Comments

buri, as usual, lots of wisdom.

couple comments..

i remember years ago in college reading galway's book,,don't remember the specifics, but his emphasis of not focusing on outcome, just let it happen, don't force it still lingers in me these days. but i forgot the example you cited, that a newcomer able to swing a perfect tennis serve simply by watching demos,,,,i find that a bit incredible, unless the swing is without actually hitting the ball because hitting the ball across the net in a perfect swing without ever practicing once is too zen like for you i would think :) i suspect some people can draw a straight bow on a violin with no prior practice, but hard to imagine how it sounds.

you mentioned about practice hard and fast, which i found very helpful. just the other day, i challenged the kido to do 50 times of G major 3 oct scale non stop, as fast as clear as short as easy as she can. she did it, with a bit grimacing in the middle and twisted mouth determination in the end. i tell you, just that one session seemed to have changed things around. i bet, if we were doing the usual 5 times over 10 days, the 11th day will still be the same.

I think I know what you mean. I had 2 violin teachers who taught me contradicting ways of playing the violin: bow wrist, tone, "finger-dropping-actions" on the left hand, which part of fingers that contact the strings etc. I have to say I benefit from both as I started to see myself trying/using different techniques (or comination of techniques) in my practice/playing that achieve a better result than just using one technique or the other. I adore "The Inner Game of Tennis". My teacher had me read it when I was 15, and it changed my life.

Sad story: I gave INOT to one of my adult students, and now she is using it for EVIL purposes- when she plays, yes, tennis with her son, she will mess with his mind by saying things such as "Your backhand is so good today...how on earth do you do that so well", or, "Your footwork is so quick and light right now.."
This is terrible. The IGOT used for evil! I doubt I will recover any time soon.

Greetings,
bloody typical,
Buri To sum up:

Playing a string instrument is similar to the patting the head, while rubbing the tummy thingy that we did in kindergarten. But, much more difficult. :)

Neil

"Zen in the Art of Archery" by Eugen Herrigel has much more to say on this subject. I'm going to have to try this on my first graders....

Actually, I have thought about it more with vibrato than with initial set-up. I always start by saying "okay do this" and just showing a nice vibrato. I've had at least two kids just do it, pretty darned well. But not everyone! Still, it's very worth just saying "Do this," and showing, especially for the visual learners.

My wonderful teacher from the St. Louis Symphony has me bowing for about two inches in the center of the bow at about mm 130 or so. After a bit of that you gradually increase the amount of bow used until eventually you are using a full bow, but still each bow is to the metronome. Then gradually reduce the length of the stroke until you're back in the center few inches again. The results are much cleaner and powerful bowing at all speeds. Greetings,
Ray,that is a classic exercise. One way to take it even further is to practice exactly as you explain but do it in SP lane 5 (fingerboard) then SP 4, then SP 3, 2, 1. In so doing one learns the exact rel;ationships of speed, and pressure on all SPs.
Cheers,
Buri So glad I came across this blog entry. Looks like you're thinking about some of the same things I often think about in general (before I ever got into violin this year) and would like to see how they fit into violin playing. Just the other day (and now), I was wondering about how other art forms like Tai Chi, Chinese calligraphy and such might somehow relate w/ violin playing -- and I found that my bow hold (or more precisely the hand/wrist/forearm action and bow movement) has benefited from the kinds of fluid motions I see in Tai Chi, certain kinds of opera and dance (and other related art forms), etc. I've also at one point or another tried to visualize (and apply) this in photography though it probably was too obtuse/obscure for anyone else to appreciate. :-)

I haven't actually read your various older blog entries yet, but did take note of the subject titles and a line or two into them. And I look forward to reading all of them as they relate to this subject...

_Man_

BTW, are they really contradictions or are they really just different perspectives/approaches that actually can work together (if understood properly) for a better, more complete final result (and big picture) ...?

_Man_

Greetings,
as you say, they are no more cotradictions than yinand yang. It is just teachers who isnist on one right way who create `contradictions.`

Cheer,s
Buri

The problem with analyzing the footwork might have been that it wasn't complete, or wasn't done well. Doesn't necessarily mean something's wrong with the approach. On the other hand nearly all the teaching I got was "do it." Teaching nearly any craft I can think of is "see one, do one" including at least basic surgery. The web is great for analyzing. There are so many things to analyze and assimilate that it has to be impossible really. There's only one way I know of to assimilate without analyzing and that's to copy.