New experience, new achievement

Hello! It’s been a while since the last time I post something here.. And I’m glad I can finally get back again to my blog.

 

So for today’s post, I want to share my achievement which is also my very first experience after 16 years of being a violinist. Quite a long story tho, but it’s worth it. On January 2016, I was performing in an event at Batik Lounge, Kemang, Jakarta. There, I met a guy who was looking for someone for a Hofner violin endorsement.

 

Long story short. After a few months, a representative from the company he worked for called me and asked me to come over to Jakarta (I live in Bandung, btw). We arranged the schedule and then the next 6 days, I went to the place he asked me to go to. There, he and his colleagues told me to try a few famous German violins from Hofner. I AM INSTANTLY SO IN LOVE WITH THOSE VIOLINS especially for the H4-V4 series.

 

And just when I thought it ends there, they gave me a chance to try an electric violin which is also from Hofner. For your information, I have never play an electric violin before because I wanted to stay “classic”. It felt heavy at first, I tried it before it was plugged to the sound system and it sounds not to bad. But after it was plugged, I had to say its hard to go back the classic violin again  wink

 

Anyway, here I am now. Officially endorsed and happily exploring my 2 new violins, accoustic violin and electric violin, both by Hofner. Oh i’m also endorsed for violin string from D’addario KAPLAN VIVO. For those who are looking for a violin string, KAPLAN VIVO is highly recommended. Those warm but soft tone will drive you crazy!

 

A little bit tips of buying a new violin, probably I’ve said this before but I will say it again. It is never you who choose the instrument, the instrument is.

 

Goodluck finding a new one or if you love your old one already, take a good care of it!

Violinary #5 (Sol)

Sol stands for solidarity. What makes us grow to a better way? Inovation might works. But thats not what i want to talk about in this occasion. Its about a competition between individuals among us, humans. And its actually fine. Its not even a bad thing at all. But everything if its too much is not good.

There are times that solidarity is needed. We saw a lot of motivation phrase that says we have to stand out and be different from the others. But it wont work in an orchestra or band. Solidarity here is needed so that between one instrument and the others will blend together and so the audience can enjoy it.

The number one priority in an orchestra or band or everything that includes more than one person playing an instrument is harmony. A song will not sounds beautiful if its not in harmony, because it feels like every person who is playing that song is playing for them self and they dont care about how others listen to it.

 

PDF Violin Part:Violinary #5

 

 

Lack in Society

 

Human is a social “thing”. We can’t stand alone and we will always need someone else. A bunch of humans live in society.. and automatically, it creates an environment.

Imagine how many people live in this world and count how many kinds of different environment they could make? This is actually never-ending-blunder.

A person affect other people. Then the other people affect another other people. And then the another other people affect someone else. Until it ends up maybe 3 or more societies are affected before you even know it. And it doesn’t end here. Those societies that have their own edited affection WILL automatically affected another person, which could be the very first person in the beginning.

So. To be clear… WE LIVES IN SOCIETY. A society that we can’t control. You need to have protect yourself, protect your dreams to not being affected by others. Be brave to STAND OUT!

Aristotle’s Theory in Music Entertainment

Ethos Logos Pathos

Some of you must have been heard about Aristotle. He divined the word “persuassion” into three words which is Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos (Credibility) means how people believe of who you are. Pathos (Emotional) means how our emotional appeals are used to persuade things and to affects audience’s emotional response. While Logos (Logical) means how we could explain anything with a logical reason.

Actually I’ve written about this before in my previous post. With a different approach, of course. If you want to see it, here, I gave you the  link. I’ve once experienced this before.

Usually I made solo concert on a stage and an event that was dedicated for me. You can see my name all over to indicate that it was MY concert. People who came to buy the tickets knew whom they’re going to watch for. PS : I usually play both classical and pop music in every single event. I combined these two genres  :p

And there are the days when I made a “concert” in a middle of a mall in another city that I haven’t known of. I was a complete stranger who was playing classical repertoires alone on the stage. It’s an important thing you should know that in Indonesia, Classical Music isn’t familiar here. It’s not the music that we would have played every day. But strangely, there are lots of random people whom come closer to the stage spontaneously just to look who was playing the violin.

So I think what’s missing here is Ethos and Logos. Only pathos exists here. Aristotle said that persuasion won’t happened if these 3 words doesn’t appear.

Well, is it?

Piano Evolution

from time to time

Eventually not just human or other living things that has evolution process. Music instrument does too! Piano, for example..

Piano has been exist from over 300 years ago. Visually it looks largely as the same today as it was back then. But, the inside of it, it’s a different story. Before the 16th century, some people said that Phytagoras was the one who invented string instrument. He also made an instrument called monochord.  And then it grows to an instrument called Clavichord which was first mentioned in 1404.

Clavichord itself produce sound by striking iron strings with a small metal blade called tangent (red.wikipedia). Many years past and it grows again to an instrument know as Harpsichord. Unlike clavichord, harpsicord sounds louder and has larger dynamic range. Cut to the chase, on the 1711, the invention of modern piano is credited to Bartolomeo Christofori which was known as “Gravicembalo col piano e forte”. It was an Italian name, so when we translate it into English it would be “soft and loud keyboard instrument”, or sometimes we called it as Pianoforte.

