Teen Violinist's Daily Routine 1 Week Before a Show | Teen Vogue

hi i'm keller winterhill and i'm a 14 year old violinist i've been playing violin for eight and a half years i practice 11 hours a day and i'm a student at juilliard pre-college hi pilar from practicing my violin to living in new york city this is one week in my life i hope i can do this [Music] the piece i was practicing this week was the 24th caprice composed by nicola paganini this is him right here this is considered to be one of the most difficult pieces ever written for solo violin and it's one of my favorites it's got really difficult things like parallel octaves rapid shifting really fast scales left hand pizzicato double stops triple stops aka chords when i first heard this piece when i was like really young i remember hearing the left hand hit the cauter part this part of the piece is like really hard because it's unlike most of the other violin pieces where the pizzicato is with your right hand so it's like it's not like it's i didn't know like you could do that with the violin at first so i was just watching that like oh how do you do that i want to learn how to do that and this week i was working on it really intently because of this really big performance i was preparing for i practice violin for up to 11 hours a day here's what my day usually looks like 7am right now i just woke up before i start practicing i like to do yoga i'm following social distancing so i'm away from everybody else yoga really helps me because it really calms my mind and violinists can get carpal tunnel or tendinitis stretch the fingers i usually break my practice into three shifts so i have my morning afternoon and evening during my morning practice session i don't practice any of my pieces i only practice warm-up exercises like scales arpeggios and etudes and these exercises are really helpful especially just to keep your fingers nice and relaxed and fluid my first practice shift lasts for around four hours after my first practice session i'll usually eat lunch or run some errands yummy ice cream sandwiches it's like beginning to rain so i have to hurry home but i got some great snacks for lunch sometimes i'll eat at home this looks so good or sometimes i'll go out oh my god i haven't been to a restaurant in months i'm so excited my afternoon practice is just a chance for me to take the piece that i will be performing and really break it down and practice it really slowly [Music] after my second shift of practicing i'll usually eat dinner with my family or have some family time and i'll usually go on social media just to keep up to date with my followers and supporters so for my third and final practice shift i usually take the parts that i worked on really slowly in my second practice shift and i work on them at tempo which means to play at the speed that they would normally be played in a concert [Music] one of the things that my teacher and i were working on this week was just really helping with the italian style of playing so nicola paganini was an italian virtuoso violinist and an amazing musician and my teacher has been helping me with you know playing it more like an opera singer just playing the violin like you're singing it so that people can be like oh it sounds like opera this piece you really want the bass to come out more and then maybe you maybe want the soprano to come out more [Music] when i officially started playing the violin i was six years old and i had such a hunger for learning that like the half hour a week with one teacher wasn't really enough at one point i had like five teachers including a music theory teacher yeah sure it wasn't one of the most like conventional ways of like learning the violin but it was cool because i was getting different ideas from different teachers and when i would like play in one lesson my teacher would be like i don't remember teaching you that i really love playing the violin and when i go to bed i am very exhausted because it's like a full workout you know all the muscles are working it's around 11 o'clock i'm ready to turn in good night so i've had my violin for around four years now it's more of a modern violin it's dutch it's made in the 1930s it's still relatively young it's 90 years old in violin years there are violins that have been made like the 17th century 18th century and there is a difference in sound the violin is a very delicate instrument and overexposure to like heat and cold weather hot and cold weather can actually be very damaging it can crack the wood so i use this little device called a dampit and i dip it in water i moisturize it and it just keeps the humidity levels um stable when i practice i keep it in overnight and i practice with it when i perform i don't have it in i also whenever i play outside i have to make sure it's only like maybe 15 minutes at a time i can never do like a full hour outside so my bow is made out of horse hair the hairs and some hairs are like different colors but mine is like the more standard way and over time i can lose a little bit of hair so you see there's like a little gap over here and it has accumulated some sweat and oil from my hand as well this is my rosin and i did focus a little bit more on the lower half and i don't do this every day only when i feel like i really need it it just gives the violin a nice clean and vibrant sound i also have to wipe the rosin dust off the violin because over time it can get kind of gross and sticky this week my bow has been giving me a little bit of trouble because it needs a re-hair and because i was using the rosin a lot more i had