This morning I managed 15 minutes of practice on the Bach whilst Elliot watched Postman Pat on mute from his playpen.
What was sounding downright okay during my lesson was woolly and wimpy this morning. I got distracted by messing around with my wolf eliminator, which of course has nothing to do with it – but that's an adult amateur's favourite activity. Why deal with the hard questions of your technique when you can fuss about equipment? Ha!
So, a precious moment wasted fussing. I played through those beautiful first eight bars again. That nice sound still had not appeared. I have to say, I am the queen of stopping playing and spacing out, and then playing the same section again without doing any actual thinking about what I can do to make it better, like the Better Technique Fairy will sort it out.
Said fairy didn't sort it out however.
I looked down, and my bow had inched itself back up over my fingerboard. Hmmm. Forcing my way back down towards the bridge (close your eyes! It's kind of scary down there! No hiding!) and running through those eight bars again… still messier, but gutsier too. So that's good.
