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Laurie Niles

Violin Community News 2010, Op. 9

March 10, 2010 13:13

Hold your applause! Or maybe we shouldn't, argued arts journalist Alex Ross, writer for The New Yorker magazine and author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, at The Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture Monday in London. This caused quite a stir on Twitter feeds across the land; here you can download the text of his lecture in which Ross traces the history of "The Rule" about applause. "The underlying message of the protocol is, in essence, 'Curb your enthusiasm. Don’t get too excited.'" Ross said, then later in his speech, "I dream of the concert hall becoming a more vital, unpredictable environment, fully in thrall to the composers who mapped our musical landscapes and the performers who populate them."

My thoughts on the matter? Let people applaud, but if there is a special piece that requires silence between music, the conductor can say something like: "Ladies and gentlemen, we always welcome your enthusiasm and applause. In this particular piece, the silence between movements is almost part of the music, so if you will please hold your applause until the end, and I will let you know when that is..."

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More on Haitian violinist Romel Joseph, who remains at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami: the struggle to regain use of his hands will be considerable. When his music building crushed him in the earthquake, his left hand was broken and his right hand was impaled by nails from a wall that had fallen on him, according to The Washington Post. He is not sure if he will play again. "Violins require dexterity," Joseph said to Post writer Darryl Fears. "My hand will heal -- that won't be a problem. Will I play with it? That's a whole different story."

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Violinist Nigel Kennedy will put a 1973 football ("soccer" to Americans) game – England vs. Poland – to music as part of Southbank festival of Polish culture May 30 at the Southbank Centre in London. It might not be the Brits' favorite game in history; England lost, and as the Guardian notes, "The nation went to work the next day depressed and shocked." But as Kennedy says in the same article, "Football brings a lot of people together and music is obviously designed expressly for that purpose. They're also both shared things across all nations." Kennedy, who has lived for several years in, ahem, Krakow, Poland, will play a semi-improvised score with Polish jazz musicians to accompany the screening of the 1973 game.

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The Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra is performing in small towns across United States during a nine-week tour, and according to the New York Times, the musicians are making only about $40 a concert, with no per diem or payment for rehearsals. Attention: that's NOT ENOUGH.

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As the Vienna Philharmonic visited the UK last week, Francesca Jackes of The Independent asks why "no other internationally ranked orchestra has so few women and non-whites: respectively three percent and zero per cent. " This article traces the orchestra's weak and ineffective attempts to incorporate women and minorities into their ranks. The orchestra's spokeswoman is quoted at the end of it: "Perhaps women are just not as ambitious as men."

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A picture of a wrecked violin is enough to break my heart, and that's exactly what Polish violinist Jerzy Siwek, 58, has after being attacked by a street gang while busking in an area of south London. His 100-year-old violin was badly damaged and the rest of his equipment was taken.

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Interview with Diana Rumrill: Preventing and Treating Violin-Related Injury

March 10, 2010 10:48

The awkward nature of the violin can prove more than a matter of inconvenience: it can actually cause physical injury.

Fortunately, one can manage and even prevent aches, pains and injuries with the proper approach -- this is where Washington, D.C. violinist Diana Rumrill comes in. Not only has she been playing the violin for 30 years, but she also has been a physical therapist for ten years. As a physical therapist she has worked at the National Rehabilitation Center and has a private practice called Harmonious Bodies in D.C., exclusively for musicians. She also gives workshops and has some great podcasts on her website, including podcast interview with Alice Brandfonbrener, the great pioneer of performance medicine.

Diana Rumrill

I had the opportunity to pick Diana's brain about injuries that are unique to violinists, how to prevent and treat them, and how to promote overall health in the violinist. Read and be healthy!

Laurie: For what kinds of injuries are violinists most at risk?

Diana: Violinists tend to be prone to back, neck, shoulder, forearm, wrist, and hand pain. This can be from irritation of muscles and tendons, or from compression of nerves. All of these issues can be helped by changing the way you practice to work with your body rather than against it.

Laurie: What specific techniques can help a violinist avoid specific kinds of injuries?

Diana: Learning to have a feeling of freedom throughout the whole body as you play will help with a multitude of issues. This is a middle ground between floppiness (slump-type posture) and bracing and stiffening the body (military-type posture) in which you feel free to move in any direction while retaining a sense of security. Bracing tends to be more of a problem for highly motivated musicians. Finding this balance of just the right amount of muscle tension will not only reduce playing related pain, but will help you play more expressively and freely.

