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

Groovy-Square Andy Williams, I Loved You

I was born in 1968, a year of mad generational uproar and confusion.

I don't think anything could better illustrate the cultural bewilderment of the time than this video of Andy Williams, singing "The Age of Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In," with the Osmond brothers, a year after I was born:

Some background: these tunes were written for the drug-dazed musical "Hair," which is about hippie counter-culture and the sexual revolution. Andy Williams was a soft-singing crooner, beloved by little old ladies, and the Osmond brothers were Mormon whiz-kid singers.

I was a toddler. I joyously embraced it all.

You see, I did not listen to Suzuki tapes when I was a small child (they didn't exist), nor did I listen to Mozart. I did not come from a musical family, so no one was playing Chopin on the piano or holding quartet rehearsals in the living room.

But my Grandma Izzie had a record player, and a huge collection of LPs, sitting in big, square, cardboard sleeves. I don't know how many she had -- more than I could count back then, for sure. Hundreds, thousands! Every one of them was Andy Williams. (The man did make 42 studio albums and I think she had them all!)

She lived in a little apartment attached to our house, and most mornings at around 5 a.m. I would sneak down the hall to Grandma Izzie's place. She knew how to keep me content: music. I climbed up on her big sofa, and she would put on the only music she had: Andy Williams. And I was happy, bouncing my head to the beat of the music, looking out the window and listening. Good morning, Starshine! Do you hear the violins in there?

These are possibly the most over-orchestrated tunes ever recorded. Can you even believe it? But that's what people did, when they wanted over-the-top sound before synthesizers: they hired a huge orchestra to back them up. Can you imagine a singer doing this today? I doubt it even occurs to most singers. It's much cheaper and easier to press a few buttons on a synthesizer, then hit the auto-tune to keep their own voice sonically palatable.

Processed food, processed music. Oh just spit it out, let it be all messy like it was! One last Andy Williams tune. May he rest in peace and love and squareness and grooviness. No, actually, I hope he's up there singing for Grandma Izzie and all her friends!

3 replies

Another way to hear the orchestra (100 Things to Do in Classical Music)

Continuing the conversation on 100 Things to Do in classical music (I was too late to comment on the post) I'd add what may seem an off the wall suggestion: experience a concert in which folk musicians collaborate with a great orchestra. This will enhance your view of both sorts of music, and it's a great thing to share with someone who might not otherwise go to see an orchestra -- or go to see that folk artist -- too.

My favorite experiences along this line:
Irish American songwriter and singer Cathie Ryan with the Rochester Philharmonic (fiddle by Hanneke Cassel), and the Irish band Altan sharing the music of Donegal (fiddle from Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh and Ciaran Tourish) with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Other folk musicians who do really fine concerts with orchestras include Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, from the Cape Breton fiddle tradition, Tish Hinojosa's songs of the American west from a Hispanic perspective, and Scot singer Eddi Reader's program on the songs of Robert Burns. These are all ways to hear the work of an orchestra differently yourself and perhaps open doors for someone else to listen, as well.

1 reply

A Little Piece of Heaven

The 28-seat flight across the inlet was full--save one seat, fortunately. I say fortunately, because the young, uninformed flight attendant insisted upon checking my violin with the luggage since it wouldn't fit in the undersized overhead bin. Standard protocol involves a simple tuck in the coat bin behind the cockpit, but she wouldn't have it. After informing her that I would be getting off the plane and missing the evening's rehearsal with the Anchorage Symphony, she politely agreed to buckle him safely into the last seat, which struck her as a funny sight, giving her occasional fits of giggles during the twenty-minute bumpy flight through torrents of rain.

Alaska Center of the Performing Arts

Anchorage, Alaska. Thursday morning, I rolled out of bed on my own whim: by ten a.m. I'm dressed. The hotel managers still remember me on a first name basis, and nodded a happy good morning to me as I passed through the lobby on my way to breakfast. Conveniently, my favorite coffee distributor placed a location just across the street from my hotel, literally in the same building as the Alaska PAC. What a way to begin the day, with a fresh toasted bagel and coffee amongst some of the same regulars I've seen there for six years.

