Revival of my violin practice
It had been more than a couple of years since I had touched my violin much to the disappointment of my parents, more so my father. Though I had not lost my interest totally, I didn't have the enthusiasm to listen and practise.
To me, music is one thing which needs utmost devotion and dedication. No one can learn music if one does not practise enough. There is no point in learning music just for the heck of it. If you begin learning, you need to put your heart and soul into it and practise every bit a few hundred times to master it. Music is not like any other subject where you get a 40% and you pass. In music, you pass only if you are 100% perfect, else you have failed. Obviously, if you want to do this, you need to put in a few hours of practice daily. And if you are learning an instrument, it would be more difficult because you have to sit with your instrument in a particular place unlike vocal where you can practise anywhere by singing to yourself.
I knew I couldn't practise as required, as music to me was only secondary to studies. And being in IIT, devoting enough time for practice would be an impossible task unless music is your passion and you want to become a professional. Neither of them were true in my case. So, I totally gave up practice thinking that I would not be losing anything if I didn't practice. But these arguments never convinced my father and he thought i was totally against music.
In the beginning of this semester, I bought a PC and downloaded lot of Carnatic music from the lan and I have about 1800 Carnatic music tracks. After listening to quite a bit of music, I decided to bring my violin to the hostel and continue my practice, in spite of all the difficulties involved. I know my practice would be of no avail to me, except for the fact that it would satisfy my father. To me, it makes no difference whether I practice or not. When I went home a couple of weeks back, I brought my violin, much to the surprise of my father, who thought I would never touch my violin again in my life. But unfortunately, I couldn't practice since one of the strings was cut and I had to buy a new one and also because my quizzes were going on. Once my quiz got over, I removed one of the strings from my friend's violin, who anyway doesn't practice much, and put it in my violin and tuned it properly. Now my violin was ready to be played. I initially thought I could not even play the sarali varisai properly but to my own surprise i found that my placement were perfect and I could easily play without many apaswaras, although the gamakas were not coming out properly. I practised for about an hour and a half until my hands began paining. Earlier, I used to practise for three hours continually and my hands never pained but this time they pained showing lack of practice. Yet, I felt a little happy that my skills were not totally lost, thanks to my music knowledge gained over the years.
To me, music is one thing which needs utmost devotion and dedication. No one can learn music if one does not practise enough. There is no point in learning music just for the heck of it. If you begin learning, you need to put your heart and soul into it and practise every bit a few hundred times to master it. Music is not like any other subject where you get a 40% and you pass. In music, you pass only if you are 100% perfect, else you have failed. Obviously, if you want to do this, you need to put in a few hours of practice daily. And if you are learning an instrument, it would be more difficult because you have to sit with your instrument in a particular place unlike vocal where you can practise anywhere by singing to yourself.
I knew I couldn't practise as required, as music to me was only secondary to studies. And being in IIT, devoting enough time for practice would be an impossible task unless music is your passion and you want to become a professional. Neither of them were true in my case. So, I totally gave up practice thinking that I would not be losing anything if I didn't practice. But these arguments never convinced my father and he thought i was totally against music.
In the beginning of this semester, I bought a PC and downloaded lot of Carnatic music from the lan and I have about 1800 Carnatic music tracks. After listening to quite a bit of music, I decided to bring my violin to the hostel and continue my practice, in spite of all the difficulties involved. I know my practice would be of no avail to me, except for the fact that it would satisfy my father. To me, it makes no difference whether I practice or not. When I went home a couple of weeks back, I brought my violin, much to the surprise of my father, who thought I would never touch my violin again in my life. But unfortunately, I couldn't practice since one of the strings was cut and I had to buy a new one and also because my quizzes were going on. Once my quiz got over, I removed one of the strings from my friend's violin, who anyway doesn't practice much, and put it in my violin and tuned it properly. Now my violin was ready to be played. I initially thought I could not even play the sarali varisai properly but to my own surprise i found that my placement were perfect and I could easily play without many apaswaras, although the gamakas were not coming out properly. I practised for about an hour and a half until my hands began paining. Earlier, I used to practise for three hours continually and my hands never pained but this time they pained showing lack of practice. Yet, I felt a little happy that my skills were not totally lost, thanks to my music knowledge gained over the years.
2 Comments:
What you say goes very well not only to music but to everything in life. Only if u can give 100%, it makes sense. Then the question comes, what is 100%? According to me, it basically means to do anything with your entire consciousness and love towards it. It does not depend, as you say, on the amount of time you would be willing to spare or your intention to make it your profession.
First of all, congratulations on resuming your practice yet again. I'm as happy as your dad muthu. To me anybody who begins music should not discontinue it. Its something that you should never give up. If not now, you should always get back to it later in life, and not completely give up. A guru blesses you with something not all of us are blessed with and that is the ability to spread happiness with our music and this blessing should not go in vain. Continue practising and you will feel good yourself! We owe something to our teacher for sharing a part of this immense branch of knowledge with us and if are not able to give back anything to our guru, atleast we should not give up on this art- the art of music, an art that has no beginning and no end.
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