Let’s look at how this plays out in different areas of the body. Maybe you were taught to be a good orchestra player by sitting up with your back arched and your violin raised high. This posture has good intentions, but your back muscles will be working overtime and your shoulder blade movement will be restricted. This eventually produces pain in the back and limits your available bow arm movement.

To find just the right sitting position, first find the bones you sit on. You want to sit centered on these bones. Gently rock back and forth on your sit bones while you release unnecessary tension in your back muscles. Once you find a comfortable middle ground on your sit bones, bring your violin up to playing position with freedom in your arms, leaving your back alone. You should be able to easily look up at the conductor without arching your back to do so.

Another area violinists tend to brace in is the contact with the chin and shoulder rest. Your fingering will be more free, your left arm will get good blood flow and feel relaxed, and your neck will feel better if you think of the violin as a sort of dynamic bridge between the neck and left hand rather than a shelf that the neck clamps on to. The left hand and shoulder/neck can change their balance of support as you play, like a dance, rather than a bridge riveted in place. The front of the chest then can feel open from collarbone to collarbone, leaving plenty of space to move.

Also, be open-minded as to what equipment might help you best. You might be surprised at the freedom a different type of shoulder rest or a middle mounted chin rest may afford if you have always stuck with the same setup. Consult your teacher or a performing arts medicine specialist on available options.

Laurie: How can one practice correctly, in a way that avoids injury?

Diana: First, avoid the idea that repetition equals practice. This is especially important if you are prone to finger or forearm pain. These small muscles get more than enough action in today’s keyboard – centered lives with computers and cell phones. Add in six hours of Bach sixteenth notes and you have a recipe for inflamed tendons, especially with the added tension level that stress brings. This is like trying to sprint a whole marathon!

If you are breathing freely, you are allowing movement to occur as well as sending a message to your body to be calm. This sounds like very simple advice, but one of the most common habits we all have in times of stress is to breathe shallowly or to hold the breath altogether for periods of time.

Maintain an awareness and relaxed visual scan on the room while practicing or playing. Having a narrow focus and staring at music for long periods creates a tendency to tense and brace the eye, neck, and forward-pulling muscles of the shoulders and trunk. Make sure your music is at the proper height so you can see it without slouching or squinting.

Drink enough water to properly lubricate your tendons. The finger muscles are driven by tendons in the forearm, which ride in tendon sheaths. Dry tendon sheaths mean friction and pain. Finish a thirty-two ounce water bottle twice in a day and you’re done.

Use a principle of strength training in your practice, which alternates different types of body stresses to avoid overdoing. Warm up by starting with something familiar at an easy pace. Alternate difficult or faster repertoire with slower or easier. Take regular breaks: walking around the room, drinking water, deep breathing, and gently stretching, every twenty to thirty minutes. Besides grounding you and allowing you to be more present and able to concentrate, your muscles need recovery time out of playing position.

Laurie: What is the best kind of general exercise for a violinist? Are there exercises (outside of playing) that can actually worsen the risk of injury for a violinist?

Diana: Many musicians mistakenly think that because they move their hands and fingers a great deal, that area is what needs strengthening. Actually, the opposite is true!

Musicians need strengthening of the large, torso-supporting muscles of the abdomen, back, shoulders, and hips in order to take the strain off of these small muscles. The wrists and fingers get overworked with the instrument and almost never need additional strengthening work with violinists. Yoga and Pilates classes are good choices. Better yet, if you are unsure where to begin, have a physical therapist work with you to develop a fitness program for you for home or the gym.

Take care of your body. Many musicians weren’t drawn to sports as children, and may find it difficult to think of themselves as “athletes”. However, our entire bodies were designed for movement and won’t work their best without a regular cardio workout. This means exercise that makes you breathe harder and is sustained for a period of time. Thirty minutes a day of walking, jogging, biking, or swimming will do it. Schedule it into your daily calendar, and once you have developed a habit, you will notice that you miss it if you skip a day.