The View from My Hotel Window (I cross the street to get to the corner coffee shop)

Meanwhile, from my seat in the corner, I spied a cellist (easily recognized by the large case that accompanies him) studying his part for the upcoming performance, sipping an americano before practice. We'd met briefly a year and a half ago, and trios were mentioned. I think about starting a conversation again today, but I'm not so good at that and have a phobia of being creepy, so I simply make up various plots while he finishes his drink and leaves.

It takes a while for the coffee to kick in, but when it does, I'm ready to tackle the day's schedule. Practice. Eat. Practice. Shop. Practice. Eat. Practice. Coffee. Rehearsal. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. It'll be me in my room and nothing but lots of time with my fiddle, and a large mass of repertoire that's had to be mastered in nine days' time. Three days remain. I have no cell phone. No one can find me. The sessions commence.

Anyone needs to be careful when scheduling six to seven hours of playing into each day, especially when one hour alone will be spent on the chords and runs of Capriccio Espagnol (still not so good just yet). Mandated practice breaks are tucked carefully under my umbrella, and alternate between coffee and walks to the 5th avenue mall. Outside, I could smell the familar downtown street odors of onions on the grill and alder smoked meats. Each ASO season's opening September concert always comes adorned with bright autumnal splashes. This year, it's also been adorned with so much rain, you'd think maybe you should call an ark instead of a cab. Flood advisories and road washouts kept many folk indoors--which is all the more reason why I can love being a musician in Alaska: the weather is perfect for practicing.

Mural on the 5th Avenue Mall

I also love playing with ASO because the elevator randomly stops to let on world-class musicians on their way to the same rehearsal I'm about to attend. This concert, the Harlem string quartet would be joining us for Randall Fleischer's orchestration of West Side Story Concerto for string quartet. I couldn't wait to hear how this collaberation would unfold.

I haven't played with any other symphony, so I don't really know how to compare us to anything else. We don't go on strikes; no one here is in it for the money, so evidently, we're here because we want to be. We seem to have an overly generous audience, and most of the concerts are sellouts with standing ovations (whether we deserve them or not). We have a generous list of donors, and, according to the conductor, our board of directors is the best. Everyone on it wants to be involved; it only takes one simple request, and somebody volunteers to help.

Admittedly, we're not the best symphony. But we have some of the best amongst us, and I've never attended a concert without discovering some new amazing talent in the group. This concert, I happened to secure the best seat in the entire house: front and left of the harpist, a brilliant young elfish man from Boise with magical powers. Entire sections of violinists miss their entrances following his cadenza in the Rimsky Korsakov. I had two more rehearsals to figure out how to recover from his ethereal effects in two measures' time.

And then, just like that, during the rehearsal break, the prayers of many were answered when the cellist I'd been eyeing earlier suddenly and unprovokedly approached me about coming to Soldotna to rehearse Brahms with me.

Really? I looked around to make sure I was not having another recurrent dream, and that this was in fact still the green room, not heaven.

Hello, cellist. I'm Emily Grossman. And your name again?

11 replies

Tentative agreement reached between Chicago Symphony management and musicians

Good news: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians and management appear to have reached an agreement, according to both the CSO Musicians Facebook page and to the Chicago Tribune. According to the Trib, it's a three-year contract, and ratification is pending. Negotiations began at 2 p.m. today, and the tentative agreement was reached at about 6:45 p.m. Assuming they ratify the agreement when they meet tomorrow at 9 a.m., the planned shows will go on, including subscription concerts on Wednesday and Friday, a Symphony Ball fundraiser on Saturday and a run-out concert to Ann Arbor, Mich., on Thursday. Also, the orchestra's early-October tour to New York's Carnegie Hall and Mexico will go on as planned.

