District Orchestra Auditions

Good morning!

This morning is special-- the morning I audition to get into All-District Orchestra.

I got plenty of sleep the night before and had a big breakfast this morning.

I'll be wearing my 4 leaf clover necklace (from Ireland, mind you!) and a red shirt for confidence.

I'll be listening to calming music on the way there and I'll stay in a meditative state up until it's time for my audition.

Then I'll bring it.

I've been practicing every day this week and I've played for quite a few of my orchestra/band friends. Everything I've done this week has been preparing me for today, and I think I'm ready. We'll see how this goes!

Expect a follow-up post soon. :)

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

Symphony Orchestra Playing Test/District Orchestra Tryout Music

In Symphony, we have playing tests every year to determine what chair we'll be placed in. I'm dreading this year's...

First off, last year I was a second violin since I had just made it into Symphony Orchestra that year. Freshman year I was in Concert Orchestra-- first violin. So this year my teacher moved me up to first violin and it's a big jump. I'm not used to all the notes in the really high positions, so I always have to listen to everyone else first. I've improved a lot though on recognizing rhythms when I'm just looking at the sheet music. Higher positions definitely need to be worked on with my private teacher!

For our concert that's coming up, we're playing "October" again, along with the piece "Light Cavalry Overture". If you've heard it before, you know that it goes extremely fast, with many notes in 5th position and 7th position-- my weaknesses! If you haven't heard it before or can't recognize it by the title, here it is...

As you can tell, I have reason to freak out about the playing test! It's 5:14-5:50 in the video. What my teacher does is he gives each section a part of the music to be tested on and then, because we're such a large orchestra (120 people total, maybe more) and listening to each of us individually during class would take away too much time from rehearsing, he has us record ourselves playing the test and then we email it to him. They're due on Monday... I'll be practicing a lot until then!

I'm still practicing for District Orchestra tryouts. I have the first two excerpts down (G Major Scale and Die Fledermaus) and I'm still working on the third excerpt (Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy"). It has plenty of crazy high notes, so I'll be taking it extremely slow for a while. I have until November 3rd, so there's plenty of time!

That means more time to freak out about "Light Cavalry Overture".

My Favorite String Instrument Songs Right Now (Both Classical and Modern)

I have a lot of songs with string instruments filling up my iPod right now, of course, and just thought I'd share the ones I've been loving lately with you! :)

"Palladio"- Escala

I like to jam out to this song. ;) Don't be surprised if you at least nod your head to the music!


"Time is Running Out"- The Section Quartet

I love their rendition of Muse's "Time Is Running Out"!


"Come Thou Fount"- Paul Cardall

This is gorgeous... makes me want to cry.


 "Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major"- Bach

 Great solo piece. Tough to play... I tried it on the violin. Phew!