Day 12 - Superstart Violin Level 1 Arrives

I awake this morning to find a piece of post that I must have missed upon returning home last night. A chest of the finest oak lay before me, but there was alas no key. With the aid of Scissors, I tore open my parcel to find the sunken treasure of Mary Cohen - A book entitled; Mary Cohen - Superstart VIolin Level 1: Basic Skills and Pieces for Beginners

From the brief read through of the book, it does look to be aimed at the more youthful population. Unfortunately, it appears to be meant as the students counter-part to an Accompanyment book that a teacher would have, and so it will not be the primest novel for the sole-practitioner. On the plus side, it does have a fair few nuggets of information in the little tip boxes.

The book also provides some pieces of music which will be useful for practising. There are a number of pieces in the back that are traditional tunes in which they have changed just one or two words in each song. While I find this a little bit infuriating, I guess many might find it intriguing / amusing - I mean, who can resist the sound of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat" or the oh so joyous, "Old Mac Donald had the Blues"... *Sigh*. On the plus side, you can obviously sing along with the correct words in your head if it'll help whilst practising. Overall, a fairly average looking book. I'll have to dissect it properly a little bit down the line.

And in closing, It's nice to be back home and in touch with the old Virtuosi Violin once more. I plan to meet up with my PhD Muse tomorrow in the hope that we might share some Violin Secrets that will aid my quest in mastery. In the mean time, I'm considering scouring the web for Some Classical Violin CDs to help myself get used to the sound of the Violin, and clearly, to see what sort of music I will be playing in 11 and a half months time...

Day Eight - Ebay, Grant Me Knowledge!

Today, I return to the home of everything known only as Ebay. On my knees and begging for a tome of knowledge regarding the Violin, I order my first learning book for only £3.50 including packaging. Thank you blessed eBay. The book, Superstart Violin Level 1 looks like it should be useful. I certainly hope that it proves to teach me something, but for the rock-bottom price that it was, I won't be too cut up if it's not what I need.

Naturally, I won't get a chance to read this book until the weekend, when home is back within grasp. This should give the book ample time to arrive and I look foward to finding some life-saving tips in this tome. Until then, I commit more information about the staff to memory and try to fix the bond in my head between the dots on the staff and the strings on my Violin.

The next beaten path of my adventure will take me through learning music. What the dots on the lines connected by more lines mean. More importantly, I also intend to learn what the squiggles, black boxes, numbers and hashes stand for too.