It’s been a month to say the least. About 2 weeks ago, Northern Virginia was hit with a pretty significant snow and ice storm, causing many musicians to have to cancel or reschedule gigs and pivot to online lessons. But while I was trapped inside, I was able to get ahead on editing videos for my YouTube channel! And now that I’m at least a month ahead with my twice weekly postings, I’d like to give you a sneak peak at what to expect coming out on my channel this month.
February 03 - Flower Duet from Lakmé (2 violins and piano)
February 06 - Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffmann (2 violins and piano)
February 10 - Evening Prayer from Hansel and Gretel (2 violins and piano)
February 13 - Noche serena by Edward Kilenyi (piano accompaniment for low voice)
February 17 - El trobador by Edward Kilenyi (piano accompaniment for low voice)
February 20 - Küchler Concertino in D Major (piano accompaniment for violin)
February 24 - Rieding Concerto in B minor (piano accompaniment for violin)
February 27 - Mollenhauer The Boy Paganini (piano accompaniment for violin)
This month is a mix of classical arrangements for violin duet, as well as accompaniment tracks for singers and violinists. I have a goal in March to get accompaniment tracks out for all of my string students to practice with for their upcoming recital and exam in May. If you’re a teacher, please write me with suggestions you would like to have recorded for your own studio! All arrangements and accompaniment tracks are already available in my store, with samples to listen to before the complete videos are published on YouTube.
Finally, I had a major setback that I’m pretty proud to have overcome now. I am usually a pretty strong advocate for finding the right person for the right job and letting the professional handle it. Imagine that you’re planning a wedding but have no musical experience; You find the people that do have musical experience and let them guide you in selections and plan with you. The same thing goes for video editing and recording — or so I thought! Now that I’ve learned how to set up and record on my own, I’ve also been editing my own videos. I had been using Canva (it’s user-friendly and free!) but when I went to edit the Mollenhauer, suddenly nothing was syncing past 5 minutes. I checked and rechecked my recordings, and thought maybe there was some weird glitch, so I actually scrapped my entire project and recorded everything again, only to end up with the same sync problem! I called my dear friend, Rosie, who has much more knowledge on the subject than me. She explained what the possible issue was, and that the fix was really to use a better program than Canva. That meant a pretty steep learning curve and watching multiple tutorials on how to use Davinci Resolve, but I’m proud to say that I did it and now the results are better than ever! As I continue developing this process, please let me know if you have any suggestions. I’m currently looking into how to better format my videos to be shared on Instagram. Ideally, I would like for my pages to be a resource for musicians, students, and teachers, and if there’s any way I can improve, I’d like to know!