I am often asked how musicians pick repertoire to perform. It's especially crucial when it is a full recital program. As I have a recital coming up this weekend, I thought I would write about the repertoire and how we build a program. We don't just pick whatever pieces, you see...

 So usually, it starts with setting the recital length. This time I was asked to have a 50 minute program. Sometimes, a concert organizer asks for a specific piece or two.

 Then we think about the occasion and the audience. If we are expecting a lot of young people in the audience we want to make sure that some of the pieces are short and fun. If there will be a lot of seniors, we usually include Romantic pieces. And we want to have at least one piece that everyone recognizes.

 You can also think about the time of the year, the season, or if we can have a theme to the program.

 So for this Sunday's recital, we are expecting both kids and seniors to come and I wanted to make sure that there are pieces that they recognize and fun to listen to. I came up with Meditation from Thais by Massenet and Souvenir d'Amerique (a.k.a. Yankee Doodle variations) by Vieuxtemps. And for the "main course", I had just visited the Brahms Museum in Mürzzuschlag, Austria, where I saw a manuscript of his Violin Sonata No.1 in G major.
 

 Brahms wrote this in Pörtschach, Austria, in 1878-79. I sent this photo to my pianist, Benjamin Steinhardt immediately and said "When are we going to play this?". A few days later I was booked to play the recital and we naturally went for this piece. Brahms wrote three complete violin sonatas and I have performed the other two. They are all wonderful and I can't choose one favorite but the opening of this G major sonata is so special. It makes you happy in the sweetest way (and it's hard to convey that in the playing actually!). 

 Now, we have a room for a 7 minute piece. Hmm... something fun and exciting maybe? Benjamin and I have played Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens and that's about 7 minutes. PERFECT! The piece is about the dance of the death; ghosts and skeletons are woken up by Death's fiddle playing on Halloween night. It might be a bit early but I already see Halloween decorations at shops so I guess that's fine! :-) It's a great fun to play, both Benjamin and I love the piece.

 So, that's how I built the recital program this time. I hope that fans nearby can come and join us this Sunday at 1pm at Atria Rye Brook!

  It's about time, everyone! The Dampit season has come. One of old my teachers used to say "A week before your heater turns on, that's when you need to start using Dampits".

For those who are not familiar with Dampit, visit their website here. In the green tube there is a sponge that keeps humidity in an instrument. Around this time of a year violin pegs start to go loose because of the dryness (the pegs shrink and the peg holes expands).

 
That's not the only reason to use dampits though. String instruments are very sensitive to humidity and dryness. Basically, both are bad for them.  Once it gets too dry or too humid, instruments can have open seams which usually keeps widening. Luckily my violin has been very strong against such issues (considering the age of my violin, I have to say I'm very lucky)

You can see how to use dampits on the website.

 Sometimes I immerse mine in water this way. You only need to give it water when it dries up. Depending on the humidity, I usually do that once or twice a day.

 Turn your instrument upside down to insert a dampit. This way it won't touch or possibly move the sound post.
 
 When I use one dampit I put it in the hole of the G-string side. It could come out of the hole while you play due to some vibration on the instrument. When that happens from the E-string side hole, it will be in your way to bow.

  For a week or two, remember to take it out when it rains. That would be too much humidity.

 During my off-season I usually get my violin's maintenance done. Well, there's not much to be done really, just my fingerboard needs to be planed. As you play (a lot) your fingers make marks on fingerboard and they eventually become bumps. After 10-12 months of playing that becomes such an annoyance -- it becomes hard to shift (sliding on string to go up and down, e.g. to play higher/lower range) and you feel like your fingers get stuck in each bump.

 So anyway, this is my annual violin maintenance. I always go to Robert Isley, a luthier in Rye, NY. He let me take photos for this blog. If you are not familiar with violin parts, here's a diagram.

Take off all the parts (strings, bridge, tailpiece end button, chinrest and nut). Mark where the bridge was. Then plane the fingerboard

 Using two different sand papers, finish off the surface.

  You see how smooth and shiny the fingerboard looks? 

  Put everything back together.

 It's about an hour procedure. The violin was unstrung for that long and it needs to be played a lot to break in (it sounds raw for a while). The fingerboard is perfectly smooth and playing on it for the first time is like stepping onto untouched snow ground.
 Thanks to Bob Isley for his awesome work -- my violin is always happy after coming back from his place. 

 If you're interested in how to make a fingerboard, here's what I found: Shaping A Fingerboard -- Violin Making School

 

  I'm officially done with solo and chamber music performances for 2012. The last was the Long Ridge Music Center's faculty recitals on December 7th. Thanks to my fantastic colleagues and staff at LRMC and of course, the audience, I had a great end to the year 2012. This was taken between the two recitals:

   I love playing at LRMC faculty recitals. As you can see in the photo, there is a good variety of music genre; from classical to jazz, pop and rock. It has an intimate atmosphere and I love hearing my colleagues play. They are so talented and inspiring. And not only that, they are super nice!

  Special thanks to two awesome pianists, Benjamin Steinhardt and Jeb Dennis; I really enjoyed working with both of them. And I'm so lucky, we will continue our journeys; Stravinsky and Ravel recital project, Franck and Brahms sonatas with Benjamin, and the rest of the Grieg sonata, Beethoven A major sonata and many more with Jeb.

   With new and continuing collaborations with musicians, I got to perform a lot of solo and chamber music in 2012. Many many thanks to those musicians! I'm looking forward to more collaborations next year.

  As always, I'd like to send my thanks to all who came to the concerts. Now it's our LRMC students' turn to perform in student recitals this Sunday!