Hi music lovers!
As much as I love the preparation process, it sure is nice to be on the other side of this world premiere!
Roberto Sierra's
"Ficciones" has been in the works for about a year, with the bulk of my part of the work dominating nearly every waking hour of the last couple of months, from the day I got back from playing Adams' "Dharma at Big Sur" with the
Milwaukee Symphony
in mid April.
Some of you may recall from previous Scuttlebutts as far back as November my weekly zoom meetings with Roberto as we worked together while he was writing the piece. Once he was finished, it became my task to figure out how to play it--to work out fingerings, bowings, choices and programming of effects, the creation of the violin part using notation software, a few tiny note alterations that would make it more playable--and finally, in the last few weeks, actually practicing and learning it!
I have to leave the actual serious practicing for last because otherwise I'm often creating muscle memory that I later have to change. It's not only a waste of time, but actually counter-productive because then I have to spend even more time unlearning those fingerings, bowings, notes, effects pedal choreography, etc and creating new muscle memory stronger than the previously learned versions. And like first impressions, the first version tends to stick and is hard to overcome. So I had to wait til I was satisfied that everything was set, and then "freeze" it and practice it. It's kind of like cement or glue--you want to get it all prepped and then glue it once and not have to break it apart and have to try and re-glue it. It's often never as strong and gets messier every time you have to break it apart and redo it.
