January 18, 2005 at 3:28 PM

So, my first lesson with Mr. Weilerstein. There is only one person in the world who can teach like Mr Weilerstein. Yesterday we spent the majority of time on relaxing the muscle by the armpit.
I was late for my lesson and after I ran up 4 stairs, I jumped into the room and played straight away Tchaikovksy's Valse Scherzo. I sounded as if I was still running up the stairs and I tried to "will" my way through the piece. It was not exactly the most relaxed performance I have given.
My shifts were kind of sticky, so Mr. Weilerstein came with some ideas:
Playing all kinds of fingerpatterned scales bent over, through which these particular muscles by the armpit would start getting flexible.
First we started out with doing long legato notes, with vibrato impulses, then we went on to all kind of one, two and three fingered scales on one string, we did some finger patterns, which you can find in Sevcik op.8 or Schradieck and eventually we ended up with shifting exercises as you can find in the artist technique of Dounish. But somehow the only thing I could think of was if I had used deodorant that morning, since I was "opening up" my armpits...

Since I have been back at school, I really noticed something. In general one can catagorize the musicians here: the ones that are convinced they are going to be the next Perlman's, Du Pre's or Kissin, and then the ones that are convinced they are not capable of playing an instrument at all. I have only seen very few musicians that have a healthy way of assessing their own talent.
What is this?
I guess the pressure at the Juilliard School is high. Students come from all over the world, and often they were in their hometown among the top 5 players. However entering an institution as Juilliard asks for a healthy and honest assesment of ones own talent. It seems however that this is a problem. Either we retreat into almost a musical feutal position, critizing everything we do, hating he way we sound, and reluctantly (but also very relieved deeply inside us) listen to collegues who tell us it is not all that bad.
The other option is to shoot to the other side and trying to talk away our insecurity: Look at how many concerts I have, how fast I can play this Paganini or sometimes even making things up, such as flying last minute to Berlin for a gig with the Philharmonic there.
However, both come from a deep sense of insecurity. My experience is that this reaction on the insecurity takes place, when we derive our sense of identity from our playing. The people I meet that are comfortable with there current state of affairs on the instrument, are not necesarry the ones that are the best players, they are the ones that know that even when their playing is not up to their own standards, it will not change anything on how people think of them. Ofcourse, I also have experienced that after I do well at a competition, I seem to have a lot more "friends", but I have learned that for my real friends it will not make any difference how and even if I play. My friends want me to play well, because they know how important music is to me, but for no other reason.
I still do beat myself up, when I don't play well, such as in my lesson yesterday. But only because I know I did not put enough time in it. And the "beating up" will not take all my energy (and that of the people around me :) because I know that the only way to change it, is through discipline.

Music is what we do, not who we are. Or maybe I should rephrase this: Music is who we are, but our worth is not dependant upon what other people think of it. When I play my violin, I give everything I have. It is the most honest account of who Carla is, I would not even know how to not be honest or be fake while playing. What I put into music when performing is who I am. Now, when I play out of tune, I can hate myself, which is very ineffective for many things (such as relations, practicing habits with danger of not practicing at all or over practicing etc) or I can decide to practice slow and more scales. But that doesn't mean, just because I gave it all, that I am not a good musician, and certainly doen't mean that I as a human being am worthless.
I wish they would set a practice limit at the Juilliard school: one needs to practice a minimum of 3 hours a day and a maximum of 5 hours. It would also definetly solve the practice room shortage, and would leave room for people to be social, make friends and figure out that we don't need the instrument as a reason for our being in this world.
PS: to be fair, this problem is ofcourse not limited to Juilliard, but since that is where I currently spend all my time, it is where my observations are made. Juilliard is a wonderful school, which lends itself for much artistic growth. Maybe as students we can help eachother also towards more growth as a humans, by offering sincere friendships etc.

From Jessica Smith
Posted on January 19, 2005 at 1:30 AM

Thanks Carla, you had some good points there.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on January 19, 2005 at 2:42 AM

Carla, there is a lot of wisdom in what you wrote. I know a 70 year old man who is a professional musician (singer and guitarist) who is still artistically very active. Recently he developed cancer of the vocal chords and had to have surgery which made a mess of his singing. Of course, he was very depressed. After spending some time with his new wife and a lot of friends, he had a great revelation. "People don't love me for my voice. They love me for who I am."

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January 18, 2005 at 3:28 PM

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