Fuzzy Fingers

April 30, 2008 at 11:33 AM

After getting back from the long trip, and then having a concert, I also had my first viola lesson in a month. This one didn't go particularly well in some parts. The stress of my being away from the instrument for a while was showing. My teacher, who is normally very even-tempered, seemed a little frustrated. I don't blame her . . . and then, surprisingly, one thing she said during this frustrating lesson has really given me something to chew on and a new way to look at things.

I was playing my C-minor scale, and was out of tune on the Cing. Too low. Again. Probably from playing "too much" violin, I'm used to keeping my fingers too close together and not stretching enough. And she was telling me to "find the sound." And I wasn't. Finding. It.

"Watch your left hand." I was shocked to see how often it fidgets, adjusts pitch up and down before settling. Sometimes without my even realizing it.

And, furthermore, as Drew says, "everything affects everything." If my LH is fuzzy, my RH is too. The attack of the note is tenative and anemic.

So I tried something with the Clarke Passacaglia the last couple of days: I just played the open strings, in rhythm, without any left hand. So it starts, C-GGGGG, GGG, G, GGG. C-CCCC-C-CCC. Yikes. Sometimes the open strings themselves are not clear. They buzz and whine in all kinds of weird ways. It's actually pretty cool how many flavors of open string you can get, and notice, when you're not thinking so hard about the LH.

So, first some LH watching. Put the fingers down with confidence and make only necessary adjustments. No fidgeting. Then some RH only. Make the notes clearer with the bow. If it buzzes or whines, figure out how to make it stop on the open string first. Okay, now put it together: it sounds a lot better! I hope I'll be able to show her that at my next lesson.

From Mendy Smith
Posted on May 1, 2008 at 6:24 AM

Karen - I have the same problems just switching between my 15" traveling viola and my 16" stay at home model viola. I won't mention what happens when I pick up the cello from time to time.

When I switch between instruments, I spend quite a bit of time "tuning" my LH (and when I pick up the cello, my RH as well). I also do the same at the beginning of lessons (keyboard --> fingerboard adjustments). What I do is to first find G on the D string and then work from there. Once I get my LH frame set on my D string, I move down the strings (C is the most difficult one to adjust to), then up to the A. Then, a few perfect 5th double stops.

I do all this WITHOUT looking at my left hand. I've found that if I look, I can't internalize the finger patterns, which is necessary to play in tune while looking at my sheet music. Even when doing scales, I do NOT look at my left hand. In fact, I close my eyes and listen, checking against open strings.

But I must admit, I have to look at my sound point to keep a straight bow when I'm warming up. :::blush:::

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on May 1, 2008 at 10:24 AM

I have to look at my left hand for a different reason--to avoid "fidgeting." I'm not sure if it preventing me from internalizing anything or not. But it seems to help if I memorize (internalize) the passage first and then watch my left hand.

From Drew Lecher
Posted on May 1, 2008 at 2:13 PM

Karen,
When switching from violin to viola for various lessons, I just think of opening my left hand like a fan, and 1st position on viola feels like minus 3rd position on violin — I am approaching it from the violinist's perspective.

It might just be semantics, but be careful of the word stretch — think open, expand as they don't max out the fingers so much — at least in my mind.

Hope it helps—
Drew

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on May 1, 2008 at 2:39 PM

Thanks Drew, that's a good point. I think those "semantics" help. Buri also made a similar point when he was telling PM to not limit thinking of an extension to the tip of the finger. That's more what I associate "stretching" with: a limited extension associated mostly with the tip or at most the finger, whereas "opening" involves the whole finger and hand.

Mendy said she noticed a big difference between her 15" and 16" violas. Violins are 14" (right?) and my viola is 15.5". So it is a bigger difference, but not too much.

What I'm actually taking away from this lesson, even more than the violin/viola switch, is what I learned from playing the open strings and listening to the tone only without worrying about the LH. I would always read that advice to play open strings and never knew quite what to do with it.

But playing open strings with the rhythm and dynamics I want in the piece, without any LH activity, seems to be instructive. I know the length of the string changes when you put your LH fingers down, so it's not a perfect simulation of what you'll be feeling when you're actually playing the piece, but it still seems close enough to help me focus on generating a clear tone, on making subtle variations in volume, on keeping string crossings clean, on keeping double stops from getting crunchy.

Since everything affects everything, it seems to help to make the sum total of everything a little smaller.

From Drew Lecher
Posted on May 2, 2008 at 3:42 AM

You are definitely on track:-)

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