Productive Procrastination

I'm procrastinating from practicing. I have lots of wonderful excuses for this, but I'll spare you the grisly details. Instead, I'd like to share the fruit of my procrastination.

While researching viola teachers at various schools in the NYC, NJ and Philly area, I listened to some music recorded by Nadia Sirota and I decided I liked the track "unspeakable truths".

Maybe it's just my mood. Anyway, it seenms that the powers that be are going to usher me into a new music career, so listening to new music is part of that research!

Playing the viola has gotten a lot sexier in the past twenty years :)

Squeezing the neck

Don't squeeze the neck of the violin - use a grape!

Viola Spaces no 3 - One finger - Garth Knox

This is how a relaxed violist looks!!!

Just a warning, there's going to be a lot of modern music posted on here in the next little while!

Victor Borge improvising on the piano

Chord progressions & Philip Glass

Here's a very funny de-construction of the music of minimalist composer Philip Glass:



All musicians should know how to play chords on the piano, and Philip Glass's music is a fun way to explore those chords!

Concertmaster responsibilities

When the conductor can not be on stage, the responsibility of leading the orchestra falls on the concertmaster:

I tried some violas today.

My favorite was one made by Erik Hesle in Trondhein in 1982. The bridge was a little too low, so the strings hit the fingerboard and buzzed, but I really liked the dark sound. The response was pretty good too. It was 6000$ and was 16 1/4". It was a manageable size for me.

I tried one by Roberto Defanti, made in 1983; it was 16 1/2, 8000$ and I really liked the C string, which had the most "viola-like" sound, but was a little unwieldy for me because of the size. The lower bout was quite fat. It was yellow in colour.

I tried a 16" Nicolas Vuillaume, 1849 (? - hard to tell from label), made in Mirecourt and selling for 6000$. I wasn't particularly taken with it.

I tried a Gaetane Chiocci made in 1868 in Padoua. It's timbre was medium, not what I was looking for, but it had a nice eveness in tone on all the strings. It was selling for 17,500$

I also tried a Giuseppe Ornati - made in Milan, 1954 - it had the best response and was really loud, but far too bright for my taste. It was very orange. Selling for 45,000$


Anybody out there know of some dark-sounding 16 1/2" cut-away violas? All the nice ones are too bright for me!

I tried a few violins - notably one used by some Norwegian soloist one day when his instrument broke and he had to use a replacement. All the other violins sounded like crap after playing that one. I was afraid to ask about the price...


Edit 04/04/10

I just found the notes I made on some violas I tried in Montreal in August 2009. I'll post them here. They're very brief.

Paulus 16 1/2" $8125 - my favorite that I tried out of this batch. (serial #080)

Hoibakk 16 3/4" $7000 - liked it fine

Cormier 16 1/4" $13 000 - holy **** nice instrument. It was too bright for my taste, but the response and playability were unbelievable. It was so sensitive that the adjustment period would be quite a while before I'd stop making scratchy sounds on it because of the sensitivity.

Bauer 16" $15 000 it was very bright and great response, but I liked the Cormier more

Lavoije 16 1/8" $12 000 - again liked the Cormier more.

Duplain 16 1/4" $6000 - very nice.

Joel Samuel Rion 17" $8000 - too big!!!

Schmidt 16 1/4" $8000 not as nice as Paulus, which was more playable


Wilfer 15 1/2" $5000 - nice

Seilenhof 15" $5000 - okay, but you just can't get the sound you need at 15".

I did these trials with a super kun rest and chose a Marco Raposo bow selling for $1300 as my favorite.

A friend made an interesting comment the other day. With the nicer instruments, he said, it's the dolce tone that projects.

I want a cutaway model around 16 1/4 - 16 1/2" for about 8000$ eventually. For now, I'm looking for something around $3000 and I want to get it by January, so I have time to adjust before I perform Kol Nidrei with the symphony.