Staying In Shape For Your Students
With all the books I've read by violin/viola teachers, I can't remember anyone ever mentioning a system to stay in shape *for their students*.
Of course, performers detail how they stay in shape for their own benefit (usually lots of scales, Paganini, Bach etc.), and this would also apply to teachers.
Past those basics though, there is a lot of specialization for performers - concerto soloists keep a lot of concertos around (memorized and played through at regular-enough intervals), recitalists have a version of this for their own repertoire, orchestral musicians keep the most common excerpts in their fingers (at least while still auditioning) etc.
Teachers, however, often have studios with a much wider array of interests, so they have to have a foot in all of the aforementioned repertoires.
I've come up with my own schedule that has evolved with time (and continues to do so.) With a little over an hour a day, over the span of a month I play through the Bach books (vln. and clo.), the Paganini Caprices, the Hindemith and Reger solo viola pieces, concertos (17 of the most major ones used for auditions), shorter pieces (Ernst, Sarasate, Wieniawski, Kreisler, my own etc.), and scales and arpeggios. All from memory, but with copies of the music nearby so I can easily check a note when I need to. The tunes that are the trickiest for me (either because of their technical difficulty or because they're hard to keep memorized), I have in there twice (a month).
Sure, some of that is for my own benefit, but quite a bit is really only for my students. That is to say, I have no plans to perform some of those pieces but they are standard to study, and I like to have them from memory and "in my fingers" enough to demonstrate passages.
I have students of all levels...and even the absolute beginners will surprise me sometimes with something along the lines of "I heard this Ernst piece with left-hand pizzicato.... how do you do that?" So I came up with this monthly schedule to keep things *around*.
What sorts of regimens are being used (or have been used in the past) by private teachers to stay in shape for their diverse range of students? Please share your thoughts on this.
Merry Cremonusmas and Happy New Year!
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Replies
During the pandemic shutdown, every week I would practice a different concerto from the repertoire I was teaching.
I don’t have time for that now, but I am doing a lot of playing so it’s not an issue.
Mr. Slapin, I stay “in shape” by listening to your absolutely fantastic recording of the Bach VSP on viola
Many thanks for your comments! Even when regularly playing recitals, I find it easy to fall out of shape with things like LH pizzicato, double-stop harmonics etc. if I'm not playing a specific piece that has these unique techniques in it. (And when only playing in ensembles, really a lot more might disappear!) A lot of this is maintenance of memorization, too.
Things disintegrate at different rates for different people, so it took me a lot of experimentation to see what would work for me.
I can't imagine not being ready to play, demonstrate, suggest bowings or fingerings, for the student's pieces, etudes, exercises. One of the benefits of teaching is that it forces you to constantly review the technical fundamentals and review the repertoire.
I agree with your words: "teacher who stay in shape, benefit their students"
I wish more and more teachers realize this and more aware to keep study and memorize standard repertoires.
It is called practicing!
The book series of "The Way They Play" is great. I read one of the early editions with the great bassist, Gary Karr.
It's practicing, yes, but practicing some stuff you otherwise wouldn't be!
Gary is a great musician and was a friend of my parents when I was growing up. I learned a lot from him. I also happened to know (not as well) Sam Applebaum, who wrote the The Way They Play series.
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December 22, 2023 at 09:14 PM · I personally really appreciate teachers who do this