Pianoforte was a combination from the wonderful tone sustaining capacity in clavichord and also the “power” of Harpsichord. It was used by many famous composers until the 18th century, the piano was firmly established as a musical instrument. It had a 5 octave normal range and sixty-one keys not eighty-eight as it is today.
The history go on and on until Piano is what we use nowadays with all of its variations.

Music evolution on Charles Darwin’s “The Theory of Evolution”

As we already know, World Music came into inception in early 1980’s. World music is defined as the traditional and the folk music of a particular region or country. Each and every country and region in this world had their own specific sound which was limited in that region itself. The term “World Music” never had a major highs and lows, but it has made the people all over the world come a lot closer and has made the communication quite effective.

Speaking of what ways of processes and forms of mass mediation changes, in my opinion, is as similar as Charles Darwin’s “The Theory of Evolution”. On his theory, it was said that “In a world of stable populations where each individual must struggle to survive, those with the best characteristics will be more likely to survive, and those desirable traits will be passed to their offspring. These advantageous characteristics are inherited by following generations” and so does world music evolution.

Today, the industry is again on the verge of major changes brought on by the rapid evolution of the internet and the merger of the audio and computing technologies. Sound technologies evolved from mono to hi-fidelity stereo to Dolby® surround sound. Storage media technologies evolved from vinyl to audiocassettes to CDs and mini-discs. Replay devices evolved from gramophones to large, in-house stereo systems to compact and portable audio devices.

During these transitions, industry players either quickly adapted to the changes caused by the newer technologies or simply vanished from the scene. But music evolution may also makes a lot of new more music categories which is some of them are indescribable, because people nowadays are freely to make any new kinds of music as long as consumers exist.

For the conclusion, mass media is now 70% parts of our life. Internet, YouTube, iPods, file-sharing, you name it. And the world has also created sport events for all countries and contingents to join and compete, but there are no such things for music. Even if it exists, too bad it was usually for one kind of music genre only. So, hopefully there will be a new way from us, to create maybe an event to call local or international well-known musicians to collaborate and make this world music evolution reaches their best result together.

Zooming In and Out

One does not simply judging people only from a single point of view. Some of them are hard to guess, some of them are just professional pretender, or some just really have a very ability to do the poker face thing.

Well said, judging people are equal like playing a song. It must be done with 2 points kind of view, zoom in and zoom out.

violinist girl

Let me explain to you for this. On playing a song, zoom in are meant for several things such as pitches, dynamics, legatos, and other music expressions. All that details we must noticed and being able to remember it in a right way, of course.

While zoom out happens after those first step are done. So that we may know what the song want to tell us and the meaning within the song. Oh and by the way, you can also apply this to your own life 😀

Regret

look at the happy face ..!

I watched “Men In Black 3” last week, and for the whole movie, I agree one thing. Regret is the most powerful thing on earth (in my opinion, doubt also included). Regret means you disappointed with the result you got for what you did before. Nuff said “in the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make”.

We can never avoid regret, no one could ever do it, but at least we can reduce it. When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you. Just let it happen. If you too much put yourself in it, then regret will come over you again and doubt will do the same.

The universe can hear your doubt and they re-act along your doubt (the “Secret” theory). In music performance, if you keep your doubt and negative thoughts in your mind, then that’s what the audience heard.

So my suggestion, never expect, never assume, never ask, and never demand. Just let it be. If it’s meant to be, it will happen.

How to practice more effectively

I know this maybe not the best “Practice phases” for violinist, but I hope this post will help you a little bit in case you don’t know. I usually divide my practice time into 3 phases. “Long note and scales”, “Main Song”, and “Pieces”.

violin and me

-Long note and scales are very important, at least for me, it helps us to improve our skills and technique. Routinely scales playing without well thoughts and heart, then I suggest you to put away your violin and quit practicing because it’s totally making you to the opposite of being better violinist.

-The next phase, “Main Song”, I bet you already know about this so I won’t take it seriously except for the fact that I usually takes 4 or more hours for this phase.

-The last one, “Pieces”, is the phase for us to calm down and relax before we finish our practice. Take a short piece of music for example from Fritz Kreisler “Liebesfreud” and maybe it’s only 1 hour needed for this phase. Hoping you a better practice quality!

Upgraded Violin Technique

violin music fantasy

Our brain has 2 related parts with each has different functionality. The left part of the brain contain “logical” and the other side contain “creativity”. Commonly, humans used only one part of their brain, left or right.

Writer, mathematicism, and scientist are some people in the “left brainer” category. Musician, artist, and craftsman are people who works with their right part of the brain. To be able working with only just one part of our brain doesn’t mean it’s enough but it also doesn’t make us a mistake.

Ever heard about Leonardo Da Vinci? Well, Leonardo Da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, and a writer whose genius, which also tell us, he worked with both part of his brain and let him be anything what he wanted depends on the ability of his brain.

And I’m gonna tell you what is this to do with violin. Our left hand uses our left part of the brain. It controls every pitch you take, so definitely it’s logical. Our right hand, controls the bow, controls the sound that came out of your violin and being heard by the audience.

How wonderful it will be if we control both of them using both parts of our brain? Have you ever imagine how would it be like? Guess you will never know until you figure out by yourself 🙂