I highly recommend working one on one with an Alexander technique teacher to help you find ways to stand, sit, and play the violin freely and without extra tension. There are resources at www.alexandertechnique.com, as well as podcasts on my website www.harmoniousbodies.com to find out more and to learn how you can work with a teacher in your area.

Laurie: If a musician is already injured, what steps should they follow in order to get a correct diagnosis and treatment?

Diana: If pain or other symptoms do not go away after altering your practice habits and do not subside after a few days of rest, it is time to seek medical help. It is much easier to treat a problem that has been going on for a few weeks than a few months or years! Don’t wait until the week before your big recital to run to your doctor in a panic.

Pain is a signal that something needs attention, and it’s hard to effectively treat pain in a rush. It is especially important to get help if you have neurological symptoms such as numbness, tingling, or writers’ cramp type feelings.

The Performing Arts Medicine Association has a “Referrals” section on its website in order to look up medical professionals in your area who specialize in the treatment of musicians. It’s best, if possible, to see a professional who already understands performers’ needs; if not possible, be prepared to explain the specifics of your instrument and your schedule. Definitely bring your instrument to your appointment, and tell your provider exactly when the problem started, whether there have been changes in your routine or stress level that preceded it, what specific activities provoke your symptoms or improve them, and any other information you have that will help them treat you effectively.

Laurie: Is there anything that needs changing, in the teaching of violinists, to help them avoid future injury?

Diana: Violinists should be taught with a sense of perspective about life away from the violin, a sense of fun and play about music as well as “the serious stuff”, and healthy cooperation with others to help balance an excessive pressure to succeed that ofter precedes unhealthy practicing habits.

Teachers should also keep in mind that every violinist is not appropriate for the same repertoire or the same fingerings. Work with the student’s body type and personality rather than against it.

Laurie: Is there such thing as "too much practice"?

Diana: Yes. Practice that feels like logging hours, mindless repetition of the same passages, and most especially is painful is not helping you physically or artistically. You already have creativity – now use it to come up with ways to help you learn your piece without simply repeating the passage over and over in the same old way.

Here are a few ideas to get you started: Set a five minute timer and play the passage as many different ways as you can in that time – in the style of different artists, with different speeds, bringing full attention to your breathing one time, full attention to your feet on the floor another time, et cetera. Try practicing the passage as softly as you can, without a mute. This helps you develop sensitivity and lets you really hear yourself, and can be a great side benefit of playing when you have to be mindful of disturbing others. Try alternating playing the passage aloud with “playing” it in your mind, really wxperiencing the sound and feel of playing the passage the way you want to do it. You may notice sensations arising during your mental practice that you notice before. For example, you have a sensation of squeezing the violin harder with your shoulder during a difficult part or bowing heavily when it’s not needed. When you notice and correct these during the mental practice, you have a chance to correct them during the violin practice, and you didn’t even have to irritate your tendons to do it!

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Happy Birthday, Samuel Barber -- Curtis Institute of Music pays tribute

March 9, 2010 15:54

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of composer Samuel Barber, and his alma mater, the Curtis Institute, has been celebrating the late composer with a series of concerts all over the country played by a chamber group consisting of students, alumni and faculty called Curtis On Tour.

Among the pieces they are playing: the Barber String Quartet, Op. 11. The middle movement of this piece is the music we know as the Barber Adagio for Strings.

"I think if that was the only piece he ever wrote, he'd be one of the greatest composers that ever lived," said violinist and Curtis Institute professor Ida Kavafian, who is the faculty member playing on tour.

Curtis musicians
Left to right: Kavafian, violin; alumnus and faculty member Peter Wiley, cello; Hyo Bo Sim, viola; Yekwon Sunwoo, piano; Benjamin Beilman, violin. Photographer Jean Brubaker.

"I don't think I've ever gotten through it without tearing up, even in a concert," Kavafian said, "One of the most emotional times I played it was after 9-11, for the firemen who perished. There were some members of the family, and also guys that did survive, or didn't get the call to go down there, who were at the concert. That was rough."

Barber wrote the quartet for the Curtis Quartet, though it was premiered by another group. The current performances of it became all the more poignant because of the recent death of cellist Orlando Cole – "Landy" -- a founding member of the Curtis Quartet and longime cello professor at Curtis.

