[The Lesson]

[Overview]

I think I’ve reach the point where I can kind of see my own progress now. My vibrato improved a lot, my tone improved a lot, and I’m able to naturally guess the fingering for pieces I’m not familiar with, and it’s lit. Today we started the last piece I’ll be learning for the level 3 exam. It’s has a few tricky spots, but in general I think we’ll probably spend this lesson and the next lesson on it. Then, I can start learning level 4 pieces. Level 4 is considered intermediate, and the exam pieces are all songs that are written specifically as erhu solos. Once I get some of those pieces under my belt, I guess I’ll try to start performing at little places here and there. But yeah, I’m pretty satisfied with my progress so far.

[Technique]

This week I learned one new technique called “gou xian” I don’t know the Chinese character for it because my teacher didn’t write it down , and it wasn’t in the book. Simply put, it’s plucking the strings with your left hand and at the same time bowing the inner string. I did find that a little difficult because of the coordination, but I think I just need to practice it a little and I’ll be fine.

[Repertoire]

The name of the piece we started this week is 小花鼓(Xiao Hua Gu, Little Flower Drum). I’ve heard it many times, and it’s kind of a standard piece.

[The Practice]

[This Week’s Goals]

I’ve been working on having a consistent practice routine. Thus far it’s been broken down like this.

5 minutes vibrato practice @120-130BPM

5 minutes long bow practice

5 minutes scale practice (using the scale of the piece I’m practicing the most)

After that, I just pick passages of the pieces I find difficult, and give them 15 minutes for detailed practice. I think I will start picking out just specific phrases and giving them each five minutes instead. I think that way I won’t be bored and, I can intensely focus. So I’ll decide that for this piece now.

1. Measure 1, the Gou-yin

2. Measure 3- 4, the slides

3. Measure 5, the slides

4. Measure 10-11, the rhythm and differentiation between 连弓and 分弓。

5. Measure 26-29 , pay attention to the slides, and intonation at the higher notes.

6. Measure 30-31, get a hang of those slides.

7. Measure 32-33, make sure the slides are on point.

8. Practice the 快弓 part on the previous piece (measure 57-63). Practice different rhythms.

That’s pretty much it for that. We’ll see how my progress goes and hope for the best.

The crossed out numbers are tasks that I think I’ve mastered and don’t think I need to continue practicing for the week.