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Violin Blogs

Violinist.com members may keep personal journals on the website. Violinist.com's editor selects the best entries for the column below. Links to all other recent blog posts may be found in the column on the right.

Top Blogs

V.com weekend vote: Would you rather be a soloist, or play in a group?

By The Weekend Vote
November 6, 2009 21:30

Some people are made for the limelight; they have that kind of energy that transmits best in the solo spotlight. Others enjoy being part of a group, be it an orchestra, chamber group, band or other situation.

Personally, I've certainly enjoyed the recitals I've given over the years, but my heart is in the orchestra. I truly enjoy being one small part in a larger-than-life whole.

How about you? Please vote, and tell us your thoughts on the joys and trials of being a soloist vs. being a team player.

poll by twiigs.com

9 replies

The importance of being bowing.

By Stephen Brivati
November 5, 2009 20:40

Greetings, A great teacher once said to me that the science of violin playing is in the left hand and the art I the right. Not sure I am completely convinced by this dichotomy but it does serve to remind us that left and right hand deserve at a bare minimum fifty percent of our attention each. This will then vary in proportion on a case by case basis. This being the case I wonder how many of us actually neglect the right hand(arm, whatever) to a considerable extent during our technique building practice? I suppose it’s the nature of the beast, intonation being such a bugbear, that we should focus on the left hand. Plus there is something, somehow more immediately gratifying in play a scale of some sort than an open string, or maybe not…. The result of this imbalance of attention does in some cases lead to a practice routine in which one does scales to begin with, probably dutifully beginning with a slow easy one and building up to fiendish double stops without really paying more than cursory attention to the bowing. Of course this problem is alleviated to some extent if one follows the principles laid out by Flesch (and later Galamian) of combining bowing and left hand. But, somehow I think bowing still gets short shrift. It may be helpful to address this issue directly for a month or so by beginning every days practice with pure bowing exercises. A useful resource is Drew Lecher`s book but one might set up a very good routing using exercises from Basics or (gasp) a combination of the two. Something like the following. Read more...
8 replies

Thank you to Violinist.com's November advertisers

By Robert Niles
November 4, 2009 21:33

I'd like to thank the music schools, shops and individuals who have helped bring you Violinist.com this month.

Thanks to you, our Violinist.com readers, we had another record traffic month on Violinist.com in October, with more than 130,000 unique readers visiting the site during the month. Laurie again offered some great original blog posts last month, including a one-on-one interview with Joshua Bell.

But none of that happens without advertiser support for the website, and our community. So thank you to our returning advertisers this month for their financial support:

We'd also like to welcome a new advertiser this month, Theodore Cohen, the author of the new book, "Full Circle", called a "marvelous journey through music, communications and family" by one reviewer on Barnes & Noble's website.

We hope that you will consider these advertisers first when you are making a decision about violin and music-related purchases as well as your violin career, as a way of showing your appreciation for their support of Violinist.com. If you run a music-related business, or are an administrator at a music school or camp, we invite you to consider supporting this lively community as well by becoming an advertiser on Violinist.com.

Thank you, again, to everyone who has helped make Violinist.com such a delightful and inspiring community!

0 replies

VIOLIN TECHNIQUE/VIOLA TECHNIQUE: Bow arm — nervous and finicky / relax into string

By Drew Lecher
November 3, 2009 23:26

“Question: My bow arm in general (too many cooks probably), feels a little nervous and finicky just relaxing all the time in to the string. This was of my own doing, and when I really focus, I'm 'discovering' the relationship between each note's quality and characteristics well. It appears to have helped me internalize the real spirit of bow speed this focus, in terms of the quality of what I hear versus more speed for more forte when appropriate and so on. So, what is the real spirit of relaxing the upper arm into the string--my bow hand feels worn out sometimes from keeping the note at the tip(I play in the upper 3rd a lot). ??? I studied Jonathan Swartz comments on the graduation of flow through the forearm some times ago, but do you have anything to further this along other than said focus and etudes?” A. Hi A, Add Basics I to develop more variety and flexibility of control. I is a "simple" study that requires mastery of bow weight, speed, point of contact—all interrelated with quantity of hair chosen and vibrating length of string/position. For someone that does not have my book, Basics I is a study of legato pulses with the bow—initially do 2 per bow and gradually add more without speeding up the tempo, though that can be done as a variable. Stop playing in the upper third so much. It is a wonderful part of the bow and certainly to be used, but definitely not to the exclusion of 2/3's of the bow. Your bow hand will work more in the upper third, depending on the style, character and dynamic played.... Read more...
4 replies

Review: Augustin Hadelich in recital at UCLA's Clark Library

By Laurie Niles
November 3, 2009 20:35

Much of the United States may have been buried in snow, but Los Angeles had one of its rare, crystalline perfect days for violinist Augustin Hadelich's recital Sunday at Clark Library at UCLA with pianist Ian Parker.