"Of course (Barber) was very close to Landy," Kavafian said. "Until very recently, I had this dream that this quartet would actually go and play the (Barber) quartet for him. So I was very saddened that I never had the opportunity to do that, although I know that he's coached the piece pretty recently with other groups here."

Barber actually wrote a letter to Orlando Cole while he was in the process of writing the quartet.

Samuel Barber in 1932
Samuel Barber, 1932, as a student at Curtis. He entered Curtis at its opening in 1924 and remained until 1934, studying piano and voice as well as composition. Photo courtesy of Curtis Institute of Music Archives.

"Being his friend, (Barber) was in communication with Landy as he was writing the quartet," Kavafian said. "When he finished the second movement, he wrote this letter, and it said, 'I just finished the slow movement of my quartet today – it is a knockout!' and he underlined "knockout." I think that was probably the understatement of the century!"

Violinist Ben Beilman, who a student of Kavafian and is playing in the Curtis tour, has played the Adagio a number of times before this, including the version for string orchestra, and has studied the Barber Violin Concerto. I asked him what he thought of the music of Barber.

"Barber obviously has this incredible ability to convey emotion. In he first and third movement of the quartet, there's almost a dark veil, occasionally. The violin concerto is a lot more expansive, more exuberant and outgoing. But emotion is the biggest thing that comes to mind; how much he decides to either go all the way – or what he decides to reserve and hold back, which adds even more tension and intensity to it."

"The first and third movements of the quartet are interesting. The first movement is kind of a standard movement to a quartet," Ben said. Then comes the second movement, the huge creative outpouring. After the "knockout" movement – well...

"The third movement is minuscule, it takes maybe a minute and a half to play," Ben said. "My first reaction to that – and I actually said this to Mr. Wiley – 'What happened? Was he late for an editor, was he late for a deadline?' Mr. Wiley kind of thought for a second, then he said, 'Do you really think that, Ben? If you had just written that second movement, how would you follow that with another third movement? How could you possibly imagine bringing new ideas to a piece that already seems complete?' So the third movement is kind of an echo of the first movement, like the last heartbeat after the huge emotional movement that is the second movement."

It occurred to me that it might be a little intimidating for a student to play with a faculty member – particularly the superstars at Curtis.

"It's exactly as you'd expect – it's everything from terrifying to inspiring, and I know it's one of these experiences that I'm going to take with me for a very, very long time," Ben said. "Mr. Wiley was the cellist with the Guarneri quartet, and Ms. Kavafian – together they were members of Beaux Arts Trio. They have tons of experience rehearsing and listening to each other, and it's amazing how quick and how succinct so many of their comments and their ideas can be, to really throw the music into a new level. For a student, that would take a full semester – with tons of coaching -- to solidify."

For Kavafian, it's a unique kind of teaching opportunity.

"As long as I've been here, I've played alongside students in groups," Kavafian said. "I think it's a different and more effective way of coaching – you can say things until you're blue in the face, but if you show it by example, it's very different. And you can also learn so much about rehearsal technique and generosity of emotion in a concert. There have been a lot of performances here in our hall of faculty and students together."

The Curtis on Tour concerts this month not only feature the quartet by Barber – one of Curtis's most famous graduates – but they also feature world premieres of works by two young composers that currently go to Curtis: "Lullaby: no bad dreams" by Christopher Rogerson and "Sonata for Viola and Piano" by Daniel Shapiro.

"I run a festival in New Mexico – Music from Angel Fire – and I bring ten to twelve Curtis students to it," Kavafian said. "For the last five years I've had a composer as one of the young artists." It's important to allow the composers to become part of the musical community and to bring their works to an audience. "Christopher Rogerson was my young composer in residence last year, and Daniel Shapiro is going to be the one for this year."

Curtis On Tour will perform five more concerts in March: one tonight in New York City, then stops in Kennett Square, Pa.; Orono, Maine; Rockport, Maine and Highland Park, Ill. More information here.

* * *

And now in tribute to Samuel Barber, something in his own voice: I hadn't realized that Barber studied voice, in addition to piano and composition, when he was at Curtis. I ran across this 1937 recording on Youtube, of Samuel Barber singing his own composition, "Dover Beach," with the Curtis String Quartet. (You can find the words to the poem "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold if you scroll down on this page about Samuel Barber)

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Violinist.com interview with Simon Fischer

March 4, 2010 15:40

Violin playing is a basic matter of proportion and balance.