Here's that Chicago Trib article, it has a nice video short with longtime Chicago classical music writer John von Rhein about "why we should care." (It can be tricky to link to the Chicago Trib, but this seems to have worked)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-chicago-symphony-orchestra-contract-talks-resume-monday-20120924,0,3929004.story

1 reply

Teaching kids has made me a better conductor

I've recently started conducting a lively amateur orchestra in north London. Whilst I have always harbored an interest in conducting, what I never imagined was that teaching large groups of beginner violinists would provide such useful training. I've never been one to talk down to children, so moving to working with adults has proven a simpler transition than I first imagined. Both need motivating, help and lots of patience. Conducting is essentially educating, only with the use of a baton, fancier words and ruder jokes. If you can motivate a roomful of kids with little or no musical training to play together, a room full of keen amateurs is a breeze.

0 replies

Where a Kazoo Equals a Stradivari Violin

This past spring I played a chamber music concert at the Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona, where it was my great pleasure to collaborate with the fabulously elegant pianist Doris Stevenson and the terrific cellist (and artistic director of the Sonoran Chamber Music series) Thomas Landschoot, in music by Beethoven and Ravel.

Following the concert I spent an extra day visiting with old friends and we decided to check out the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, which bills itself as the “most extraordinary museum you will ever hear” and opened in May of 2010.

The building itself is very attractive and the entrance desk uses corporate terminology – museumgoers are “guests” and staff are “team members” – which is not surprising in view of the fact that the former CEO of one of America’s superstores, Target, is the visionary (and, one suspects, much of the budget) behind this creation. The museum’s goal is to present the musical instruments of all of the world’s cultures, and among its advisors are people like J. Kenneth Moore, Margaret Downey Banks and Darcy Kuronen, all of whom are or have been curators of major American musical instrument collections.


After a promising start in the cafe, the collection itself was something of a let-down, with inartful displays and a rather appalling number of instruments that were made in the late 20th century forward – with many post-2008, which were clearly commissioned by the museum itself. That these instruments are new is not the problem, but the perception that they were made with the priority of filling empty galleries is; when this is the priority then things like authenticity and quality of craftsmanship are likely less important, and the chances of their having been actually played (and vetted) by musicians are marginal. Labels do not give any information beyond the most basic – place and period made, and sometimes the name of the maker – without informing the reader of materials used or any historic context. Screens placed throughout feature very brief video and audio bites of some of the instruments in use; sometimes the performers and works are identified and often they are not.

Some of the best displays – in terms of a didactic, educational experience – are by the museum’s sponsors, whose logos are prominently displayed near the entry. One can see a dissected Steinway piano, a Martin guitar workshop, and soon to come is the D’Addario string manufacturer’s display.

If you want to see one of Elvis’ suits or drums used by Andy Summers (of the Police) or artifacts used by dozens of other pop or country musicians, many of whom were unknown to me, then this is the place – although some people might find the inclusion of the Jonas Brothers a bit mystifying. Each has his (and I don’t recall a single woman displayed, although Dolly Parton must be in there somewhere) little section of wall with a musical instrument propped up, a couple of other artifacts, and a brief video of the perfomer in action.

Of course I paid attention to the violins on display, and one of the heartwarming aspects is that, like the harp and bagpipe, the violin has a strong presence in a large number of cultures, often in both folk and art music, although clearly less in the African and Australian continents than in Europe, Asia and the Americas. I was not necessarily expecting to see any especially fine violins on display, but I was surprised by the curatorial carelessness. There is no evident definition of “violin” versus “fiddle,” no hint that perhaps the violin is the more artful form (although classical violinists and dealers will sometimes call them “fiddles,” but this is deliberately casual), or that the kinds of wood used, skills involved and acoustical treatment is different in a violin made by the Mirecourt school and that found in, say, Peru. Among the “Argentinian” instruments on display is a violin made in Saxony, with no explanation of why it would be found in Argentina (presumably brought there by an immigrant?)