Augustin Hadelich. Image courtesy artist.

The recital was held in the library's ornate drawing room, its ceiling painted with scenes from Anthony and Cleopatra, each scene framed with intricately carved wood. Along the side walls stood a marble fireplace, portraits of the library's founders and a picture window letting in sunshine from an opulent green lawn.

Something in this elaborate set-up seemed to match the meticulous work that goes into preparing a program of Beethoven, Takemitsu, Poulenc, Zimmermann and Prokofiev. And happily, the small venue was full; the Clark distributes tickets for its chamber music program by lottery, so nearly all of the 100 seats were filled.

I hadn't heard violinist Augustin Hadelich play since 2007, just after he won the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Since then, he's kept busy, recording the complete Haydn violin concerti, as well as a more recent recording called Flying Solo, with all solo violin works. This year he won the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and he continues with a full schedule of recital and orchestra appearances.

5 replies

Scales without prunes

By Stephen Brivati
November 3, 2009 15:25

Greetings,

I've been doing a lot of work on scales recently. One thing I have noticed which interests me is that even on simple one octave scale and arpeggios with no position change there is no faster way to warm up my hands. I can play things like the accelartion scale exercises up to extreme tempos and my fingers actually remain cold for some reason. The key factor here is in the degree of mental involvement. I practice the very simple scales in order to have absolutely perfect action in the fingers without any tension. Then I am really focused on keeping all possible fingers down for as long as possible and the final factor is preparation of the fingers on an adjacent string ascending and below the current finger descending. If I am paying 100% attention to these things then the amount of energy focused on the hands makes them extremely hot within a very short space of time.

5 replies

Playing Notes vs Playing Music

By Pauline Lerner
November 3, 2009 12:29

It seems so simple and obvious: Playing notes is not the same as playing music. I once saw a musician wearing a T-shirt that said, "Just because you know a lot of notes and can play them fast doesn't mean you're a good musician." I believe that.

I'm a sort of hybrid because I play both classical and nonclassical music. I hear ignorant criticism and snobbery from both sides.

I had an interesting conversation with a very good musician, a folk guitarist, about the state of classical music in the U.S. We agreed that classical music is fighting to stay alive while newer styles of music keep gaining audiences. His opinion of, say Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, was that if you've heard one performance of it, you've heard them all. Every time it's performed, the musicians play the same notes and markings, so the outcome is always the same. I considered the vastly different sounds of a given piece when played by different orchestras or under different conductors. I remembered the debates on v.com about the merits of different violinists who play the same pieces with entirely different interpretations. I thought of pieces written a few centuries ago which are still played and loved today, and I compared them mentally to pieces of music which were very popular ten years ago but completely forgotten today. I wondered how I could convince this man that different performances of a given piece can reveal vast varieties of beauty or that one can hear completely different things in a single recorded performance of a single work each time one listens to it.

10 replies

Beginning Improvisation

By Danielle Gomez
November 2, 2009 20:08

I would like to continue with the train of thought from my last blog. Previously, I had discussed the importance of experimenting with improvisation. Improvisation teaches a different set of skills that can help to enhance your abilities as both a classical musician and performer. While it's important to teach these things to students, it is difficult to introduce subjects that you, as the teacher, may be uncomfortable with. Despite its daunting appearance, learning to improvise is no different from learning a technically complex violin concerto. It must be systematically broken up into smaller tasks that can be easily managed. One of the easiest things to do is to start listening to improvisation. Get all the books you want, but the "jazz swing" is not something you can notate accurately. Reading music as a jazz violinist rather than a classical violinist is an acquired skill. Knowing how a particular genre should sound is a huge step in the right direction. Learning scales is important but even more important is learning chords... Read more...
6 replies

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