I'm up early.

 Though I did have eight hours of good sleep. This is my fourth day at home and the body still seems to be adjusting to the meds and slowly recovering from eight days in hospital. All good.

Yesterday I bought some rather expensive violin strings (Piastro Obligatos) as the music shop didn't have the strings I normally buy. The set contained a very expensive golden E string. I broke it while trying to put it on. Fuck! Fortunately, I found a new Pirastro Tonica E string in my music equipment drawer. The new strings are sounding good.

The violin is pleased with the result.

Here you can see the wrappings.
The Tonica E string colour blends in very well.

I'm looking forward to playing them today. They'll need a tune up first.

Enough about violins!

At the time of writing Rob's blog is still gone.

I see that he has been active on Facebook, under the name Roberto Testore.

I see he has added his real name.

So, why does this annoy me?

For years I used Riccardo Testore as my Facebook 'nom de plum'. All my friends knew it was me - the name came from my love of the Italian language and Signor Testore was a very famous double bass maker in Italy many years ago.

Then Roberto Testore shows up.

Is this a bonding thing? I felt like he had stolen my identity and reverted to my real name on my Facebook account. I didn't take up his 'friendship' request because he has a tendency to write Christian shit in comments all over my posts. (We were friends for a short time once.)

For many years Peter, Rob and I have co-existed in this little blogging community. Rob's blog did have a tendency to sometimes (often?) disappear, but now it has totally gone. Strange that he went, considering how many times he told me that he loves me!

It seems that the love of Catholics is conditional, and that Rob has given up on trying to save Peter and I.

I guess that this means both Peter and I avoid Hell because it doesn't exist. What is the Catholic sin level for stealing someone else's identity? It may pay to check that Roberto because the possibility of Hell is still on your agenda.

* * *

I mentioned this book in my last post.

I'm going to be using the ideas from this book in my teaching, I already use it in my violin practice.

Quite a few of my students tell me that they don't have much time to practise. Maybe a worthy reply would be, "Then don't try to learn the violin." However, this book solves their problem. It's all about little and often. I will help my 'busy' students identify the things that will improve their playing - bowing, intonation, getting comfortable in first position, a simple A major scale and reading the notes it contains.

The thing about small habits is that they have to be practised regularly but in very little time- say 5 to 10 minutes. This short practice method can have huge effects on your playing because you are concentrating on the important things and really getting comfortable with them, over a period of time.

Well, that's it from me this morning.

Ciao tutti.