Hah!

With all the bowings, fingerings, pitch, tone, rhythm, phrasing and sheer agony that goes into it, just how does one boil violin playing down to that basic matter?

This is the brilliance of London-based violinist Simon Fischer's contribution to violinkind: In his books, magazine columns and teachings, he cuts a path straight to the issue at hand, whether it's wobbly vibrato or out-of-tune scales. Sometimes he even makes the solution seem so simple as to be self-evident -- such is the genius of good pedagogy.

I first met Simon at the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies in New York in 2007, when he was giving a lecture on tone production. By then he'd already written the two books that many consider essential to any violinist's library: Basics and Practice.

Most recently I spoke to him on the phone about his latest projects: books called The Scale Book and The Violin Lesson, and an epic DVD on tone production. He also has been working on a number of transcriptions, including the Purcell "Chaconne," and he recently released a recording of the Brahms Violin Sonatas that he made with his father, pianist Raymond Fischer.

Simon and Raymond Fischer

Simon has taught at the Guildhall School since 1982, and at the Yehudi Menuhin School since 1997. He also writes a monthly column for The Strad magazine. In addition, he plays all over London, from the studios to the concert stage.

Laurie: How did you get started with the violin?

Simon: My late brother Mark, who was six years older than me, took up the violin when he was nine, so I was three at the time. We lived in Sidney, Australia, and I remember walking with him to his violin class. Pretty soon he gave up the violin, but I wanted to learn. However, my father wanted me to wait.

Laurie: Why?

Simon: He's a professional musician, a pianist, and because of the difficulties of the profession, he was wary of parents who push their children too soon. He wanted to be absolutely sure. What he wasn't taking into account was that earning a living as a pianist is a very different matter than earning a living as a string player. When you play the piano, you tend to spend an awful lot of time on your own. The violin is a completely different world – he shouldn't have worried.

I kept on pestering my parents until I was seven and a half, and finally I was allowed to start violin lessons.

Laurie: How did you end up in England?

Simon: He and my mother both wanted to come to London, so in 1961 the whole family uprooted to here, and here we've been ever since. My father had to start again from scratch in a foreign country at the age of 32 – very, very difficult, especially for a pianist. When I was growing up, he was forever telling me that I was going to enjoy an advantage that he had not had in this country, in that I was growing up here, with my generation, and all of those contacts.

Laurie: So then was he Australian?

Simon: He was born in Australia, my mother was born in England.

Laurie: Tell me about your schooling.

Simon: I was briefly at the Junior Guildhall at 11, where I studied with Christopher Polyblank and Clive Lander. But then at 13, I left and studied privately first with Homi Kanger, then with Eli Goren, then Perry Hart, then Sydney Fixman. It was only when I met Yfrah Neaman, at Guildhall, that for the first time I stayed for many years with one teacher.

I stayed five years at Guildhall. In those days it was a three-year course, and some students just left and started free-lancing. I was offered a full scholarship to do a fourth year, and I thought, why go out to work if I can be paid, in effect, to stay at home and practice and have lessons? That seemed an obvious thing to do. Then I was offered another scholarship to stay a fifth year, and so the same applied. By then, I was teaching myself, really, by watching the fantastic players that Yfrah Neaman had in his class. Yfrah was sitting on the juries of lots of international competitions, and lots of international competition players would come to study with him. The cynic can say that that's because they knew that he'd end up on the jury of the competition they were wanting to do! (laughs) But for whatever reason, he had fabulous violinists studying with him.

Laurie: It sounds like you were soaking it up like a sponge.

Simon: Well, I got terrible shock when I went to Guildhall. When I went to Guildhall, I thought I was the best. And the reason I thought I was the best was because as far as I knew, I was! We're talking pre-Internet days. Today is the day of information, but it certainly wasn't in the 1960s. I didn't even play in the National Youth Orchestra. I won the prizes in the local little competitions in Wimbledon, and I didn't really know anybody who could play the violin at all. I could play anything that was put on the music stand, but people didn't put Paganini Caprices on the music stand, they didn't even put the Bruch Concerto on the music stand! I very easily got my place at Guildhall, nevertheless. Then in my first week at the Guildhall, Mincho Mincheff, the fabulous Bulgarian violinist who had just won the Carl Flesch Competition, was standing there, about five or six feet away from me, playing the Brahms Concerto -- on Szigeti's Guadagnini which had been left to him. I thought, my God, I can't do that, I'd better learn how to!

