[The Lesson]

[Overview]

Nothing eventful happened in this lesson unfortunately. We played through the scales I learned last week, and then I learned to play the B flat major pentatonic scale.

[Technique]

I learned to play the B-flat major pentatonic scale. My teacher commented on my intonation and told me that I overshoot a few notes in the scale consistently. So that’s something to work on for this week.

[Repertoire]

There was no new repertoire this week. We reviewed exam pieces and fixed them up a bit. I’m still wondering if I’m really prepared for the exam. My playing is still inconsistent. Some days I can play up to speed and in tune, and other days it’s just not happening. But my teacher seems to be fine with my playing for now so I guess it’s nothing to worry about. I still have about a month to memorize the pieces.

[The Practice]

[This Week’s Goals]

1. Be able to play the B flat major, and F major pentatonic scales with relatively good intonation.

 

[Update on Last Week’s Goals]

I’ve been watching a lot of videos about how to improve intonation on the violin because I thought I could apply the same principles to the Erhu. That’s how I came across the concept of drone tones. This week I used drone tones everyday, and it has worked wonders. I also got into the habit of singing the tune of the song as I’m playing as well. My Guzheng teacher makes me do this in our lesson, and it stuck. I think this also really helped with my intonation when playing erhu.