May 2013
Week 2 Without a You-Know-What
May 19, 2013 16:50I'm on my second week without a You-Know-What. Collarbones were made for holding the viola. The biggest thing I have to watch out for is not raising my shoulder and going into "clamp the darned thing between my jaw & shoulder" mode. I probably used to do this all the time with a You-Know-What, but without one it is much more noticeable when I do that dreaded act.
I have discovered that the thumb is a movable object. Sometimes it is high, sometimes it is low, sometimes behind the first finger and sometimes between the 1st and 2nd finger. But by all means it shouldn't stay completely stationary. A stationary thumb tends to lead to tension.
My bowing straightened itself out over the past week. I now have that nice squared stance that has eluded me for years. I also discovered that I can reach the very tip of the bow without having to do odd right-arm stretches.
But best of all is that my vibrato is starting to finally loosen up and has become less spastic and more continuous. Now if I can break through this muscular speed limit before tensing up, I'll be golden.
6 replies
A Week Without the You-Know-What
May 12, 2013 19:27A week has gone by without the You-Know-What. Instead I have a cute little "crabby paddy" (it is a dense sponge in the shape of a crab)to cushion my collarbone and give a wee bit of support. It seems that is all I need. Granted, muscles I haven't used before are a bit sore, mostly in my forearm and base of my hand near the thumb. However, gone is the never ending muscle tension & cramps I used to get in my neck and wrists.
Things I've learned this past week:
1) I CAN downshift, and from quite a distance without resorting to left hand and shoulder gymnastics.
2) My thumb needs to be under the neck more than it was with the You-Know-What.
3) Changing posture/position makes my bowing go catty-wonkle.
4) Instead of playing a wee bit flat all the time, I'm now playing a wee bit sharp all the time.
5) I can finally vibrate with my 1st finger on all strings except the Cing after a week of work.
In fact, my vibrato is progressing better than I had thought it would. It is a fine balance, but by letting the neck of the instrument rest on my thumb, the rest of my hand is free to move. And as an added benefit, it is so much easier to shift up in the nose-bleed sections than ever before, even on the C string. Without the You-Know-What getting in the way, I can move my viola around a bit to get up there without my left hand getting stuck on the upper bouts.
Who knew?
Restless in Houston
May 3, 2013 18:11For years I've struggled with mastering the art of vibrato. For years I've also struggled with tension and trying to find a comfortable setup. The two go hand in hand. This year, I'm determined to try to do something about it - again. This year I'm doing something radically different. I'm ditching my shoulder rest - for awhile at least.
For a violist, I'm small - 5' 2" with average sized hands playing on a 16" viola. Using an average shoulder rest at its lowest setting is too high for me in some spots. I tend to clench the instrument between my chin and shoulder in an attempt to free my left hand to move about the fingerboard. In doing so however, my left hand also tenses up in response to the overall tension on that side of my body. At the end of the day, I turn into a ball of violistic tension. Not good.
I have tried almost every conceivable chin rest / shoulder rest combination known to man over the years, and even tried to invent a few myself. Last year, I thought I hit on a winning combination until a few weeks ago when my teacher and I started working on my vibrato again. That is when all these little tension issues were put under a spotlight. I was sent home to experiment on what freed up my left hand no matter how bad sounded or awkward it felt.
Over the following week, I started from scratch. Off with the chin-rest and shoulder rest, and found the ideal position in which to hold my viola within minutes. I added my existing chinrest back on, and things were still good. The moment I added ANY shoulder rest, things went down hill faster than a baseball on a waxed slide.
So, I tried playing without a SR altogether. Not so bad! Having built up a habit of practicing for a few minutes every day without one over the past year, I slowly learned how it felt to play without one so it wasn't a scary place to be. However after about 30 minutes of playing, my collar bone starting getting red and tender. I added a sponge. Ahhhhhh. Much better! It also took out a bit of the side-to-side wobble I was getting when changing strings.
OK, we're getting somewhere. BUT.... I hadn't tried to vibrate yet. I tried it. A bit of wobbling, a little adjustment and viola! The best looking vibrato and most relaxed one I ever had. BUT... could I shift? Up - no problem. Down... well, that was a different story all together. I could do it, but it felt weird. BUT... feeling weird per the instructions I was given was not a reason to give up on it. My lessons were the next day, so I decided that it was what it was and let it be.
I presented the results of my experimentation to my teacher the next day, both with and without the SR. Her judgement was the same as mine. Without a SR but with a sponge or two seemed to be the winning combo from a vibrato and tension standpoint. Then the test... how did it sound? Could I do my 3-octave D-minor scale up and back down again? I hadn't tried that yet, so had no idea if I could do it or not.
We were both satisfied with the sound - no noticeable damping from the sponge. Then, the scale. Getting up there was easy. Getting back down again... surprisingly easier than ever before. It seemed that this new position freed my left hand up enough that it was no longer getting stuck on the upper bouts when coming back down from 7th position. It was a bit of a trick, but I could do it. The rest of the lesson was done with nothing but a sponge. After the end of the hour, I felt good. No residual tension in my neck. A first. BUT, the next evening would be the real test - chamber music rehearsal.
I let my fellow musicians (should I also say woman-friends?)know what I was attempting to do. Luckily, chamber music rehearsals are all about camaraderie, fun and support so I had no fear of my floundering ruining rehearsal. I showed off my new found skill and got the same verdict that my teacher gave me - it looked so much more natural and relaxed. It was time to dive into Mozart's Divertamento - Adagio movement.
It felt comfortable, and I even managed to vibrate quite a bit though it still sounded a bit like a bad Wagnerian opera singer. We ran through a bit of the first Allegro movement, and the little parts that I had such a difficult time with before were so much easier. Who knew! The verdict from my group was two thumbs up.
Though my forearm and base-of-thumb muscles were a bit sore at the end of rehearsal, it was from using muscles I hadn't used before and not from tension. Success!!!!
As Elise told me on FB afterwards.. welcome to the "light" side. Well now, I'm a violist and will remain on the "dark side", but I get her drift. This might work out afterall.
More entries: April 2013
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