By my fifth year at Guildhall, I won the top competitive scholarship auditions to go to America, playing the Paganini Concerto No. 1. Also at that time I won the Noel Millidge Concerto Prize at the Guildhall, playing the Bruch G minor with the Symphony Orchestra. I have a recording of that performance that I am very proud of. Two weeks before that competition, I went from London to Aspen to audition for Miss [Dorothy] DeLay, and it was the Bruch that I played to her there.

Then, after I came back from studying with Miss DeLay for two years, over the next few years I had between one and about four lessons with several teachers, including Zakhar Bron, Hermann Krebbers, Igor Ozim, Frederick Grinke, Sandor Vegh, Emanuel Hurwitz and Eric Gruenberg. At that time I was playing some international competitions, though I didn't win any of them – though I did get to the semifinal of the Carl Flesch – doing them partly simply to try to power or force my playing up to new levels. After I was past the age-limit to play competitions, I carried on studying by myself and ended up doing all kinds of nice things, from playing recitals on the BBC, to leading lots of the orchestras here, to playing the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky concertos with the Philharmonia at Kenwood (London's equivalent of the Hollywood Bowl) in front of audiences of 10,000. I often say to my teenage students who can already play Paganini Caprices in tune and easily, that if I could do what I have done, starting from where I was at the age of 18, they can do anything!

Laurie: Do you remember your first student?

Simon: I remember my first student very well --- two students. I left school when I was 15. Because I was too young to go to Guildhall, I went to what was then called a Polytechnic. I took Music "A" level, kind of the highest exam you take in high school before you go to college. That was a two-year course, and it was a fantastic time. In the second year, somebody phoned to ask if there was somebody who could give two children violin lessons. I was 17, and I was the violinist there, so I was asked. I taught a little boy and girl, 9 and 7, both from Ireland, and I taught them for about two terms, every week, and took them through the associated board exams, Grade 5 and 3. Each took an exam, then the family moved back to Ireland, and I left Chiswick and went to Guildhall. But I used to skip down the road after those lessons. I just loved teaching those kids, it was just the best.

Then, I went to the Guildhall. Seeing Yfrah -- with his master classes there -- the way he was enjoying this whole violin world and this repertoire and all these students, it was this feeling of camaraderie amongst his class. I just looked at him doing that and thought, that's what I want to do. It was as simple as that.

Laurie: You've managed to teach quite a lot, and to continue playing. How do you keep the balance between the two?

Simon: What I've always found is that the teaching improves my playing, and of course my playing improves the teaching. Then I've found that writing about playing improves my playing as well. It has to do with mental rehearsal and mental visualization: When you are practicing something, then you decide to play it in a different way, you are changing your mental picture. Galamian was talking about it in the 1950s and 1960s; he said that all practicing is a matter of training the mind – nothing to do with training the muscles. When you make a change in your practice, you change your mental picture. This is why mental practice is so fantastic. You don't need a violin; you can go sit on a bench in the park and do fantastic work on whatever piece you are playing, There is a catch, though: you have to know what are the images you're meant to be forming in your mind. And there's a limit to it; you can't learn repertoire like that.

Laurie: Was there ever a time when you came across a student who just could not get something?

Simon: You mean have I ever found myself unable to cope with a particular student, can't sort them out? I've occasionally come up against a brick wall with a student, but very rarely. It's almost impossible that that happens.

Laurie: How do you avoid it?

Simon: I'm passionate about proportions, and this is something I got from Dorothy DeLay. I've put this in the Practice Book, and in the Violin Lesson book there's a big new section on this.

The story DeLay told me is simply this: Leonardo da Vinci was asked to go along and inspect an ancient statue that had just been unearthed. When he turned up, the statue was surrounded by a group of people, all talking about it in what today we would call "artsy-fartsy" language. He stood there in silence. Then he got out one of his famous notebooks, and he got out his measuring tools. He measured every angle, every width, every diameter, everything. He wrote it all down and went home.

