Violin lesson: Soups and slides

October 29, 2007 at 9:16 PM

“Stop, stop! It is much too salty!”

How can music be salty? We know that soup can be ruined with too much salt. Too much of anything is not a good thing: Too much heat makes a burnt toast, too much dressing makes a revolting salad, too much cleanliness makes a weak immune system—you get the point. But how can music be salty or sweet? That was my question when my violin teacher told me that x passage was “much too salty”.

His response?
"Did you ever make soup?" Not waiting for me to answer his question, my teacher continued to explain in detail three things: What makes good soup, what makes average soup, and what makes the soup that clogs up throats.

"Violin playing," he said, "is very similar to soups. You play all the notes—that is an average soup. You can pick up any ol’ cookbook, follow the recipe, and you have soup. Perhaps the soup is a bit bland or off-tasting, but it is nevertheless recognizable as soup.

“Now to make that average bowl into a masterpiece, you have to add the perfect blend of seasonings for flavor. You add the pepper, the herbs, the salt. Maybe you add some potatoes. Finally, you have to add a little something-something that makes the soup unique, so that it isn’t like every other bowl of potato soup I taste. Understand?”

“So what makes up the soup that clogs up throats?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said chuckling, “that happens when you add too many potatoes and the soup comes out thick like pudding.”

-----

When we finally stopped talking about cooking, we got into adressing the slides aka salt.

I had been doing quite a large slide in this measure of Reinhold Glière's Romance. My teacher suggested that I do something smaller. He demonstrated his own way of playing it, and I realized that he was doing some sort of portamento that I couldn't quite place my finger on. How the heck was he making the sound?

I asked him, and found his explaination quite interesting.

He would play the G and the F#, and then just as he was going to play the C#, he would make his F# a hair flat. Then he would play the C# a hair flat for a split second before switching to the normal C#. All this was done completely naturally and I didn't realize exactly what my teacher was doing until played the same passage super slow after explaining it to me. After that, when I knew what I was listening for, I could hear the slight change in pitch before and after the shift. It was quite freaky, for lack of a better word. I'm interested in any thoughts about the topic.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on October 30, 2007 at 2:02 AM

Greetings,
obviously you have a very sensitive ear to the violin. If you want to really hear some interesting but subtle stuff check out Enesco. Menuhin was very influenced by his myraidsliding techniques and you can hear this in his Bartok and Enesu recordings /DVD.
Worth a look.
Cheers,
Buri

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on October 30, 2007 at 5:23 AM

Speaking of cool slides, if you have Milstein's Bach on DG, listen to the 2nd C in measure 12 of the Sarabande from the 2nd partita. He slides downward on it before going to the Bb above it. Compared to most slides it's a subtle move, but it gives a fantastic color. He doesn't do it in the repeat.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on October 30, 2007 at 6:21 AM

I don't understand why your teacher does a slide that way. What is the effect? It would make me feel confused.

From Linda L
Posted on October 30, 2007 at 10:06 AM

Pauline, the effect is fantastic. I can't really describe the sound, and I'm having quite a difficult time trying to do it. (As in, the change is too big and not natural. Too salty.) It sounded like quite the thing to incorporate just because it was different, and make one think, "Wow, what the heck was that?" at a subtle but very audible nuance. Not confusing, but interesting.

I'll check out the Bach tonight since I own it. Many thanks for the suggestions, Buri and Jim.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on October 30, 2007 at 11:00 AM

How much slide is actually audible in the space between the F# and the C#? Does that small change in pitch frame something else, or is it pretty clean otherwise? What finger actually does the sliding?

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Violin lesson: Soups and slides

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