This website is under development by me, Erza. There still needs to be done major changes, thank you in advance for the understanding.
November 2025
I still practice about the same amount of hours every day on the violin. I am playing the Lalo violin concerto and a concert pieces by Tchaikovsky, as well as Prokofiev solo violin sonata. All very different stuff.
In terms of studies and scales I use the Galamian book 1 and 2, together with études by Rode, Dont and Ševčík. I play three scale études, arpeggios and finger exercises. I do this about half an hour every day. I might need to up that a little bit, for better improvement. I find Rode études very lyrical and has beautiful harmony, compared to Dont and Ševčík. Of course Rode had other plans for his études than those composers. Rode has this romantic touch, while Dont is more reserved and classical in his études.
Dont has really helped me for intonation problems, I get better insight on fingering and harmony. Which is more technically related. The same goes for Ševčík, I have already finished the Ševčík book for bowing. So now I repractice my positions with his op.8 book.
My favorite recordings have changed so far. I listen to pieces I haven't listened to before and I revisited pieces I haven't listened to in a while. My favorite performers has not changed dramatically though throughout this month. Here's a list of pieces/recordings I listen to a lot this month:
Chopin piano sonata no.2
Ligeti 6 études pout piano, premier livre
Scriabin piano sonata no.2
(still) Tchaikovsky violin concerto
Elgar violin concerto
Barber violin concerto
a few selections of the Saint Matthew passion by Bach
Beethoven symphony no.2
Prokofiev violin concerto no.2
...
Some things have remained the same and some of them are completely different. The Elgar violin concerto was not something I listened to a lot the past few years, although I have heard before. I knew most pieces in the sense that I knew they existed but not much more. I think this is already a little bit more interesting than October. Generally I listen to more music than this, but I relisten to a lot of pieces throughout the week or even in a single day.
In a sense it's important to not only listen to a piece once, because you might've missed important information in a first-time listening session. These are also masterpieces by the way, so there's a lot to explore in them. You never get tired from them! (at least for me...)
I thought about the interconnectedness between music and philosophy a lot this month. I got to some interesting ideas and ultimately to this quote from Beethoven: "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy". It's funny because it's true. But is it though?
For us humans we strive for organisation. It's very convient for the human brain to know the difference between a blue chair and a red chair, so we divide those two entities by color. That also goes for things like critical thinking, it's important in this day and age for almost everyone to think critically, a critical voice is very well suited as of 2025. We also crave correctness and security. Philosophy can get you there, although not for everybody. Religion, for some but still not for everybody. Maybe school, but not everyone gets the chance to go to one.
There is this one thing though that everyone has heard of, which is music. Music is our universal language. Almost every single culture in the world has some form of music, it's very widespread.
Why is music so important then. To me, words don't resonate with most people like music does. Music gets into your system, it's a very sensory experience. Words don't have that, it's very cognitive. Hence why most people aren't as sensitive to words compared to music. It's interesting to think about, because it's also very different for everybody.
I wonder what you think about this. Do you think this is true?