First Concert of the Year

Last night was our first concert this year!

Concert Orchestra played first and they were surprisingly really good for being on the small side and having younger, less experienced players. All of them were together and in tune! I was impressed. But is it just me or do they have really, really small instruments?

We were next and we played "October", "Resurgences", and "Light Cavalry Overture". The first two songs went well, however, "Light Cavalry Overture" was not good at all. We were off key on several notes, not together, and it was a total disaster. Or so we thought... We got a round of applause! We even had to bow three times! Several parents even said that Light Cavalry was the best song of the night. That was shocking...

It just goes to show that as long as you put your heart and soul into something nobody will notice if you didn't do as well as you could have!

Side note: district orchestra tryouts are coming up fast... I have a couple extra lessons with my private teacher set up for the two weeks before audition day so I can make sure I'm secure on my audition music!

Another side note: I forgot to mention that my teacher gave us our seats and I got 11th chair, which is much better than I expected! There are a lot of extremely talented violinists who have been in the first violin section for many years, and that's what I had to compete with. I'm definitely proud of myself. Out of 26 total first violinists... that's not too shabby! My teacher even pulled me to the side after class and let me know how amazed he was about my playing test. :)

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My Top YouTube Violinists of the Moment

YouTube is filled with tons of amazing violinists and a lot of them are very creative with their playing. Jason Yang, for example, plays electric violin (as well as acoustic violin and many other instruments) and makes covers of popular songs, manipulating his videos so that it sounds like there are several people playing at once when it's just him! He does this by filming himself playing each part and then combining all of them together into a sort of video collage. Not only does he do this, but in some of his videos he uses a loop pedal to play several violin parts at one time. Madonna actually discovered his videos and invited him to go on tour with her as her violinist! You should definitely check out his videos. :)
www.youtube.com/jasonyangviolin


Another great violinist is Lindsey Stirling. She's possibly the most popular violinist on YouTube with over 140 million views! Like Jason Yang, she makes covers of popular songs as well as forming songs into medleys, such as "Lord of the Rings Medley". Her music videos include ethereal scenery as backdrops and her magnificent dancing, which she somehow manages to do while playing violin at the same time! She definitely raises the bar for violinists everywhere. Go watch her videos!
www.youtube.com/lindseystomp

Did You Know...?

Albert Einstein played the violin!

"Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music." --Albert Einstein