Lesson notes

Some notes from my lesson last night.

On VL #2, Yuri immediately noticed I wasn't following through with my stroke.  Much fuller sound when I did.  I keep forgetting this.  Maybe need to put it on the practice display.

He noticed tension on the fourth measure.  Even though I've worked on it, it needs more attention, and a higher standard for relaxation.

We spent a bunch of time on the scale run.  He prefers to mute 6 with P resting on 5, thinking of the run as a distinct part that can have a different sound (muted instead of ringing).  We agreed to disagree on that.

He had two good ideas for breaking up the run, so that it's easier to process and more secure.  First was adding a breath before the top; it doesn't sound great but it breaks it in two and can be a good practice aid.  Second one was to decide when to return to a four-sixteenths feel after the peak, on the F#.  That offers another kind of break, and the four-sixteenths feel makes the downbeats into anchors which helps a lot.

Then we switched to Una Limosna.  He didn't comment on my tremolo, so hopefully that's improved.  We worked on interpretation of the first two bars.  He advocated minimal vibrato, because it overshadows what follows.  Keeping dynamics coherent on the long scale was a theme in his comments, not only as a whole (e.g. ending a crescendo or decrescendo a beat or two early) but also within each line (e.g. ending a decrescendo in the base line because the pitch rises --- ugh).  There were lots more details we covered, noted in my manuscript.