I hate practising, and I really hate rehearsing. Okay, that perhaps is a bit on the extreme end of things, but let's just say, I enjoy playing music and performing.

There was a time that I would love practising music, to get lost in finding signs and mastering new techniques. However, as I've grown older, I want to do other things with my time. Also, the countless hours of technical studies that I put in when I was younger still hold water (mostly), so that the mechanical aspects of playing the violin are reflexive and don't need to be thought about, in the same manner that people don't beef to think about how their legs move and balance shifting when they are going for a morning stroll or running behind a bus.

As for rehearsing in groups, it can be enjoyable if things are run well or there is a great deal of musical intellect in the group. Otherwise, it can turn into a death by committee, as various ideas are discussed at length using the inadequacy of words, often resulting in a mind boggling blandness of interpretation.

The exceptions

However, there are a few times when I can't rely on remembered skill and fast reading to make a performance. Often it won't be a complete piece that will demand my attention, but a few select tricky passages (akin to tongue twisters) that require me to sit down and slowly decipher them.

In these cases, I really do enjoy the practice time, as it is like deciphering a puzzle or looking for maximum efficiency savings to make it through the tricky passagework. That really engages the brain, and also relies on a certain centred calmness to negotiate the difficulties in real time.

Often (if the piece is composed well for the instrument), there is a trick (musical or mechanical) that will suddenly unravel the difficulties and make the problem passage so much more palatable to play. Other times, the composer is just a bastard, and you need a combination of brute force, skill and pure bravado to smash through!

Over the next month or so, I have a couple of pieces that I need some time to look at little passages. Some, I just need to remember, and others, I need to figure out from scratch. So this was my first day of triaging what will need to be done in the next few weeks to avoid public embarrassment!

Brandenburg 4

Brandenburg 4, 1st movement (Solo Violin)

So, this little snippet contains a particularly tricky passage. To the first glance, it looks like it might be the 1st half of the page, where there is a cloud of black notes. However, that isn't the bit that I need to look at as it pretty much plays itself, just making it sound with musical sense rather than a cloud of noise is a different problem, but that isn't a matter of practice.

In fact, it is the part immediately after the cloud, where there are two parts (known as double stopping). Making sure that they are in tune and clear. The clarity is a problem, as the tempo is relatively quick, which makes the faster parts tricky as they require the same fingers to be quickly swapped onto different strings.

Brandenburg 4, last movement (Solo violin)

Well, this time it is the cloud at the top that is the problem. This is crazy fast when played in the Early Music world, and depending on the enthusiasm of the tutti players, it can quickly escalate out of control. So, in preparation, I need to be sure that can whiz up and down these scales with clarity before going into a crazy right hand bow spasm for the bars between 106 and 120.

That said, Brandenburg 4 is a known quantity for me, I've performed it many times in different settings, so I don't expect this to be a large effort in remembering tricks. However, I do have to remember tomorrow to put a fresh set of strings on my violin. I use naked gut strings, which have the habit of growing brittle and unresponsive over a few weeks (especially in warmer weather), the fast notes would definite benefit in a quicker response time between bow and string.

Brandenburg 1

Brandenburg 1, 3rd movement (Solo piccolo violin)

Now, this is a new one for me. I've played the tutti parts many times, but this is my first time on the solo part. Most of the problem lies in the fact that I'll be playing on a new type of instrument for me (well, I've played it a couple of times before, but not for something so large).

This instrument is called the piccolo violin. Basically, it is a really small violin that is tuned a major 3rd higher than a regular violin. So, it is really weird to hold such a small instrument, and tricky to make it sound less like a high pitched fog-horn and something resembling a musical instrument. However, that said, however painful it is for the audience to hear, it is much worse when it is 10 centimetres away from your head!

Most of the music is really quite manageable, and much easier on the piccolo than a regular violin (due to the different tuning involving easier fingerings). However, the second last movement (3rd movment, pictured above) is one of these deceptively easy sounding pieces that is a complete nightmare to play. It is all too easy for the tutti players (having much easier parts) to decide that the tempo needs to be just that little bit faster than what is manageable! I've fallen for this as a tutti player, and now I'm being bit in the arse....

That said, it is just a matter of slow practice and getting the chords under the hands. Trying not to crush the baby violin and making it sound decent...No problem, I've got a couple of weeks!

Concerto by Cattaneo

I'm going to get this out of the way at the start. This is not a very good piece.... Or more diplomatically, the composition will need a little of performance flair from the orchestra and soloists to make this sound more than a bland exercise in unadventurous harmonic progression. So, most of my practice time will be trying to nut out ways to make the composition sound more interesting than it really is....

The second movement is a potential diamond in the rough, although that remains to be seen when I join up with the rest of the group to hear it in it's entirety. However, in true Baroque style, it will need to be heavily embellished and ornamented, so I'm going to have to nut out some skeletons that I can build upon for the concert improvisation. Of course, it would be nicer and easier if I could get together with the orchestra first to hear exactly how everything fits... I'll probably ask the director to go through with me on the harpsichord, so I have some idea of the harmonic progression that I'm going to be constrained by!

Okay, this passage in the last movement of the concerto is one that makes you want to build a time machine and travel back and smack the composer in the head... It is fast... and stupidly finger (tongue) twisty! I won't go into the violin technique details of why it is especially annoying, but suffice to say that it is annoying enough to make me sit down and practice it.... so that I don't make a complete arse of myself in public...

However, at the same time, I am developing certain "cop-out" solutions just in case I balk on stage and decide I don't have the stamina, courage or just "in the zone-ness" to carry out the full demands. These range from a simple bowing change (slurring 4 notes in one bow, lowers the difficulty immensely), to a slight re-writing of the last line (which is the most problematic of the whole concerto).

Hopefully, I won't need to do that, but it is always good to have a parachute... just in case!