What a learning curve this week has been with Final Cut Express. I’m posting this as an exercise in humility as much as a beneficial lesson for students. Clearly, I got the compression wrong…I recorded this in HD (without a good mic) and then when I muscled it down to its current size, something went weird and oblong in the look of the thing. But I am anxious to record some more and, like a student of anything worthwhile, look forward to a trend of hopefully better and better blogcasts.

Though I can’t promise a better location or lighting, the production will be better on the next one. Any requests, including unredeemed podcast questions?

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10 Responses

  1. Brava! The first time is always the hardest. I was t5hinkin (sorry, Frick, or maybe Frack, is walking on my keyboard) – maybe we could start a meme. Something about describing one thing your teacher said this week that s/he has told you fifty times before!

  2. Teriff’! Love those frowny faces! One of your points reminds me of something from the Navy. In gunnery trials during “RefTra” (Refresher Training), the goal is to first exhibit that you can “bracket the target”. Say your first salvo falls short and to the left, then your next attempt should land far and to the right. None of that gradually inching up to the target shenanigans.

    So in lessons, sometimes we talked about bracketing the target.

  3. Thanks guys! I particularly enjoy any military reference. Some of my students tell me I am a cheery drill sergeant, the way I have them do huge reps on a particular exercise.

    Again!

    Flat!

    Sharp!

    What are you doing?

    Crooked!

    Oh my god!

    etc. 🙂

    So for the next one, that I should record the week after this, (I am taking a whole week off! No lessons or gigs! Not even one!) I’ll have a lapel mic so I don’t sound like I’m in a cave, some brighter lighting, and an awareness of weird habits like tapping the tip of my bow on the carpet and looking sort of crafty and scheming when forming a thought.

  4. OK, here’s the Army follow-on to Terry’s Navy “bracketing the target”.

    After the bracketing back and forth has resulted in a shot on target, the phrase to employ is “Fire for effect!”.

    Which of course means to repeat it many times in a salvo of accurate energy.

  5. Thanks for putting this together Emily. I really enjoyed the last few minutes regarding shifting. Specifically, where you mentioned “shifting with confidence” even if we may not be confident. Good stuff… 🙂

  6. Thank you Emily! I watched it over and over again. It is very interesting that even I couldn’t get all you said (because of my poor ear for English), you still inspired me a lot! Especially bowing (motion of your elbow) and shifting (with confidence).

  7. So, I realize this comment is waaay late … I thought I had posted it honestly, but it got buried under stuff…

    so, just some thoughts I had watching the video:

    Cool! This is informative as a student, but even more so as a teacher, since I'm always looking for different ways to communicate things…

    Another name for your sad face bows is Upside down U (I almost like sad face more..)

    Regarding extensions, one thing that really cleared them up for me in my own practice has been practicing extended double stops. It would be interesting to see something on extensions btwn. the 2nd & 3rd fingers or 3rd and 4th, since they can show up at various times (Bach & Vivaldi in particular come to mind … well they don't have to show up in vivaldi)

    Regarding shifting, I like to tell people to shift with the whole arm (instead of the fingers), and a name I've heard for your using the first finger as a reference point is called shifting w/ a guiding finger. I also think that practicing the rhythm of the shift can help a lot too (ie if you're playing a 16th note passage, then you need to be able to shift consistently at 16th notes) …

    My only 1 small criticism is that sometimes you use words like "these" 'you may have noticed that I flatten these out' … I wasn't really sure what "these" referred to, and in general, I think it's more helpful to always be specific, b/c then the student can start to make general principles out of things (it's also quite challenging!)

    Thanks for posting the vid. and really looking forward to seeing more.

    -Mike

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