A Viola and Goals for 2012

Yep, I’m joining the vast ranks of other bloggers in posting my New Year’s goals for 2012. And truthfully, it’s hard to put an interesting spin on this, so I posted a video below that at least gives you some entertaining visuals of me butchering music on a viola.

Viola?

Yes, a viola. No kidding. You see, I’m a longtime musician having started piano lessons when I was 9 years old. I grew up learning to play classical music on piano and rocking out in bands on synthesizers – at least as much as one can really rock out on a synthesizer. In my teens I developed a knack for songwriting and composition and after high school spend a few years at the very prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts as an arranging major. There I learned how to write for most all contemporary instruments including symphonic instruments.

After college in the 90′s, I did a ton of song writing in my home studio. I less access to musicians in my rural setting, so I bought a guitar and bass or two so I could record these parts myself. I even got the courage up to start singing, as I needed someone to do vocals too. While I never got beyond being mediocre on guitar, I did better on the bass guitar and even joined a band as a bass, which I thoroughly enjoyed and hope to do again.

For the last few years (more than I care to admit), I have really done very little with music. I have been getting the bug again with an emphasis on writing more symphonic music along the lines of what I got to do back in my college days. However, I’m really not excited about faking all the parts on a synthesizer, despite the fact the technology has gotten so good at doing this. So, I figured, I’ll start learning the instruments I intend to use in my compositions.

The nice thing about most symphonic instruments is that they are one note at a time. This sure simplifies the learning process and is probably why I did much better learning the bass guitar over the guitar – with a guitar you can play many notes at a time and after years learning the piano, that’s plenty of instruments to learn that allow for polyphony (multiple notes at once).

I picked the viola first as I like the darker and meatier tone that it has over the violin. It also looked like it would be a little more comfortable for my larger hands to play than the tiny violin. Also, most of the sampled viola sounds I have are pretty lame and it’s easier to fake a violin on a keyboard which makes the viola a more pressing need for string arrangements.

The one thing I have been hesitate about is the fingerboard. Violas, like violins and cellos, don’t have frets like a guitar does. You have to know exactly where to put your fingers on the fingerboard to get the right notes. True, my favorite bass is a fretless bass, but it has fret lines on the fingerboard to show where all the notes are. There are no markers on a viola.

My online research on violas proved my greatest fear was correct – they ain’t cheap! You can get basic student models for a few hundred, but these are going to sound and play like a cheap instrument. Since my goal is to learn the instrument well enough to record my own compositions, I don’t want something that sounds more horrible than faked keyboard samples. My budget however just isn’t up to a good instrument.

Doing more research, there is an option to rent violas, but typically the quality of the rentals is marginal. However, I stopped by a small local music store and was pleasantly surprised with the model they had available. It was brand new and of an intermediate level a few steps above student quality from what I could tell and based on the price. I’m still learning about what makes for a good viola so these early observations don’t mean much.

I’m happy to report for only $25 a month with a 3 month rental obligation, I now have a good quality viola in my possession on which I am learning to play.

Goal #1 for 2012 – Learn to play the Viola is now underway!

I have many other goals for the New Year, including learning another instrument or two, depending on how well the viola playing goes. I also want to increase my writing output. This would include my blog and producing more books. I released my first book, “BlogBrent.com – The 2011 Archive” at the end of 2011 and I want to produce additional books, including more blog archives, novels and something work-related that I can use as a lead generation tool – especially since another goal for 2012 is to double my 2011 sales, a lofty goal, but I have a good strategy for this!

I have many other goals, but you’ve probably heard enough already.

So, what do you think of my goals? How do they compare to yours? Any viola tips out there?