Still Rusty

It is taking a bit longer to get used to playing than I thought. This makes me regret leaving my violin in the corner of my room during winter break. It is probably because I did not get enough practice this week due to the immense amount of assignments and assessments that I had to prepare for. That being said, I can already tell that it will be much more difficult to get in enough practice time this semester since second semester is usually more difficult than first and AP exams are just around the corner. However, I must push on and try my best to practice as much as possible.

This week, I decided to hold off on looking for a piece to play for my final product and find some easier songs to practice. I have always had my eye on “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley.

Image by GabeWray via musescore

If I have to be honest, although I love listening to this song, I usually try to stay away from pop pieces because they sound much different (and in my opinion, worse) on string instruments because of their fast and upbeat rhythms. However, the beat of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” is particularly slow, as noted by the quarter note = 100, so I decided to play this piece. Plus, the slow rhythm and easy scale made it a great song to practice.

“Can’t Help Falling In Love” is written in the key of D major, which is my favorite key because it is the easiest key to play in. The majority of the notes consist of quarter notes, half notes, dotted half notes, and dotted quarter notes, with the addition of a couple of slurs here and there. The only downside to the piece was the note hovering above one of the last few measures (“Rit. a la Elvis”). I still have no idea what that means, but I am assuming that it is telling me to slow down as I approach the end of the piece since “rit” stands for “ritardando”.

While practicing this piece, I learned a new time signature, “6/4”. I usually play pieces written in “3/4” or “4/4,” so I was definitely puzzled when I saw this time signature. I decided to look into it and discovered that it simply meant that there each measure had 6 beats, hence some measures containing 3 half notes. In other words, instead of each measure having the usual 4 beats, in this piece, each measure had 6 beats. For myself, I learned that I am progressing at a slower pace than I thought I would because of the anticipated number of schoolwork I have to complete. That being said, I am extremely worried that I will not be prepared when the final product due date comes around since April and May tend to be my most busiest months of the school year due to the large increase in the number of tests in those months. As a result, my goal for next week is to practice for as much as possible and to hopefully start looking for a piece to play for the final product. I also intend to play some more slower pop songs since they have nice melodies.