bunnyhillsv.com Blog

I am passionate about living and when I turned 57 my husband gave me a bottle of Heinz 57 sauce and it struck me that doing 57 variety of things during that year would be a fun challenge. So I asked Mamie Dixon, retired high school orchestra teacher to give me lessons. And I have been practicing and playing ever since; I am 61. But before you think ‘oh my goodness ,4 years ,she must be good, I am an overachiever, try many things, flighty, can’t sit still except for a movie, and I really do not practice consistently. When I saw your blog about about not practicing, I instantly connected and thought ” there is a kindred spirit”. I have been married to my high school senior year boyfriend for 39.33 years and I have been a math teacher/instructor for 39.33 years,too. I did 18 years of high school teaching and now am in my 22rd year of college, East Carolina University. Other hats I wear are mom hat to 3 adult sons, mother in law to 3 beautiful young women, grannie annie to 4 grankids, caregiver to 2 dachsunds (Ozzie & Harriet), sister to older brother, Bible studies teacher Christian at a Methodidt church, facebook member, bicycle rider, ballroom dancer, tap dancer, zumba aerobics, beginner crochet, collect water colors of favorite artists, collect dolls esp Shirley Temple, and scrapbooker/historian for my family, been on a few mission trips and I love to travel.

I decided to take violin lessons because I have my Dad’s old fiddle. He played every stringed instrument and also the accordian. My favorite tunes he played were Red Wing, Soldier’s Joy, and You are my sunshine. I played clarinet in 5th-10 th grades and tried piano for 3 years in my mid 30’s. I have a good ear but I am not a relaxed person. I prefer to learn by ear/memorize but can read music too.
I take yoga sporadically but when I do it helps me to limber up.

I thought I’d share one of my practice sessions with you. Certainly not intended to teach. When I practice I try to cover scales, playing songs and practice the book lessons set out by my teacher. I play for an hour or more and when when I’m a good student I play daily. This video runs for about 8 minutes

My teacher has an uncanny ability to choose to play pieces I haven’t practiced all week. But this duet went pretty well. This does force me to rise the occasion and focus. We played quit a few songs together and worked on left hand finger placement. I have a hard time keeping “helper” fingers down to guide the placement of the next note which in turn keeps me in tune. We also worked on bowing, using the whole or just upper or lower bow. Having the bow in the right place is important for a lot of reasons but today it was for holding three or four counts. You can hear him coaching me to use “whole bow”. It’s ridiculously complicated and on top of that you have to remember to breath and oh yeah stay relaxed.

Oh Well… What the Hell… here is Tennessee Waltz. I tell you what it is in case you don’t recognize it by the awful way it’s played.

I’m not really in Yosemite, that’s the Photo Booth app in Apple software. The hat was a bit of a tribute to my great uncle Noel a West Coast Fiddle Champ.

3 Months on the violin and counting… That’s my mannequin, she’s the only one interested in listening at this stage.

From the lesson book this was the first song I felt I could really put some passion into playing. Ha! At least it felt that way. This too is about 3 months along.

I’m taking lessons but couldn’t resist teaching myself how to play this old favorite This is about 2 months along. This was about the time I tried playing by ear. It took awhile to discover which finger position made which sound.

First week on the violin request for Jingle Bells from friend. Pretty terrible, but not bad for only playing for one week.

Looking for a place to practice. My family is threatening to throw me out because my playing is so bad. Well hang in there what do you expect in one week.

The funny thing is I posted this on facebook and received 2 very different responses from friends. One said “oh Vickey you’re such an inspiration, really cool” And the other one said ” Don’t you dare think about bringing that damn thing to my house” “At least not until you learn Jingle Bells then maybe”. Little did she know I was learning Jingle Bells even though it was April.

Okay… it’s time to start a blog for just my experiences learning to play the fiddle or is it a violin. It’s pretty much both at this stage. Sometimes it’s blue grass fiddling and sometimes it’s classical violin. While I started out thinking only fiddle I actually find the classical pretty cool. The idea that I can define a genre at this stage of the learning process is ridiculous anyway. I’m playing rudimentary Jingle Bells, Can Can and Happy Birthday.

I, at the of 58,  I just decided it wasn’t enough to listen I had to make that sound.