What surprised me the most was to find probably the best-made violin in the collection, from the Mirecourt school, in a Cajun/Zydeco display, where it is called a “fiddle” and displayed next to a pair of spoons. Violins made by the Mirecourt school could rightfully be called mass-produced, but they were made by skilled craftmen using good-quality materials and excellent models, such as instruments by Antonio Stradivari, which are still among the finest ever created.
Most of today’s violinmakers are copyists and not originators; it is galling when they claim that their instruments are “as good or better” than the best by Stradivari or the Guarneri family, as without these master craftsmen we would have few fine violins. This process of copying is like taking a great painting by Rembrandt and turning it into a “paint-by-numbers” version. The result may be pleasing and even “artful,” but it is still an imitation and not the same level of brilliance and creativity, by far. (Imagine if I decided to play just like Jascha Heifetz and studied all of his recordings and replicated his bowings, fingerings and interpretation. I might sound quite good – but would still be merely an imitator owing it all to his originality, just like those “Elvises” in Las Vegas.)

There are a few interesting and good examples of the evidently-reviled “Western” instruments, including a glass harmonica, some orchestrions (precursers to the jukebox), and a recording piano for making piano rolls. I also had fun trying to play the “Meditation” from the opera Thais on a theremin in the Experience Gallery, surrounded by children (and some adults) banging away on percussion instruments.
A harpsichord in the “American” gallery appears, from the label copy, to have been made by the American maker John Challis (with whom my husband apprenticed) – but is actually an instrument, perhaps centuries old, that he revised in 1966 and probably of European origin. It is displayed adjacent to an exhibit on ”Canadian Fiddle Traditions.”

The “Israel” section consists of perhaps five items that include an oud made in Egypt (why?) and a couple of shofars, with a seconds-long video clip of Pinchas Zukerman playing Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic. Go figure. It also seems that the professionals at the Musical Instrument Museum think that Klezmer music is an entirely American musical idiom, without origins and continuing traditions in Eastern Europe.

After encountering scores of instruments made in 2008 and more recently, it was a relief to encounter a full gamelan with some slight wear indicating that it actually has been used by musicians.


The instrument conservator(s) are a main attraction as well; like the chimpanzees in the zoo they are behind a glass partition for the public to gawk at, surrounded by more video screens and instructional signs about insects that like to eat musical instruments.

Arizonans are proud of their new museum – rightfully to a certain extent – but its deficiencies are disturbing to me and I returned home wanting to know more about the people and ideas behind this venture. A quotation from European curator Christina Linsenmeyer seems to say it all:

"We don’t feel we need a Stradivarius (violin). If someone offered it, we’d be happy, of course, But I’d have no problem showing a Strad alongside a mirliton (kazoo), with the wax paper and string. Both are the same type of tool; one is not better than the other, and the fact is, kids will probably get more out of the mirliton than the Strad."

I understand the desire of a museum to be politically correct and not presume that the white anglo-saxon culture is superior to others in music or any other art form. But when the everything-is-equal mentality is combined with an indifference to detail, what could be an excellent educational opportunity is squandered.

I also understand the desire to appeal to children, but Dr. Seuss is not Shakespeare and a kazoo and its music is not the cultural equivalent of a great violin and its repertoire.

0 replies

Violin Maker's Wife: Of Tanning in the Israeli Summer

Post No. 22

There are lots of things I didn’t know about violins before my husband became a violin maker. One of the most bizarre of them is that sometimes violins, violas and cellos get tanned before they are varnished. Yes – tanned as in a tanning salon.

But let me take a step back and give you an update on where we are with the Quartet: the bodies (or "casse" in Italian) of all four instruments have been closed, which is an important and exciting step. But as Yonatan explained to me yesterday over dinner, "there are phases in the violin-making process, in which it's hard to see that real progress is made, but nonetheless a lot of work is required".

"OK", I thought to myself, "now he's beginning to sound like a Zen-Buddhist…" out loud I looked at him and said "say WHAT?".

