Fiddlin'

It's that time again! The orchestra at my church has been summoned, and it's time to dust off the ol' violin. I've never been a fan of practicing, not because I don't like it, but because I hate the way I sound. It's not necessarily out of tune (although I won't claim all the notes are...) but it sounds twangy and just...not cool. Well, a friend of mine suggested I go practice in the bathroom, and let me tell you...AMAZING difference! The accoustics in there rule, so that's where I practice now. You can hear yourself and your intonation a lot better and the sound is fuller. So I sit on the ol' tub and go to town!

A fellow violinist in our orchestra bought me new steel strings that are suppoesd to be hard core, but two of them (the A & E) broke when I first put them on and tightened the pegs. Out of all the strings, those were the ones I really wanted to get replaced, because they're starting to fray and need to be replaced. But I got the G & D on and I already notice a difference. I have to play really hard core on them now because they're stretching and I want to get them fairly stretched out before we perform. I get some pretty raggedy notes before I start tuning! He said he'll search for more strings and hopefully he can come up with an A & E.

Re-stringing always takes me back to high school, where our orchestra director always made us rub chalk (yes, chalkboard chalk) on our pegs to make them stick. Needless to say, not exactly the best thing for a violin.