Welcome to my blog!
My name is Kate, lovely to meet you. If you’ve landed here, you’re probably a family member or one of my poor friends who I’ve corralled into following my blog. Thanks for not deleting me yet. If we’ve never actually met, it means you’re probably someone interested in learning about music in a rambling and dangerously inquisitive way. Great! You’ve come to the right place.
But first, let me introduce myself properly: I’m a twenty-something woman from Australia- who has been a musician her whole life and is currently trying to learn the violin. (Why does this sound like a personal ad in the newspaper of a 1950s movie already?)
I’m vehemently passionate about fiddle music in particular, but I also have played saxophone for 9 years and a smattering of folk instruments and stringed things for over 20. In the past 5ish years, I’ve realised it’s harder and harder to keep up with playing and practicing, and especially keeping engaged with theory. All through school and uni, I had music lessons to keep me in check, as well as two very over-supportive parents who wanted to hear what their money was buying. (Loungeroom Clarinet Concerts were a very exciting pre-dinner event in primary school). Now, at 27, my overly supportive parents haven’t gone anywhere but the external need to play music is certainly gone. I don’t have anything guiding me, anything I’m working towards. I also have a lot more stressors than I did in high school, including a full time job that isn’t just ‘being myself’ (I know, rude, right?) so it’s become almost a chore to play music and has become less and less of my identity.
I used to say with huge confidence ‘I’m a musician’ and now I almost feel ashamed to say so.
In an attempt to correct this, I’ve decided I’m bringing back old school practice and making it fun. I’ll be relearning a lot about theory, musical styles and instruments and I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride, or even keep up your playing with me. It really is so enriching and a very special thing to do, to play music. To create beautiful sounds, just because you can.
I studied music at university, and once I accepted the fact that performing gave me relentless panic attacks and made me sick to my stomach, I realised playing at Carnegie Hall may not be my path and cowered into the shadows of ‘non-performance stream’ of my degree (which at the time seemed akin to dying). But I am inherently musical, and why should I give that up just because I don’t want to be a ‘star’? I like what a do for money (spoiler alert: I’m not Beyonce) and I also like having a secret passion project.
But this time, I’m not following some exam curriculum or going to lessons I dread going to because I haven’t practiced the scales. I’m literally relearning to learn music.
In this blog, I hope to explore:
- Fiddle styles and tunes
- Violin techniques I haven’t yet mastered
- Musical theory and some history
- Bowing and vibrato
- Ukulele and banjo techniques
- Tunes and pieces I haven’t heard yet
- Master players and bands
- Practice habits and techniques as well as a practice diary
- Psychology of music making
- Guitar rhythms and songs
- Scales and arpeggios (legit)
I hope you’ll like what I find out and enjoy as I make myself a musical guinea pig.
I really don’t want to wake up one day and go ‘I wish I’d kept up with that’ – and I hope you don’t either.
I’ll be posting every Monday and Thursday until the end of 2020! 🙂Â
Kate's Endless Notation 