority. It did not help that I was first chair as well, and had to focus on cuing and at least looking like I was playing every note correctly (ha!). Slowing down the tempo was extremely helpful because I was able to identify when I needed to shift, which shifts I needed to practice, and how to get each shift perfectly in tune.
As well as slowing it down, I also broke the run up in rhythms, putting emphasis on different notes each time. This helped me to shift perfectly each time because it made some shifts faster than others and so on and so forth. Breaking a hard section up in rhythms is something I always find incredibly helpful, and I plan on doing so with the runs in the second movement of this piece.
If you watch the video you will notice that I have a little hiccup around measure 181, and I didn't edit this out or redo the video because this is one spot in particular that I have always struggled with, and I felt it appropriate to label it in the video as something that I will continue to work on.
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