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The Happy Violinist

August 27, 2012 at 5:28 PM

Why is it that some of the best violinists I know, trained to solo levels, are the most unhappy? I have seen this multiple times and they have all the success in the world-- tours, residuals, call-backs, many fans and friends.

I think it's because music is simple. It's really just this:


And it will always be this. Music doesn't change.

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I think that the problem lies in the fact that before you frolic with your fiddle in the prairie, you have to figure out how to play the dang thing. The first noises you make on the violin (for like three years!) don't make you want to frolic! And as you work toward making it all sound beautiful, you develop some pretty high standards, and then you just don't know when to turn off the perfectionism and happily enjoy the fact that you are making lovely music now.
I frolicked immediately. First thing I did when I got my first violin was to pizz "Blue Danube".

Maybe that was the problem -
I never really bothered that much. ;)

gc

PS I have just realised that maybe the fact I felt at ease with, and made a good sound on, my violin pretty much straightaway is why I have never really "worked" at it.

Sure, I have developed things, and practised, and drilled, but never to the extent that a good orchestral player has to have done. I have spent a great deal of time just "messing about" on the fiddle.

I never really got to grips with reading, because I could get things by ear very quickly. Never practised vibrato, because I developed one spontaneously that my teacher liked.

If I had found it more difficult, would I have worked harder at it? Would I have put in the extra that would have made me a better technician?

I suspect so.

gc

If music is simple and unchanging, I'm in the wrong field of study.
Yes, but when did you last prance in a prairie?