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Sight Singing, more on slurs

February 4, 2008 at 2:28 AM

My 6th lesson went well! I've been officially taking lessons for 1.5 months! We always start the lesson with scales/etude, and I am having some trouble with certain measures intonation and my teacher is making me sing it out loud. This reminds me of those ABRSM aural exams when I was a kid (for piano), except we don't have to sight sing, we sing whatever heard was played on the piano (MUCH easier).

I still hate slurs. I don't understand. If i can play the same phrase fine with separate bows, why can't I play them in slurs?? I just don't get it. OH well, i guess I have to practice...

Dotted rhythms: All of a sudden I feel like a retard when I can't do these short long, long short, or whatever the Hxxx those rhythms are... drives me mad, piano teacher made me do it, violin teacher is still making me do it.... can someone please explain to me how playing the same thing in different rhythm can help me learn? I'm not questioning my teacher, she is GREAT! I just really want to understand!

Happy note: My bow hand is very relax now. I play the scales in nice long legato bow (as long as I know what my left hand is doing, my right hand will be happy). I also notice and realize how important it is to have wrist flexibility. I can do the bowing up and down motion in the air without the bow (bring the top of the wrist to the nose), and stretch it down when moving down (playing at the tip), but when I hold the bow, i can't do it. I just can't, it will make it sound ugly... frustration.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on February 4, 2008 at 3:20 AM

Greetings,
many people are under the impression that there are only two kinds of practice- slow or fats. In order to get to the latte rone begins with the former and gradually speeds up the mm. This idea is basically incorrect. The most eficinet method of pracitce involves combining slow and fast practice. Thus if one pracitce dotted rythms the slow note gives the brain time to effectively plan the short note -then when one executes the short note one is doing fast practice. But it immediately slows again to give the brain time to prepare again.
Also, at this stage in the game ones ear is very insensitive to note length so by practicing avariety of rythms one begans to notice and aurtomaticlaly corretc inequality in one splaying.
Finally, the eseence of practicing is to create puzzle sof ever increasing complexity rather than just repeating something the brain has already learnt to do. Thus if you can play to eigth notes then repeating them becomes less and less meaningful. Add a rythm and the brain becomes alert again. When that is mastered the brain begins to sleep so one adds a new rythm. Master it and the brain sleeps. So try one dotted rythm for two notes followed by the revers edotted rythm for the next two notes and the brain wakes up again and so on.
Playing the violin is done with the mind.
Cheers,
Buri

From Drew Lecher
Posted on February 4, 2008 at 5:07 AM

Buri says it well.

I would just add that a good trick is also to play subdivided rhythms, i.e., with the bow doing 3 equal strokes on the long note and 1 for the short, also varying this per Buri's advice. Pick a simpler one and stick with it until it becomes relatively easy, then add a permutation of that rhythm — usual the opposite, at first.

This can also be done with 2 different notes alternating in that infamous and favored slur that you are about to conquer — slur 3 and separate the last. Make sure your bow arm and hand are drawing planes/lines of the desired bow path.

These will all combine into the coordination and independence of the left hand fingers and bow arm.

Persist and have fun with the challenge!
Drew

From Daniel Blomdahl
Posted on February 4, 2008 at 5:48 AM

That's easy. Slurs provide a smoother sound. I once played Canon in D for a friend over the phone. He said: "Are you using slurs?" I said: "No" He said: "Well you need to."

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