Personal Hygiene and Invention

July 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM

Greetings everyone:

I thought this would be a topic people would wonder about. I was very impressed by a film of Nathan Milstein in which he said, "If you don't understand invention... you might as well quit the violin". I believe I understood this in a naive way. But I was curious what other people have found. I believe it is all about conscience-raising and boredom management (to put it not so nicely). This was so amusing to me in that I noticed few people on violinist.com talk about hygiene in regards to finger nails. I actually have a semi-ritual about it and was wondering if others were as neurotic. Or if you have found some “bizzarities” with other peoples hygiene habits?

The odd thing is that when I feel my playing is off or I am struggling with a hither too undistinguished problem. I often fall back on my rituals, so I cut my nails. And clean down my violin meticulously assuring that I get all the rosin off the strings, placing special attention to all the build-up from below the strings (most of it seems to be on the back of the strings). This is conscience raising to me and helps me, to some extent, break the “habit”.

Any humorous ideas or stories that people have heard. How do you re-invent your playing?

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Mike F

From Anne-Marie Proulx
Posted on July 18, 2009 at 1:14 PM

Euh, I rub my neck each time before playing with rubbing alcohol. It prevents a lot sweat (in normal conditions not at 30 degrees under the sun!). As for fingers, no matter what, after practicing they become black black black. I have good hands hygiene and my strings aren't dirty. But I could frighten anyone with this and it is too funny to see the weird face of people when they notice it. It slightly goes away with washing but steels says black : ( But will I stop just because of this! No!

Funny, I always clean my violin but I clean it even more meticulously when it went well and feel totally in love with it lol! When I feel I would smash it on the wall, my routine is to stop playing because anger brings muscular tension and I hate the sound of violin when the player is angry and all tensed up... Then I take a deep breath, go sit and listen to wonderful music. Very often some music by Oistrakh since his sound speaks to me and is able to give hope to the most desperate people (I find). For me, this is the best thing to clear up my mind and try to focus again because when I become very angry, no sense telling it to everybody since no one can understand me and I would look very crazy to them. My family is non musicians and I lack emotional support and technical guidance in these situations... Dealing with frustrations and anger is an art so yes, definitivly you need a ritual of some sort if you do not want to become completely crazy!!!

Invention? yes you have to be an inventer to play the violin may it be to adjust it to your body, have an idea of the sound you want and experiment... You must be and artist AND a scientist!

I love this blog!

Anne-Marie

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Personal Hygiene and Invention

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