February was a rough month, for the most part because at work we're rushing through a sprint and this leaves me with little energy after. Nevertheless, I do my best :)
Double bass
I settled into a more or less standard practice routine on weekdays,
- Warming up with exercises from Tao of Bass for about 10 minutes
- Scales with a metronome for about 10 minutes
- Bowing exercises from Bow works (Emery) and homework from teacher
I got started on Bb study from Simandl, so this has been where I'm been most of the month, working on improving my string crossings, where I have a tendency to drop the volume when moving up to the lower strings.
I've also been working on my arpeggios for pizz, but I still need a lot more time for this. So it's been a month of technical work, no new songs or anything of that sort.
Goals for March
- Continue to work through scales, especially sections requiring shifting, to improve my intonation
- Work through more bowing exercises and pay attention to sound, dynamics
- Dial in arpeggios (C, F, Bb, Eb) on the pizz
Guitar
I managed to work on new pieces:
- Rujero (CGC, grade 3)
- Nostalgia: petite mélodie
and in the midst of that, started noticing problems with my left hand not being parallel to the fretboard. This gets problematic especially when I have to hold 2 strings that are played together. I've gotten advice to start working on finger independence through exercises that alternate fingers across strings and to use a mirror to observe my left hand.
I did make a lot of good progress improving my playing of Solares on the flamenco guitar, but not nearly enough to keep up with a good tempo. Some sequences (e.g. arpeggio playing) are turning up slower compared to others (e.g. rasgueado) so I have to zoom in on these as well to equalize the speed.
Goals for March
- Work on improving my left hand, finger independence
- Speed up weak areas in my playing for Solares
Saying hello to another set of strings
I picked up the erhu 2 months back, and intended to see if this was an instrument that I would enjoy playing... more to say on this soon.