Joshua Bell

So yes, last Thursday, Mark, Mommy and I all headed to the Joshua Bell concert. We were all so excited to see one of the world's most famous violinists. And the fact that he came to State College; well I was pretty amazed. We left a little late, but we still enjoyed the full concert. He started with a Brahms concerto with three movements. My favorite of the three movements was the third, because he did fabulous string changes, which I'm trying to learn how to do. String changes are when every other note you change strings, and it is very difficult not to overshoot, and hit the wrong string, or not shoot far enough, and accidentally stay on the string you were on originally. Of course, he being the famous violinist he is, performed them perfectly. He also did these great plucked chords. Plucking is where you hold the bow in between your thumb and middle, ring fingers, and pinkie. Then you use your index finger to pull the strings. When done correctly, the effect is very cool to hear. He was doing chords while plucking, and it is hard to pluck chords, because you might hit some to lightly, or some too hard, but he did them perfectly. They sounded fantastic. By the end of the movement, I was about ready to give up ever thinking about becoming a professional musician.

The next piece on the program was by Schubert. This piece had four movements and I found every one intriguing. They were all perfect, and with Joshua Bell's violin, they filled the auditorium with beauty. It is hard to say which movement was my favorite, but I remember loving the second. He did flawless harmonics during the second movement. Harmonics are a trick where you barely touch the string with one finger, then play, and the note that emerges is much higher than you would have expected from that string. On a violin, the strings are, from lowest to highest, G, D, A, and E. When playing a harmonic on the D string, it would sound like it was the E string. Harmonics are a useful trick when you are playing quickly, then suddenly, there is one long note! During his performance, he missed one note, and it was a harmonic I probably couldn't hit on my viola. So I guess I can forgive him for missing that one note. :)

After the intermission, he played another concerto by Grieg which was supposed to be his final piece but since he is the best, he played more. He played a beautiful piece called Romance, which lived up to its name. When he announced from the stage that he would be playing Romance, you could hear the "oh's and ooh's from the audience. We had a good laugh about this, because we knew they were coming from the people who have twenty Joshua Bell Cds and such. After Romance, he came back on stage once more, and announced he would be playing Nocturne in C sharp Minor. I hadn't heard this piece a lot, but I had heard it, and it was stupendous. Joshua Bell made his violin sing! Nocturne was my favorite piece he played, and I have been listening to him play it on YouTube a lot lately. The link on this post is to a video of him playing Nocturne. It isn't his performance at Eisenhower, but it sounds fantastic anyways.

Now, string players are known to be able to think about everything at once. Our bow hold, our fingers, how straight our bow is, vibrato and so forth. I'm still working on it. Joshua Bell however, had a perfectly straight bow, his bow hold was a thing of beauty. and and his intonation, perfect. After the concert, we started to ask each other questions abut Joshua Bell. We found out he is 43 years old, which is extremely surprising because he looks so young. He has been playing the violin since he was four years old, and it is his life. Literally, he does nothing but violin. He isn't married, and I'm sure he practices about seven, maybe more hours a day. Then we got to his violin. His violin is a Stradivarius, which is a really, really, big deal. It turns out he had another Stradivarius, which had cost him 2 million dollars, then he found his current one, which was going to go to a collection. Now he wasn't very happy about that, and actually cried, yes cried, because he wanted that violin so badly. Well, he got it, for 4 million dollars. Oh my gosh. If only we all had that much money to spend. It sounded lovely though, so whatever floats his boat.

The concert was an eye-opening experience for me, because I', not the most diligent of practicers, when it comes to my instrument. But if I want to get into Juilliard, then continue on into a famous orchestra, I'm going to need to work for it. With my schedule it is hard to find time to practice, but I'm going to need to budget my time. Maybe someday, I'll be half as good as Joshua Bell. If I'm lucky, I'll be a fourth as good :). Wish me luck!