Tim Rohwer: Composer

For those who are not as familiar with violin repertoire, there is a book of etudes for beginners written by Franz Wohlfahrt.  These are quite famous in the string world, although some students might consider them infamous.  I had been resistant to use them when I first started teaching since most students I assigned them to wouldn't practice them anyways.  I have recently started to be more insistent that they spend time with them, to the point where we may spend half a lesson on just a Wohlfahrt etude.  A colleague of mine who teaches piano has a similar set of etudes that he uses, and which many students may peg in the "infamous" category:  the Hanon book (etudes by Charles-Louise Hanon). As I mentioned in the discussion on acquiring new skills and my Skill Acquisition Hierarchy , technique - the "how you do it" of any skill - is the foundation you build upon before you can become a true artist or even just get better at anything.  Since this is the c...

I am very much a perfectionist, and this comes out in almost everything I do.  From the simplest tasks at work to my artistic endeavors, I strive to make everything the best I can.  But where do we as artists draw the line between a healthy goal of achieving beauty (and even potentially a masterpiece) and the inhibiting and self-destructive pursuit of perfection? Striving to write beautiful and powerful music has been my goal since I started composing many years ago.  However, I've recently realized that my own perfectionist nature has made me freeze up when dealing with the compositions I've been striving to write.  I currently have around 15 or more unfinished projects in various stages of development.  Each one was started with enthusiasm but has since become stagnant, and the main reason behind this is the desire to get everything "right" on it. I pondered about this the other night while driving home.  I was listening to a piece on the radio and wa...