"Well", he said, "for example, after I close the body of an instrument, it would seem that work on it is finished. But actually there is still a lot of work to be done on the finishing touches that really create the perfectly-flowing, curvy lines of the hand-made instrument. I redo the "sguscia" (the indented line above the purfling all around the instrument's contour), and shave very fine slivers off the instrument's borders, rounding them further and making them more symmetrical and perfect still". This, by the way, is not done with sandpaper – oh NO!! As I mentioned in an earlier post, sanding would scratch the surface of the instrument. So the entire, exact work of finishing the last details is done with a special, extremely sharp, gauge and with the scraper – one tenth of a millimeter (or less) at a time.

When the final touches on each instrument were completed, it went into the tanning closet. It's like this – Yonatan had built a special, perfectly light-proof closet in his workshop, and placed extremely powerful ultra-violet lights in it. He hangs each instrument perfectly in mid-air, so that the lights can tan it evenly all around. It takes a number of days, but after tanning like this, the instruments' wood acquires a beautiful golden color. This color will then serve as the background (or "ground") for the varnishing process.

The instruments were placed in the tanning closet one after the other from mid-August onwards - first the cello, then the viola, then the first-violin, and finally, today, the second-violin. If you have ever had the misfortune to be in Israel during that time of year, you know it's over 35 degrees Celsius most of the day, maybe dropping to a low of 30 at night (for all you Americans, that's between 100 and 85 Fahrenheit…) with the sun beating on you like a hammer. So when I was tanning in the summer heat with the kids on the beach, the instruments had the ultra-violet light to tan them :) Actually, this is exactly why the ultra-violet closet is used in the climate-controlled studio – the real sun around here is just too damn hot for the instruments. Boy, do I sympathize…
Here are a few pictures of the instruments tanning in Yonatan's special closet:

Cello and viola ready:

Viola tanning:

Cello tanning:

All four instruments prepared:

Lights on!

Pretty cool, ha?

3 replies

Return from Napa, plus a video

I returned to my wife and dog in Pasadena last night, after a whirlwind week at the Artistworks studio in Napa, CA. We were able to film my whole curriculum for the Violin School during the 7 days in the studio, with the exception of 5 or 6 of the Dont and Kreutzer etudes. Sorry Jacob and Rodolphe! We were down to the last hour, with the bus ready to take me to the airport, and I was pleading, "I have to get a good take of Dont #1 at least!" The crew was great and kept my spirits up when my energy started to flag. They had to keep track of 3 cameras at all times, up to 5 for certain pieces, plus levels for the voice, violin and piano. They also had to keep my face powdered so that I looked a little less like I'd stepped out into the light of day for the first time in a month!

Here's a "behind-the scenes" video that co-founder Patricia Butler took on her iPhone during one of our takes. Here, pianist Hugh Sung (inventor of the Air Turn wireless pedal page-turning system, no less!) plays the part of the orchestra for Smetana's Bartered Bride Overture. He was a sport for putting together orchestral reductions for all 69 of our excerpts!

2 replies

The Voice of an Angel

Tonight at my school we had a show called 'Broadway Night'. Students performed musical numbers and dances from their favorite musicals. Everyone did an amazing job but one performance stood out more than the others. My new friend Rachael sang 'Til I hear you sing' from 'Love Never Dies' Now I've heard some great voices in my life but something is different about hers. So smooth and connected. Every note,every word,every I eye closing moment...I felt it in my heart,and all over actually. I immediately thought of the musical possibilities,so many different emotions that can come from One. Single.Voice. Could it be possible to imitate a voice like hers on the violin? I know this is off from my normal posts but her performance was the most inspiring thing I've seen in a long time. I know she has a great future ahead of her and I'm really looking forward to working with her...possibly forming a group? Only time will tell,but her voice....is timeless.

3 replies

'Chattoyance' or 'holographic effect' as seen in some old violins.

I made these two small videos trying to demonstrate the "chattoyance" or "holographic effect".

As the light moves the flames in the varnish wood moves and "dances". This is known is "chattoyance" or "holographic effect", as seen in old Italian instruments, here can be seen in one of my violas.

6 replies

Previous 10 entries