Comments

Drew, Thanks! I discovered this principle on my own, the hard way, by painful personal experience. I was clamping so hard with my chin and shoulder that it was making my left arm tight, giving me back pain, and ruining my vibrato. Unfortunately, none of my teachers noticed it when I was a teen, and I only started to make progress getting rid of this habit as an adult in an Alexander Technique class. I still struggle with it, in fact, and it's something I plan to address up front with my new teacher.

In thinking back, I first learned this particular bad habit in school: they taught us to hold the violin up without using our left hand at all, a sort of "look ma, no hands!" type of thing. I remember being really proud of being able to do this and somehow internalized the idea that if I ever needed to use my left hand to hold up the instrument at all, that was wrong. I now use my left hand just a tiny bit, sometimes, to hold the instrument up, and that has made a huge difference in being able to play for longer periods without pain. I think we need to be careful about what we tell kids about holding the instrument when they are first learning. I don't think it's a good idea to have them strive to keep the left hand completely uninvolved with holding up the instrument at all times.

Karen,
I think at some point we have all been taught this horrendous “technique” of clamping the violin or viola as if it proves a great feat. Even many prominent pedagogical books promote this concept.

I also had a situation of severe pain in my early 20’s that caused me to pursue a better way. Fortunately one of my Professors, Leonard Sorkin (founder and 1st violin with the Fine Arts Quartet) was a Misha Mishakoff (student of Auer) protégée and he showed me in one lesson the basics of playing freely and using only my collarbone and left hand/arm to support the violin.

I had actually studied with him for 4 years prior to this, but the need never arose to modify things as I had no pain and didn’t have difficulty maneuvering around the violin. I had experimented playing without the shoulder rest, but didn’t have a need-to-do motivation.

The same principals of technique work whether one plays with or without the shoulder rest.

Everything (!) is easier with the violin held up by the left hand. The left hand actually functions in a far superior way and the tone is naturally enhanced as gravity is being used to fullest advantage.

So glad you benefited from the blog and I hope a few others have as well.
Drew