If it`s no fun go home. Oh sorry, you are home!

October 18, 2007 at 12:37 AM

Greetings,
We live in an age when so much has been quantified and standardized that the world of the violin seems to have a built in paradox: more and more players can attain a higher and higher technical level yet thinking for oneself and going deeper is, at least to me, becoming rarer. Everything is handed to everyone on a plate but exploring the grain of the wood of the table underneath the plate is missing…
Thus, if we compare today’s technical manuals (Galamian, or Basics or Drew`s new tome which I am not going to mention) with one of yesteryear such as Auer’s little book it seems like the latter is less and less relevant in today’s violin world. Yet it contains so many simple truths that the player should ponder and arrive at their own conclusions over time that it still belongs at the front of every player’s book shelf. One of the bits of important advice Auer gives is `always finish a practice session, no matter how technical with a melodious work. Never forget the violin is a singing instrument.`
The reason I am thinking of this is that it seems to me today’s students have strict regimes and they do their applied Galamianisms and finish with a great sense of satisfaction because stimulating the intellect is –very- satisfying but stimulating the heart is as important and if this is neglected then practicing becomes a penance ever the long run. It is this kind of sparse (albeit deep) diet that leads to the recent cry on a thread about scales `What is the point of this? What am I supposed to be trying to achieve?` The point becomes clear when the emotion and intellect are in balance. Explanation then becomes superfluous.
I often think of this because I am –very- over prone to doing way too much technical practice as though it were a goal in itself and it can leave me on a practicing roller coaster. Basically I have an enormous need to play even though I have long since retired from the professional world. So I make myself get up at four thirty every morning and impose on myself the discipline of working on bowing, scales blah blah because this is how my intellectual side believes the world of practicing must be. But it is a flawed view and when I stop and think about it very often my unconscious is nagging away with the `again?` complaint and I am not feeling great. I have more than enough self discipline to continue, but its not fun.
This morning I got through a truncated routine with not a great deal of pleasure but, because of an upcoming trio concert I had no choice but to spend the final half hour on the first movement of the Beethoven c minor piano trio even though I have performed it a zillion time. I approached it with a sense of slavery, worked in a desultory fashion for a few minutes and then I arrived at the most simple and charming little fragment. Seven notes in third position which are tossed between the instruments like a sexy little exchange of affection. I didn’t like what I was hearing so I stopped and began fiddling around, as it were. Couldn’t get it to sound right. Sang it again and again. `A bit closer. Experiment, no vibrato, vibrato and no phrasing in the bowing, how much hair, sing it again and again. Now it’s beginning to sound like a fragment of music. How long did that take? Geeze, 35 minutes!!!! Time to go to work. Gosh I feel on cloud nine. What a beautiful day!`
This I think is the best way to leave a practice session and if one can train oneself to work this way much more effective and rapid results can be achieved. If one perpetually carries around a slight feeling of staleness or `I have to learn this for my teacher,` then there really is no fun in what one is doing and fun –is- a recognized component of genuinely successful work according to modern psychological know how, not to mention prunes.
Cheers,
Buri

From Yixi Zhang
Posted on October 18, 2007 at 6:10 AM

Buri, I wish I had the problem you’ve described. To receive teachers’ comments such as I’m very musical but need to work harder on technique is really an embossing thing to me and I do try hard on building technical stuff. But in the end, having fun always tips the balance and I’d be spending hours working from Bach to Bruch to Viott to Bach again, instead of Kreuzter etudes, which I really should work harder on.

Maybe only a serious artist should have the kind of problem you are addressing -- kind of the whole package comes with being a fine musician I guess?

From Tara Shaw
Posted on October 18, 2007 at 3:42 PM

My question regarding scales was because I thought I was missing something I should be paying attention to. Is it scales for the sake of scales, or for the sake of something bigger. My main violin issue now, at my level, is getting a feel for the fingerboard, and I keep wondering if scales are supposed to be helping with this. Perhaps they are, but at a much subtler level than I'd prefer. ;-) (I like big a-ha moments, but I'm realizing that those come farther and fewer between as I advance...)

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on October 18, 2007 at 10:30 PM

Greetings,
its never scales for the sake of scales, as I am sure you have realized.
Part of the doubts you are having is, I think, implicit in what you write. You ask about getting to know the fingerboard. taht is absolutely correct but it obscutred the idea thats cale practice is-at least- fifty percent about developing bowing skills. All manner of slurs, staccatos, techniques shoudl be incorportae d into the basic scale practice and these should be driven by what you feel is weakets in your pieces.
Incidentally, modern technique tends to emphasize the elarnign of basic finger patterns ratehr than three octave scales for sheer efficeincy in getitng to know the fingerboard.
Cheers,
Buri

From Charlie Caldwell
Posted on October 19, 2007 at 3:17 AM

Thank you for writing this blog, Buri. I have felt this feeling before. It is always when I play some stupid little melody.

I have a question for you about what Tara asked. My teacher has me learn new techniques with scales, then in etudes, and then apply it to real music. Do you think this is a good idea?

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on October 19, 2007 at 5:49 AM

Greetings,
sounds great to me. If you follow through the thinking that is music driven. Your excellent teacher has identifed a weak area in your technique that is making ypur pieces less than they could be. The etchnqiue is absorbed in scale s/etudes and filter sback into the pieces.
Cheers,
Buri

From Tara Shaw
Posted on October 19, 2007 at 2:12 PM

Ah, okay, Buri. I suspect I haven't gotten that far yet. ;-) I do the acceleration patterns with the scales (Galamian, I think? 2,3,4,6 notes per bow) but nothing more at this point. Perhaps more is still to come. I'm not doing any bowing other than detache currently.

Thank you for all your comments by the way, you're always so extremely helpful, it's much appreciated.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on October 20, 2007 at 5:40 AM

Hi Tara,
the acceleration exercise is excellent. Incidentally, when Galamian taught it he had the students play -martele- on all the single notes until the tempo became toofast for this stroke (it is actually a slowish tempo stroke...) You might give that a try. Nothing to stop you playign around with all manner of different bowings. I bet you have done quite a lot of differnt kinds in Wolfarht, Kayser, yes?
Cheers,
Buri

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