When I think of overcoming obstacles and struggles, I think of stories like this one: A blind gamer who, with help from people online, is able to beat Zelda.

You’ve got to love the motto: The impossible is only the untried.

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Two years on those three songs. Granted, I was not thrilled to be playing back then. I’d rather have been around a table with my friends across the street, playing Dungeons & Dragons (which, if my parents had known I was playing they would have spent weeks praying the devil out of my soul). Having such a lack of enthusiasm for practicing, it’s no wonder I didn’t progress very far in my playing.

When I decided to start back up, I told Helena about these three songs and that I never wanted to play them again. Of course, not knowing the name of the nameless song, I ran the risk of again being “assigned” that song.

As you likely have already predicted, she has assigned me that song, simply titled ‘TV Theme’ – I think she knows the name and will have to ask her for it. My jaw hit the ground when I heard her start in on it.

I was tempted to balk at it. But the version she gave me is much longer than the one I studied when I was younger, and I can see how it is a simple exploration of the D Major scale. She pointed out yesterday how I can use the song to focus on my tonality, posture and overall technique – all of which are getting sloppy as I am too wrapped up in forcing a good sound out of my violin. And, much like many other things in life, when you try to force something beautiful, you end up with something horrific… like my violin playing as of late.

Edit: So the proper title of the song is Hänschen klein. It was used as the theme for the 1977 war film Cross of Iron. It was originally a German folk / children’s song. In fact, in the German dub of 2001: A Space Odessy, this is the song that HAL 9000 sings instead of Daisy Bell. See, it all relates back to itself like a Dickens’ novel. And I hate Dickens.

Also, Helena upgraded my violin. She put in a new bridge and better strings. For a $65 violin, it sounds quite good. However, this weekend I will visit a local luthier, Scott Cao. It is already time for me to get a better violin, so I’ll be purchasing a higher end student violin. Recent events being what they are, I am still recovering from an over five year drain on my finances, so I cannot yet afford one of his hand made violins. Perhaps for my next upgrade I’ll get one.

I’m glad that Helena has reintroduced music to my life. I am still a horrible player, but I can already see and appreciate the progress I’ve made.

This week’s music sample is the Ookpik Waltz (I don’t know what it means, either). It’s a slow fiddle piece. The sound is a little hissy, but I think the two girls playing do a fine job of bringing the song to life.

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I made a request of Helena to teach me a particular song – though I am not ready to reveal which one. She brought me the sheet music last night but she found a few small problems with it, so she’s going to rewrite it for me – how awesome is that?? Damn I have a great violin instructor.

Over the weekend, I heard a bluegrass version of the first movement of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor on A Prairie Home Companion. I used Audio Hijack to capture it from the stream, but I am having trouble hosting it properly – currently when the page loads it automatically starts playing the audio file – not good. Had I been able to host it properly, I’d have posted that here.

Failing that, I wanted to post a video of Hilary Hahn playing on Conan O’Brien on January 14th. But I cannot find video of that. Which is too bad because:

1. The piece she played was amazing.
2. Hearing just her and her pianist was a jaw dropping performance.
3. The dress she wore was stunning – STUNNING!

So, having no luck with either of the two, I give you this week’s selection: Hilary Hahn playing Ernst’s Grand Caprice on Schubert’s Der Erlkönig, Op. 26. The video is a little… jumpy? It’s very up close for most of the piece. And, being such a tight shot combined with Hilary’s stage presence, she seems to flit about the screen like a humming bird or a pixie. I hope you enjoy it!

What would you all think if I started posting videos of me playing? Not sure I am ready to share my playing yet, but I’ve got to get it out there sooner or later.

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Unnerving things to see at your urologist’s office – #275: No lube.

I received the results of my CT and chest X-ray today. As my urologist put it: “No funny business!”

The cancer hasn’t spread to my lungs. The tumor on my kidney continues to shrink and my kidneys are in great shape over all.

Further, since my brother has testicular cancer, my urologist checked for lumps, bumps, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary there, either.

I get to repeat the process again in six months. It turns out they’ll be X-raying my chest throughout the observation period in case the cancer spreads.

Next month I meet with my oncologist to further go over my case. More information then.

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Yesterday also marked the beginning of the tattoo removal project. I’m removing everything except the yin-yang on my back. It didn’t hurt as much or in the manner I had expected. Once finished (anywhere from six months to two years depending on a number of factors), I’ll get one of the tattoos ‘redone’ – that is, moved from my calf to my back. But, I need to remove the corona from around the yin-yang first.

Next week I meet with my urologist to get the results of my chest X-ray and CT. More then.