to keep wiping the dust off the violin because i didn't want anything to happen to the violin as well since i had this really big performance coming up i was like really stressed that my bow wouldn't make it the night before my performance i broke my string in half i was in the middle of practice and then my string my e string just snapped in half my performance is literally tomorrow and i was hoping that they had another string and thank god i did the string is so thin i actually thought that it wasn't in there so i was like freaking out like oh no thank god it didn't happen during my performance which is tomorrow that was scary i really wanted to practice later in the evening but since my string broke i decided to wrap up early and start again earlier the next morning the night before my performance i did a really cool facial one of the things that i've been exploring during the kovid 19 global shutdown are facials i am super excited about my performance for tomorrow it is drying so i can't really move good morning it's 4 a.m i got up really early so i can practice the morning of the performance i was feeling so refreshed and i went straight to practicing as you can see i'm still my pajamas i wanted to have a really good breakfast so i had some avocado toast and i'm gonna hurry up because i have to get back to practicing because in a couple of hours i will be performing for lindsay sterling i don't really feel like eating i just want to like practice i'm like why do i have to eat but um it's just really good to just give your body all the energy that you will need so even though the concert was on zoom i still wanted to get dressed up and the dress that i chose has a little back story to it when i performed at the women in the world summit the 10th annual summit last year i remember i was backstage and i was getting ready to perform and i walk by anna wintour she just looks at me and she says oh your dress is so pretty i was like blown away and i was so like humbled by the comment and so i decided that i really wanted to wear this dress it's show time hi everyone thank you so much for coming i was actually warming up right before like i joined the zoom call today we are so fortunate to have a special guest miss lindsey sterling she joins and she's like hi how are you and i'm like great thank you so much for coming i couldn't believe like i've seen her videos and her medleys i love the way she combines choreography and music together it's just so magical and just to see her like right there on the computer talking to me i was like oh my goodness i'm so excited when she joined the call was definitely like oh this is real i am performing for lindsey stirling what are you going to be playing today i will be playing the 24th caprice by nicola paganini once i played the first note i was just ready to set the stage [Music] [Applause] [Music] when i perform it's just me the violin and the bow and i'm just really going into this space where i'm really incorporating what i've been practicing for the past week really just emoting and telling a story through my playing i'm not thinking about like oh i hope i hit this note oh i do this right it's like go for it [Applause] if i feel like i make a mistake i keep [Music] going [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow oh my gosh chill the whole time and that is one of just one of the like premium violin pieces when i finish the last note i'm just feeling so relieved and i'm just feeling like okay i did it it went really well and i can't wait to just listen to what everyone has to say i just can't say enough about like your articulation your use of the bow and using the appropriate places of the bow to get all the expressions that you did the variety and the depth that you brought into that piece was just phenomenal thinking about music as a story changed everything for me and it made it really fun to then write pieces and tell stories and you are a storyteller just in the way you played your violin today and i'm like yeah i know because when i was practicing i was really trying to express that um through my through my playing and i was like wow she noticed that like oh my goodness it was just it was an amazing moment and i will always remember it will be really exciting to see how you you know take it into like sharing it maybe with in different ways thank you good luck to all of you guys you're amazing you're beautiful you're strong and i feel so lucky i got to spend this morning with you oh my god i'm like sweating right now like it was really hot and um oh my god i'm so happy what i love most about playing the violin is how i can really express my feelings and emotions through playing to an audience it's just such an amazing feeling when i get to hear feedback and how they're like oh yeah it's so beautiful i can feel you're telling a story i can feel how you're really feeling the music i get to put my own feelings into the instrument and it's like this connection that we both have and it's beautiful [Music]

Channel: Teen Vogue

Views: 495,964

Keywords: the lead up, lead up, lead up teen vogue, violinist lead up, the lead up teen vogue, teen vogue lead up, teen vogue, teen violinist, pilar winter hill, pilar winter hill violin, violinist teen vogue, violinist routine, violin routine, violinist, violinist day, teen vogue violinist, teen violinist's daily routine, 1 week before a show, teen violinist daily routine, teen violinist's routine, lindsey stirling, lindsey stirling violin, violinist lindsey stirling

Id: kwrROVaQnYE

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020