As a man, he could see the beauty of the statue: the light and the line, the radiance and the expression. But as an artist, he knew that everything he was looking at was the result of certain proportions, and that was the key. Everything is a question of proportions: if you're a painter, if you're an architect, if you're a cook, if you're a designer of anything whatsoever, what you're dealing with is proportions. When you're making yourself a cup of coffee, you're dealing with proportions.

To me, this is the be-all and end-all, it's the answer to everything: Proportions.

Occasionally, you get a student come to you for a first lesson, and they say that their teacher just didn't know how to fix their problems, so they had to move on. Then you look at the student play, and all the proportions are completely wrong: the bow isn't straight to the bridge, the hand isn't round and nice on the bow...you don't know where to start. You think about the previous teacher not knowing where to start, and you wonder, how is that possible?

If you think in terms of proportions, as a teacher, you never reach that stage where you simply don't know what the next step to take with a student is. And as a player, you never reach that stage – you always know what to do next and improve next. If you can improve and refine the proportions, it's just endless.

Laurie: What exactly does this mean, when you are in a room, looking at a student?

Simon: What it means is, that everything technically can be described in terms of proportions. For example, tone production, every sound that comes out of the violin is the result of certain proportions of speed to pressure to distance from the bridge. Spiccato – every sound in spiccato is the result of certain proportions of length of bow to height of bow, with the added ingredient of how much hair you're using. And intonation, in the major scale, it starts whole-tone whole-tone half-step. You don't want a narrow whole-tone for the first two notes and then a wide whole-tone for the second two, they've got to be equi-distant, and that's a matter of proportions. You play an arpeggio, and if you go A C# E, A C# E, A, all the C#s have to be exactly the same, that means the proportion of two to one. It's all numbers, in the end. Vibrato is a question of mixing different proportions of speed and width, and another extra ingredient, how much finger pressure. Every single aspect of playing the physical violin is describable, and in few words, and the language of the describing is proportion.

You can also use proportion to describe music. To describe an accelerando, each note must be proportionately sooner than the previous one. If you make a crescendo, each note must be proportionately louder, and you can gauge and grade these things accordingly. Of course, lots of people think they make a crescendo when they don't, because they don't listen – actually every note is the same volume. But if they would listen – it's just proportions, everything is.

Laurie: How did you come up with your ideas for Basics?

Simon: Thinking in terms of proportions, or practicing with this in mind, you get flooded with ideas for new combinations of actions that lead to fantastic exercises which are entirely original, and yet based on completely sound principles and elements of violin playing. So many of the exercises in Basics are entirely original as a result of this. All the great violinists have played in these ways – but not necessarily knowing what they are doing or being able to explain it to somebody else.

The Basics book and the Practice books are simply the record of all the things I had to learn, in trying to learn how to play the violin. The Basics book started because, after a year or two of teaching in the early 1980s at Wells Cathedral School and continually writing out the same exercises for students in their notebooks, I finally woke up one day and thought, why don't I write it all down just once, photocopy it and hand it to them? Thus the very first Basics book was born, and it was 20 pages typed, on a typewriter. Then I kept revising it and producing better copies of it. A few years later, I bought my first word processor and decided to make a better version of the Basics book. I thought it would take only a week, but it took three months. It went from 20 pages to 50 double-sided pages because I added all the things I'd been doing in lessons and in my practice in the meantime. A few years later, I got my first proper PC, and that was when I thought I'd make the real super-duper Basics book, which then eventually led to it being published.

Basics and Practice books are just glorified lesson notebooks. If you had five years' worth of lessons and if you went to the trouble of writing down everything at the end of each lesson, you'd end up with a pile of hand-written notes. And if after five years you collated them and put them into order and gave them nice bold headings, what you'd end up with would be these books.

Laurie: What are some of the top exercises in the books?

Simon: Many people ask me that, and it is difficult to answer because I always want my pupils to do them all. But the intonation exercise, number 255, is perhaps one to mention. It is simple to prove how good it is: play, say, a three octave scale in A major; then practice number 255 for 10 minutes in A major; then play the scale again. The scale will be very much easier and more in tune. The question is: if you had practiced the scale itself for ten minutes, could you have improved it that much? Normally the answer is: no way. I always like to say that if there is a violin heaven-world, then Dounis, Flesch, Sevcik and all the rest are up there either shaking their fist at me in annoyance - because they did not think of it themselves - or else (hopefully) they are nodding encouragingly.

