May 29, 2005 at 9:33 AM

Inspired by the incredible technique I have seen by most performers at the competition, I have put myself on a heavy technique diet...
It has been years since I have, over a periode of time, done etudes, exercises such as Sevcik and Schradieck, and scales in a system like Flesch. I had kind of developed my own system of warming up, but I think it is time for some rigorous work.
On top of that, now I am officially without a teacher, I need to be my own teacher. And the best I can come up with to go back into the discipline my teacher exercised when I was a kid. Twice week lessons, playing scales, etudes and always some Bach, a sonata, concerto and maybe a virtuoso piece. A very well balanced diet, so to speak, while I was her student. So well balanced that none of my teachers afterwards felt the need to continue this, or maybe I send them unconscious signals, that I needed a more "loose" approach.
So back to basic for now. I'll start out with geving myself twice a week a lesson: recording everything twice a week, yes, even scales, and than listening to it, like I would to a student (which means I can't only be negative, I find it much easier to bring things in a positive critisism when it goes to somebody else, where as I am not quite physically beating myself up when I play f.i. out of tune, but mentally I don't leave one bit in place when it happens... even during concerts and more so during competitions, hence my nervousness...)
Hopefully I will be able to buy a video camera soon, so I also can start seeing visually where technical problems might have their origin.

I fins it funny, how now that I am no longer a student, I find myself reading "philosophy of music" and treatises on harmonic language. In school you could not get me to touch it.I barely left the building and to keep myself in shape Dandelot and Starer (eartraining) are on my desk...
Not only music related things, I spend several hours a day reading, putting my books on art history, world history and history of philsophy together, to get a better feeling about what it is humans find their roots in. History and Philosphy are so intertwined and art is always a reaction upon that. So as an artist I figured, I probably should be more aware of thoughtprocesses in society, both in a hostorical context, but also for the here and now. As a violinist you are bringing history alive. You play music composed sometimes more than 300 years ago, but if you don't know anything about the things that were playing, then I think you make it yourself unnecesarry difficult. There is another point of view: music deals with emotions, and emotions are universal and without any context of time. Often the music reveals the emotion, but sometimes it does not so obvious. I know Shostakovich concerto is not a happy, virtuosic concerto. I know Shostakovich lived in terror, in fear of his life and of the life of hos loved onces. But between knowing and feeling there is a difference. I need to emerge myself in it, and I think I have not done that enough. I know fear and terror in this age, and although the emotion might be simular (that is something we will never be able to find out) the circumstances are not. When 9-11 happened I was able to contact within 4 days all my loved ones. One hundred years ago, you might have heard something happened, a war started, but it could take years before you would know if your financee would still be alive. Living with that changes people and I want to understand more about what that is.
Why was Bach such a God fearing man, what was in that time that God was so powerful where as Nietzsche and many people around him, including Wagner and Strauss declared God dead. I know these things, but I don't understand them, I don't always understand the thought process. Maybe that is what I am excited about, in school we learn the facts. Now I want to know why the facts developed the way the became. Same goes for violin playing; I learned how to get around the instrument, I can play the big concertos. Now I want to be able to analyze what I am doing, how and why... so back to basics...

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on May 30, 2005 at 3:05 AM

I went through a period like that. Most of my significant learning was later and outside the classroom.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on May 30, 2005 at 6:48 AM

Carla, I admire your dedication and self discipline. I also admire your breadth of view, your ideas on knowing vs feeling, and your curiousity about why things happened the way they did. Your remarks on the difference between rapid communication in the era of 911 and slow, sometimes agonizing, communication in the past were so vivid that they stimulated my own thinking. You are very resourceful with ideas. I hope you continue to share your insights with us.

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May 29, 2005 at 9:33 AM

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