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Last night my instructor told me that I’ve ‘outgrown’ my violin – and for two reasons:

1. It simply doesn’t have a good tone. It has little resonance and sounds bland. There’s no richness and I’m not getting any energy from it. I can’t describe it any better than that.
2. The action is too high. That is, the distance between the strings and the fingerboard is so great that I’m exerting a lot of effort to play a note which is causing my fingers to ’smear’ onto other strings and inhibiting my playing other strings. It’s a pain. We discovered this when my instructor gave me one of her violins to play and I was able to keep third finger D (which is G) while playing open A and not have any problems with it. Returning to my violin, I noticed how much more strain I had playing G and thus we realized where my problems were coming from. This could be remedied with a lower bridge and better strings – and we’ll take those steps, too – but regardless, it’s time for a new violin. So a-shopping we will go next month.

I’m really enjoying learning to play. It’s a great stress release (except when I play flat / sharp) and lessons have helped me reawaken my creative side. I’m looking forward to when we start covering pieces that are longer than eight measures.

This week’s music sample comes to us from The Muppet Show. It’s The Devil Went Down to Georgia (originally by The Charlie Daniels Band).

And just for the hell of it, here’s a Geico commercial with Charlie Daniels as well:

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1. Renal Cell Carcinoma is known to spread to other parts of the body (namely, the lungs) while skipping the lymph nodes.
2. I generally have poor respiratory health, though this winter, my lungs have done remarkably well. I credit that to having skipped the flu shot this season.
3. Emotionally, things have been rough – as a result, I’ve been having some severe panic attacks since October continuing through the beginning of this month. My doctor wasn’t sure if the symptoms he was seeing (sleeplessness, loss of appetite, vomiting, etc.) were merely caused by my panic attacks or were the result of my cancer spreading.

However, I’ve removed from my life the causes of the panic attacks (for the most part) – though I still have my bad days here and there. As a result, I’m having less frequent panic attacks, less severe panic attacks and my blood pressure is returning to normal and the tightness in my chest has gone away.

All that to say, the symptoms I was experiencing have lessened severely and I have a good feeling about the results of these scans. I don’t think they’ll find anything out of the ordinary; at the same time, I don’t want to get too lax about it.

In fact, for the past few months, I’ve had this mindset that, “I never thought that cancer would be the least of my worries.” I’ve focused too much on all the negative shit in my life the past five months and today I realized, “Hey, cancer should be the worst of my worries.” To that end, I’m doing my best to focus on getting better and getting healthier. It’s been a goal of mine for the past ten years to drop this weight (I’m at 210 right now) and get in better shape, and it’s time I did just that. I was on a good pace in October, but life threw a wrench in my plans and my workouts and good eating habits fell by the wayside.

However, no more excuses. I owe myself a thinner, fitter, sexier and more handsome me and it’s about time I delivered on that promise to myself. I’m not going to post my plan here. I don’t want to bog down this blog with useless numbers and diets and workout routines. But starting now, I live more healthfully.

Also as some of you may know, my oldest brother has cancer, too. It’s his story and I’ll let him tell it himself – but he did just start chemotherapy this past weekend. In a sign of solidarity, I shaved my head:

Lastly, this is now my fifth CT and first chest x-ray due to this cancer bullshit, and I am yet to awaken any latent mutant superpowers. With all this crap life is throwing at me, you’d think I’d at least get that out of it…

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1. Is continuing to die.

2. Has spread at all.

Wish me luck.

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See, my fingers are a little bit chubby, and trying to keep third position D (which is G) while playing open A was difficult because my third D was hitting A as well. The result? I had a weak G and screechy open A. Not pleasant. I imagine my roommates weren’t too happy.

However, Helena came up with a brilliant idea. She handed me *her* violin and asked me to attempt G and open A again. It sounded great. There’s little difference between her violin and mine in terms of fingerboard and string placement. So, seeing I could do it on hers, I went back to mine and played it just fine.

Damn she’s a good teacher.

We also made some jokes about ‘fingering techniques’ and ‘oral (a play off of ‘aural’) pleasure’. It’s like I’m in Jr. High all over again.

This week’s selection is Sleepy Maggie from Ashley MacIsaac. It’s interesting to me that I am drawn heavily towards Scottish fiddle playing. All the fiddle albums I own (and there aren’t many) are of Scottish fiddle music. I’ll have to keep that in mind once I get beyond basics and move into actual fiddle techniques.

For those of you catching my blog via RSS or Facebook, you need to visit my site (danielferrante.net) to see the pictures and videos I upload to my blog. This entry contains one (1) video.