New Things

6/12/18

Hi, my name is Bethany Stephens.

I got out of school about a week ago, and I’m starting to get bored so I’ve decided that I’m going to do something new every day until school starts again. I’ll probably miss a few days because I’m like that, but I’m going to try my best.

I play violin and I have a lesson tomorrow. Last week I was supposed to have started learning this etude by Wohlfahrt, but I didn’t practice it at all so my teacher decided to let me start it this week. However, I seem to have put it off again. I decided that it would make a good start because I haven’t played it before and it would actually be useful in my life.

I’ve been playing violin since I was about eight - that’s almost half my life now. I’m far from being really good. I’m not looking for a career in violin or even in music. But I love being able to make pretty sounds, so I keep playing. I’ve had seven different teachers, although only four of them were actually long term. I’m learning with the Suzuki method, which starts out teaching by ear. I’m currently in Book 5 and I’m playing German Dance by von Dittersdorf. On the side I sight read/learn Wohlfahrt etudes. The one I’m learning today is number 38.

I’m start by sight reading it. You can see that video below.

After playing it through a few more times, practicing with a metronome and playing the more difficult spots over and over, here’s what I ended up with. Notice how it’s more than twice as fast? Videoing myself as I played really pushed me to strive for perfection. I worked on it for about an hour, whereas I think normally I would have played it through two or three times and called myself prepared.

Good enough for my violin teacher, I hope!

Other new things I did today:

• Go to the TE’AMO boba tea shop
• Make tzatziki sauce