(no subject)
Aug. 28th, 2011 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelI have a sudden, overwhelming, I-want-to-cry-with-the-force-of-it desire to curl up in bed, on my side.
It's been years since I could do either.
Sometimes I am so goddamn sick of only being able to lie on my back.
#
okay, while I am being maudlin, I might as well type up the entry that's been bumping around my head the last few days.
I miss playing the violin.
Mostly, I miss the physicality of it. The supple length of the bow, balanced between the last knuckle of the ring finger on top and the thumb in between and the first part of the index finger; the way it moves across the strings; the way the arm adjusts to keep the bow moving straight (instead of swinging in what my violin teacher called Great Amateur Circles). The twist of the left arm, the balance of the instrument's weight. The press of fingers to string, solid for most notes, light delicate touch for harmonics, or the deliberate tap to check the note your finger's on before you play. The shift between finger positions, the stretch of higher notes with the thumb stabilizing the back of the instruments, the dance of the very highest notes where the only thing holding the instrument up is shoulder and chin and it somehow manages not to fall. The glide (and the scent!) of applying rosin to the bow (a habit I was taught long before I actually understood what the purpose of rosing was; it was just Something You Did).
And I miss holding the instrument in resting position, vertical, with the main weight of it on my leg and my hand loose on the neck and my forehead resting on the scroll, a weird sort of communing as well as something that was more comfortable than playing position.
I don't miss performing, not solo stuff; I wasn't that sort of person, and also wasn't all that good. As a kid I didn't really get the importance of practice -- it was an evil, tedious thing, torment by boredom. I didn't get that the best violinists didn't practice until they could play the piece right, they practiced until they couldn't get it wrong, until it was ingrained in muscle memory, and the fingers could find each note without conscious thought. I kind of hated practicing, but I did because my parents made me (it had been fully my choice to take violin lessons, with time to practice as one of the consequences), and that got me good enough that when I was in college I could play in chamber orchestra and in pit orchestras for musicals, and that I /do/ miss, the ensemble work. And sometimes, when I'm at a symphonic type concert, I feel a little tug of want, even though in any professional setting I would at best be the anonymous nobody in the back of the section.
But mostly I just miss the feel of it. And the smell, just a bit.
Sigh.
It's been years since I could do either.
Sometimes I am so goddamn sick of only being able to lie on my back.
#
okay, while I am being maudlin, I might as well type up the entry that's been bumping around my head the last few days.
I miss playing the violin.
Mostly, I miss the physicality of it. The supple length of the bow, balanced between the last knuckle of the ring finger on top and the thumb in between and the first part of the index finger; the way it moves across the strings; the way the arm adjusts to keep the bow moving straight (instead of swinging in what my violin teacher called Great Amateur Circles). The twist of the left arm, the balance of the instrument's weight. The press of fingers to string, solid for most notes, light delicate touch for harmonics, or the deliberate tap to check the note your finger's on before you play. The shift between finger positions, the stretch of higher notes with the thumb stabilizing the back of the instruments, the dance of the very highest notes where the only thing holding the instrument up is shoulder and chin and it somehow manages not to fall. The glide (and the scent!) of applying rosin to the bow (a habit I was taught long before I actually understood what the purpose of rosing was; it was just Something You Did).
And I miss holding the instrument in resting position, vertical, with the main weight of it on my leg and my hand loose on the neck and my forehead resting on the scroll, a weird sort of communing as well as something that was more comfortable than playing position.
I don't miss performing, not solo stuff; I wasn't that sort of person, and also wasn't all that good. As a kid I didn't really get the importance of practice -- it was an evil, tedious thing, torment by boredom. I didn't get that the best violinists didn't practice until they could play the piece right, they practiced until they couldn't get it wrong, until it was ingrained in muscle memory, and the fingers could find each note without conscious thought. I kind of hated practicing, but I did because my parents made me (it had been fully my choice to take violin lessons, with time to practice as one of the consequences), and that got me good enough that when I was in college I could play in chamber orchestra and in pit orchestras for musicals, and that I /do/ miss, the ensemble work. And sometimes, when I'm at a symphonic type concert, I feel a little tug of want, even though in any professional setting I would at best be the anonymous nobody in the back of the section.
But mostly I just miss the feel of it. And the smell, just a bit.
Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 02:15 am (UTC)(I lost singing and the guitar, and all I can say is Woe.)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 06:34 am (UTC)And yeah, what a shitty loss.