#viola appreciation

I’ve been playing viola for about 3 years now, having played violin for 7 years prior to that. I was first introduced to the viola by my school in February 2013 when they needed me to play it in an orchestra, since they never have enough viola players so usually force random violinists to play viola. My first experience wasn’t great, since I couldn’t read alto clef at all and spent most of the time in that orchestra completely lost, but later that year I was put on viola for my quartet and for another orchestra, and as I learnt to read alto clef I realised I actually really liked playing viola, so I started taking viola lessons in January 2014! From September 2014 I quit violin completely and made viola my first study, and I’ve come so far since then and have loved all the experiences I’ve got from playing viola! 

My viola is called Rowan! I picked out the name first because I really liked it and it seemed to stand out to me when I was looking through lists of names trying to find one that I liked. When I looked into the meaning of the name after, I found that a lot of its meanings are to do with the colour red, which seemed really appropriate since my viola is varnished in ‘deep red’! He was built in 2015 by a luthier called Rod Ward, who built him especially for me. It was really great being able to have a viola built for me, since I was able to ask for specific elements of the sound, I chose the wood for the back and the colour of the varnish, and my teacher specifically requested the size measurements, which means I’ve ended up with a viola which is exactly what I wanted!

(pls enjoy another photo of me and Rowan, I love him, he is fab)

(You may notice that my phone case actually says ‘Viola is my superpower’ on it with an extract from Harold in Italy by Berlioz, because I am that much of a music nerd)

Right now I’m learning Bach’s 4th Cello Suite (transcribed for Viola), Berlioz’s Harold in Italy (which there is a recording of me playing the first movement of here), and the first movement of the York Bowen Viola Sonata! Harold in Italy has been one of my goal pieces pretty much since I started viola and I never thought I’d actually be able to play it, so I’m super excited that I actually performed the first movement of it a couple of weeks back, I feel like that marks a milestone in my viola playing and shows myself just how much progress I’ve made!