In the Christmas Spirit

Written by Joshua Iyer
Published: December 20, 2014 at 5:10 AM [UTC]

Hello! Sorry it’s been a little while since my last update, but I have been very busy with finals and whatnot. I just had my last exam today, and I’ve spent all afternoon just relaxing and such. I’ve also been getting very much into the Christmas spirit, what with listening to Christmas music on the Pandora Radio App on my phone. I made a station that just has orchestral versions of tunes, so the Greenslaves piece “What Child is This?” has a lot of beautiful high violins carrying the melody. However, when we do Christmasey things as a family, like on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning exchanging gifts, or baking cookies, I love hearing the orchestra (mostly the violins, but sometimes there’s a full symphony) backing the singers with some of the more traditional Christmas music. It’s just one of the many things that I love about Christmas! I also love the warm fuzzy feeling of plucking your violin by the warm fireplace, with the snow falling down gently outside… So yeah. I’m very excited for next week, and I may be getting a new bow Monday, although also so I can get my violin cleaned up.

And speaking of my violin, I have the Senior Concerto auditions on January 6th! Last Wednesday, I was actually able to play through “Little Snow-White”, my violin concerto I wrote and probably discussed in April or July 2014, with my piano teacher, so it was cool to hear it played by acoustic instruments, rather than MIDI. I’m getting very excited for playing these pieces; I’ll be spending a lot of time over break practicing very hard for those (I’m also playing the Rimsky-Korsakov Piano Concerto). It’s fun to look back at my old sketches for the piece I wrote back in April and see how much of the piece has changed, and also how much better I’m sounding now than before. It would be really cool to play this for the concert, but for now I just have to keep practicing and can worry about the actual audition after the New Year.

Just a quick update entry here, I guess. I’m very excited for Christmas this year I think, and it’s even fun to listen to some of my old violin videos with the Christmas “specials” as well. Hopefully I’ll have more time to write about any cool musical things that happen until the New Year. Thanks for reading

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