Bowing in the right direction

March 29, 2006 at 1:08 AM

This week I'm doing three things during practice:

1. Tuning Violin's Sister.
2. Doing Buri's exercises with the bow.
3. Bowing open strings.

I'm getting better at tuning with the pegs. AND Sister is staying more and more in tune. So tuning only takes a couple of minutes.

Once she's tuned, I can't practice long, maybe 5 or 8 minutes. But I have noticed that my bow arm is stronger than it was when I had to stop last summer. My bow used to bounce a lot because I was so weak; now it only bounces a little.

I've also realized that I don't mind doing the same barely musical things over and over again.

I'm happy bowing open strings.

Is it unusual to be happy doing simple exercises? I could bow open strings, right now at least, for an hour at a time. The mechanics are so interesting. The same goes for Buri's exercises, where one holds the bow still on a string, first at the middle of the bow, then the point, then the heel.

When I was taking lessons, I have to say that I sometimes felt rushed. I thought it was my own impatience to be making progress. But I think now, maybe, it was partly because deep inside I wanted to spend more time on the exercises, and I wasn't really ready to play a tune.

Even back then, I could spend five minutes fingering and bowing the same note, over and over, and be fascinated by what was happening.

Once our schedules line up, I'm going to begin lessons with my teacher again. Do you think I should mention my desire to spend more time mastering exercises to my teacher? On one hand, I don't want to interfere with her pedagogical approach; on the other, I think I'd be happier if I could do exercises longer between trying to learn new songs. I don't know.

Any thoughts?

From Elizabeth Chavez
Posted on March 29, 2006 at 5:49 AM

well the exercises are there to help you in your technic in solo playing...I mean it's ok to spend a lot of time on exercises, but you should spend even more on solo work and playing peices...there's actually more to learn like dynamics, phrasing, and all that other good stuff...then putting it all together. Where as exercises are to focus on one thing at a time like bow arm, or left hand. Exercises are important, but they shouldn't be your main focus.

...just my thoughts

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on March 29, 2006 at 7:02 AM

Here are my suggestions, speaking as a violin teacher. Playing violin is really technical and complex, so it's great that you are happy doing a few simple things over and over. I tell my students that they need to learn to find happiness in small increments of progress. If you feel that you'd like to spend some time on playing exercises and developing your technical skills, by all means, tell your teacher. She may or not agree, but it's important to feel that you can talk things over with her. She'll probably be thrilled that you want to work on your technique. One of my beginning students told me that he really wanted to learn to play scales, so he bought a book and starting working on them. I was ecstatic! I have the hardest time getting my students to practice scales. Most important, enjoy playing and learning.

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Bowing in the right direction

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