Harpy harpy harpy

Today was Gulia's lesson. I woke up early in order to finish my HA in good time, then I rushed through my warmup and did a lot of work on the La Source. It paid off, apparently, because she seemed quite pleased and said that my fingers are a lot more strong now. Of course, while I was practising before the lesson, I played it so much, so slowly and so strongly that by the time I got to my lesson, I was pretty tired, and she said that when I play the loud sections, my fingers get very uneven. Haha. So now the key is to train up that stamina by playing it every single day. The technique benefits are certainly an added bonus! It's like my training on the Bach-Grandjany Etude No. 1 (actually the Presto, 4th movt, from Bach's Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor) which hugely increased my strength in my 1st 3 fingers, but now with the La Source which works all 4 fingers, it's even better.

I've always suspected that the 4th finger is weak. To be sure, not as weak as the 3rd finger, but still pretty weak compared to the 2nd and 1st (the thumb). The 3rd finger is really weak thoug, I have to admit... most of the time it's disguised because in most situations the 2nd and/or 4th finger can compensate for the 3rd's weakness, especially in the way that I was previously playing my warmups: it can sound fine if you don't do the exercises that expose its weakness, which was why I was always mystified whenever Gulia said that my 3rd finger was weak, because I couldn't see the weakness! Even up to recently I didn't think that my 3rd finger needed much work, until the prospective student inquired about lessons... Because if I'm going to be a teacher, I will have to look at all the beginner's exercises and all that, which was when I discovered that some books advocate using so and so exercises that when I tried the aforementioned exercises I realised that, it's really true that my 3rd finger is weak! Lol.

Other than that I didn't do much, except look through the Clair de Lune that I'm playing Harp 2 for as part of a duet. My part is a lot harder than Huang Yin's, okay! But I think it's do-able lah... just sit there for one whole day of intensive practise and it should be down pat, but it's the finding of time to do that that's the problem... No matter. I'm sure I can find time next week after I move to hostel and I once again have access to the harp studio! Whee! Can't wait to get back to school!

Oh, in a piece of good news... my teacher said that she will be recommending me to go to the Aspen music festival (but not confirmed at all that I will be going...) where I'll be able to learn with Her teacher, Nancy Allen! Coolness. She also recommended some places which I should research if I want to go for my Masters... Juilliard will be Nancy Allen of course, but meh... I seriously doubt I can get in, unless I learn another 4 years starting again with their Bachelor's degree like Gulia! Not my favorite option but possible. There's also Indiana, with Susann McDonald, and Gulia added, 'but I don't know if you want to go there, she's really old' (lol! what a thing to say!) as well as Toronto with Judy Loman (I have one of her CDs, she's apparently into 20th century music, hmm... I didn't actually mention SF conservatory though... I should probably ask her about Eastman, I see some graduate school rankings which rank it highly. She has something against Peabody though! Haha. Well I'll do some research and get back to her again :)