Note 13 Contact Point

April 24, 2008 at 8:02 PM

Sometimes a lesson (for me) vaporizes into thin air as soon as i step off the stoop and walk to my car. I have to write down key elements to work on. I carry my note book to each lesson and plop down and write myself notes even though I know it is eating into valuable demonstration time. Some lessons do stick in my brain because my "receptors' are open and sometimes I just know that my teacher is rockin'. (I'll explain about that later.)
This note is about a real vivid lesson on the "contact point." I was doing scales and each note was to last an entire bowoke. This was a lesson on improving my tone. I could improve my rhythm by working with the metronome but this time it was specific for tone. I was given a really interesting explanation about tone and the placement of the bow in relationship to the bridge and what happens when i stray from this specific "space.' I apologize that I don't know all the technical terms, but the demonstration that my instructor gave me that I replicated really drove the point home.
I am now using my practice time at home to consistently aim for the best tone possible and it is not negotiable to stray from the precise instructions about what piece of string real estate is the best place to be to get the correct tone and eliminate the screechiness.
Ok on the other point. I know that for the most part teachers, instructors, and professors really want their students to do well and have to come up with a lesson design for us weekly regardless of what level we have achieved artistically, or how coordinated we are or how receptive we are to any instruction at all.
I am a (was) a teacher myself and I think that some weeks, my teacher really rocks--I have noticed that after a really great concert or some sort of difficult performance I get a super-off the chart lesson: Enthusiasm, wisdom, diagnostic skills and precise instruction.
Is this just me? I think that all teachers need or should be required to hob-nob with really wonderful violinists and/or musicians/ artists to remind themselves how rockin' they really are. To be locked in a room with Miss or Mr. Screechy Strings for weeks at a time without reprieve is not exactly artistically healthy.
Make sure your teacher gets out of his cage and gets to perform.
I think that Recitals should be for the teachers. (We know how we sound. Ha!)
What do you-all think?

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on April 25, 2008 at 6:12 AM

I think that violin teachers should keep a good balance by going to concerts played by great violinists. I think some multi-millionaire should establish a fund for us so that we can buy concert tickets.

From Theresa Martin
Posted on April 25, 2008 at 5:49 PM

The book "Artist's Way" (don't remember the author) called them "artist's dates" and they are extremely important for artists in any medium to keep fresh and inspired.

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Note 13 Contact Point

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