Then there are the tone exercises. I call these "million-dollar tone exercises," because they are worth a million dollars each. They will be in my Tone Production DVD, which is set to come out in about six weeks. Three or four of these were taught to me by Dorothy DeLay and Masau Kawasaki, the rest are my own combinations out of the basic exercises. But just 10 minutes a day doing these exercises in the first few weeks, then 10 minutes three times a week for a while, then once a week after that (or used briefly as a daily warm-up), is all it takes to utterly transform your tone.

Laurie: Tell me about the recording of the Brahms sonatas that you did with your father, Raymond Fischer. What's it like to collaborate with a family member?

Simon: We played the complete Brahms in Wigmore Hall in 1988 or '89. Prior to that we played them in at least six or seven music club performances around the U.K. Something about those sonatas remind me of my childhood, of my mother. I just love playing them to death, and to play them with my father. We played them in a big concert in Australia in 2004, and that was my first visit back to Australia since I'd left as a child. My mother passed away a long time ago, and so she never lived to see my career unfold in the way that it has. So it's very significant to be playing those pieces in Sydney with my father, as an adult.

As for Brahms, Benjamin Britten said that, once a year he would listen to a piece of Brahms just to remind himself how awful music can be. In the Brahms vs. Berlioz clash at the time, the composer Hugo Wolf, as a young man, wrote as a music critic to make some money on the side, and he wrote that in one cymbal crash from Berlioz you had more music than in the then-three symphonies (he hadn't written the fourth yet) of Brahms put together. This is what he wrote! All I can say is that if these people do not understand Brahms, then what can you say to explain it to them? I just can't be bothered.

Laurie: I actually love Brahms. He's one of my favorite composers.

Simon: Mine, too. The second piano concerto, the piano quintet, the clarinet quintet, the fourth symphony, the second symphony....

Laurie: ...and the first and third as well!

Simon: The first and third! And the fiddle concerto! I have to say I'm not the greatest Benjamin Britten fan...I would exchange the entire works of Benjamin Britten for one of the violin sonatas, any day, without thinking twice about it!

Laurie: Now one last question, I hope you'll indulge me. I know that you've played a lot of studio gigs, and also that you played with Sting. I'm a pretty big Sting fan – what was it like to work with him?

Simon: Yes I did play with Sting. The recording for Ten Summoners Tales took place at his house in Wiltshire -- it's a 16th century mansion that you have to see to believe. I don't remember this, but someone reminded me recently that at one point in the day I met Sting in one the hallways. "Nice place you've got here," I said. (Don't ask me why I said that, but I did.) He looked around thoughtfully, and said, "Yes, and I got it for a song. Well, two songs, actually!"

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Violin Community News 2010, Op. 8

March 3, 2010 19:13

Violinist Yura Lee, 24, of South Korea, won the fifth annual UNISA International String Competition in South Africa last month, here is an article about it. Her winning pieces included the Beethoven Violin Sonata in D Major Op. 12, No. 1, and the Valse-Scherzo by Tchaikovsky.

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David Soyer, 1923-2010. String players are mourning the death last week of cellist David Soyer, a founding member of the Guarneri Quartet who served on the faculties of Curtis, the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music and taught lessons until two weeks before his death at age 87. Here is the obituary that appeared in the New York Times.

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Forget about having your child listen to Mozart to boost his or her brainpower; you're going to have spring for the actual violin lessons. Apparently, the much-ballyhooed Mozart Effect only works if you learn to play an instrument, according to an article last week in the LA Times.

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Congratulations to violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who, according to this story about canceling a performance with the Springfield Symphony, appears to be expecting.

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Four concerts next week in Carnegie Hall will feature the various faces of the Kronos String Quartet, which will perform one concert that features of all works by Terry Riley; another concert with electronics and toy instruments; another with an Arctic theme, and then the last concert with Central Asian and Korean artists. The New York Times featured the quartet in an article that goes in to depth about these projects.

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Former Wall Street Journal writer Joanne Lipman described in the New York Times last week how she dusted off her viola to play in a concert to honor her childhood teacher, Jerry Kupchynsky (“Mr. K"), a hard-driving music teacher who brought so many people together, people who still feel their bond of music.

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