June 22, 2005 at 2:33 PM

This week I had two more lessons. Monday I saw Ms. Kopec, who is a sweet lady, full of life and character, and who calls all the students "angel" and "darling." She gave me some musical ideas about colors, and of course a few different bowings and fingerings, which seem to always be subject to revision here. In a few days, Grigory might be able to get me a copy of Zukerman's bowings and fingerings for the Beethoven Concerto, as he actually once sat down and watched a video of a Zukerman performance and notated everything that he did.

I had another great lesson with Grigory this morning. It had occurred to me since the session with music psychologist Marsha Winokour that, as we all have different ways of finding our center or focus, mine is in a way the polar opposite of the school of thought and playing here at this program. I focus emotionally in performance and practicing, and am virtually unconscious of my physical motions. Grigory, however, and my teacher Mr. Ribeiro as well, find fullfilment in focusing on the technical, physical mechanics of producing the sound. All emotional energy is conveyed through the hands, and the performer is more of a craftsman whose job it is to make the audience feel, rather than being emotionally overwhelemed or out of control himself. Grigory also changed his style pretty dramatically after coming to study with Kopec and then Zukerman, and he recounted how at one of his first lessons with Zukerman, he played a piece very emotionally with a lot of motions. Zukerman then played it back for him, and "the violin was weeping"--but Zukerman was telling him jokes the whole time. That story definitely conveys the power of what at least one violinist in the world is able to express through pure sound alone.

June 22, 2005 at 2:33 PM

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