Building Repertoire

One down side about preparing for any competition is that you are stuck with same pieces of music for a long time. That's what happened to my son. Usually, competitions require some Bach Sonata & Partita pieces with contrasting movements and either one movement of a concerto or all three movements. You study Bach anyway, even if you are not preparing for a competition. So, that's that... My son's been practicing the same concerto for nearly one year. Although, he was assigned some Paganini pieces, but in order to make a piece decent, it takes time. Even now, I think he can work on the piece he's been working on for that long if he wanted to. But maybe it is time to take a break from that and building some repertoire. That's what he is going to do this year. No competition, period. Hoorayyyyy!!!! for me:) Now, I don't have to nag and remind him to practice for the same piece. That doesn't mean he can take it easy, of course.
I can see some maturity kicking in for him (just a little bit). Plus, it is like taking a kid to a candy store that he gets to learn brand new pieces. Some are going to be short pieces and of course Mozart Violin Concerto which I think he'll learn No. 3 first. He'll also will learn his first Bach Sonata, probably No.1 to start with. I am just as excited as he is!

He is going to practice those pieces very slowly focusing on getting the intonation right first.
He will continue to work on his bow arm which he tends to elbow when he plays forte:)
And finally and hopefully, he'll learn Paganini caprice no. 24. This, I don't let him practice more than 30 minutes at a time for fingers being forced to stretch like there's no tomorrow.