Process Piece

Tuning the Violin

For this project I decided to do an audio recording of me trying to tune my violin. When I first saw this assignment, I originally wanted to do a silent video of someone playing the violin. I just kept thinking of the different angles I could get of the bow on the strings and of the person playing. But then I began to think about the reading where the teacher asked his students why they chose a specific platform to share their story. There needed to be more of a deliberate choice and reason as to why I chose the platform. I realized that the point of the violin is listen to it. The person playing isn’t as important as what is being played. So, I knew I had to do an audio recording of it. I chose to record the tuning process rather than me playing a song because I felt that tuning is more of a process and shows a little more of what a person has to do as they prepare to play (I also just didn’t want everyone in the class listening to me play horribly, but that went into my decision a little less). A violin player needs to have a good listening ear to listen for the small changes that need to be made for the violin to be in tune. Personally, I am not great at tuning by ear, but I know when it is out of tune, I just need some assistance from a tuner to get it right on. Violinists also need to have a great connection with their instrument, violins can react differently to strings and may need to be tuned by the pegs or the fine tuners. My own violin works best with the fine tuners but there are times when I need to use the pegs, but it is always a fight to get it just right by using those things. The violin isn’t as much as a visual instrument as others are. When a person is play guitar or drums part of the performance is watching them play, where you mostly just sit a listen to the violin. I believe all of this is demonstrated very well by using the audio recording. People say when you lose one of your senses the others intensify. In this case you lose your sight so you must listen carefully to what is being played. And even though the listener may not have a violin in their hands you can hear the violinist working carefully with her hands to get the pitches just right. By choosing to record the audio the audience focuses more deeply on the beautiful sounds the violin can create.