A Year of Technique Only -- Why it's madness
I am very interested by this idea of teachers who want to teach their students only scales for a whole year. This blog was triggered by a recent discussion here: A Year of Scales.
My first experience of the madness that teachers can inflict on their students was when I was 14. It doesn’t matter who the teacher was, but I studied with him for six months before my parents rescued me from him. He nearly finished me off altogether using a combination of three main methods:
First, I was not allowed to use a shoulder rest. I was pretty much the same build at 14 as I am now – tallish, long neck etc. – and while there are sensible ways of playing without a shoulder rest, he did not show me any. I simply hunched up my left shoulder and went into spasms of tension for six months. It was then that I first had to be sent off to Alexander lessons (almost unheard of at that time), and physiotherapy, to try to get around the pain I was in.
Second, the bow-hold he made me adopt was absurd – I have photos of me at that age holding the bow with the tip of the little finger on the screw, the first finger too close to the thumb (leading to loss of leverage), and the middle two fingers low on the frog (in fact, with my long fingers, they often protruded beneath the level of the frog).
But the third, final nail in the coffin of my enthusiasm – or the coffin of my talent, such as it was at the time – was that for six months I was not allowed to play any pieces. I was not allowed to play any etudes. And I was not allowed to play any scales. So what was I allowed to play? Only left hand Ševcík finger exercises!
Naturally, within a short time I would not practice at all. I was bored witless within minutes of starting to play, and I hurt too much even before getting bored. It was nearly the end of me.
A funny coda to that tale – actually, it’s not very funny at all – is that 16 years later, when I was playing in the London Symphony Orchestra, in one concert this former teacher of mine was sitting next to me. He was using a shoulder rest. I remarked on it. He said, "Yes, I’ve decided it is better." And he was a short man with a short neck!
I did not mention that he nearly ruined my whole life as a violinist, because it was too difficult to say anything without at the same time wanting to seize his violin and hit him over the head with it – which I did not feel I could do at the time, being on stage at the Barbican concert hall, and all. Besides, I would not have wanted to harm his beautiful violin. (Only joking! I am actually a gentle, nice person!)
But on a serious note, that story is nothing compared to what a friend of mine (let’s call him David) has told me about studying privately with one of the leading teachers in London in the 1970s (let’s call him A. C. Person). David went to Mr. Person at the age of 11. For two whole years he was not allowed to play anything except left-hand Ševcík. Yes, two years!
After two years, David was finally allowed to play a piece, the Mozart G major Violin Concerto. David practiced it and took it to his next lesson. Mr. Person gave him an ordinary, normal sort of lesson on it, and then when he showed David out of the house at the end, David stood on the doorstep and Mr. Person stood with his hand on the door, ready to close it.
He looked at David and said, "You used to be such a musical boy, David. What happened to you?" And with that, he literally slammed the door shut in the boy’s face.
Yes, that is a 100% accurate account! When David first told me about it, I said it was a pity that, as a child, he did not have the right answer to hand. (And anyway, Person had closed the door before he could say anything.) The correct answer was: YOU happened to me, Mr. Person!
My next experience of "technique only" was when I went to study with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School of Music. His rule was that new undergraduate students had to spend the first term (September to December), not playing any repertoire at all but concentrating only on technique. We had to do the six Carl Flesch fundamental movements, the Carl Flesch Scale System, a different Kreutzer etude every week, learn and practice Dont Op. 35 No. 1 (chords), and lots of Ševcík Op. 1. It was only one term, and there was plenty to do to keep us interested. My first piece, in January, was the Mozart Adagio in E, K261, and after that the Rode Concerto in a minor, no. 7, Viotti Concerto 23 in G major, and Spohr Concerto no. 8 (Gesangsszene). All good stuff.
However, I have never once asked a student to do only technique for any period – not for even just one week, let alone a whole term – even if I have considered it many times. I was too impressed by Dorothy DeLay’s approach when later I went to her. All her students played slightly differently from each other because she did not have a "method" to drill them with. She simply took them at whatever level they had arrived at, and helped them up from there to the next level without first making them relearn everything from the beginning. With her, you did not have to go "down" before you went "up." You simply carried on up, as you had already been doing.
If the two extremes are 1) Nothing but technique for a year, or 2) only repertoire for a year without playing a single exercise, scale or etude, I would certainly choose No. 2 without a second’s hesitation.
That is simply because, in the final analysis, "technique" comes from playing music, but you can’t get "music" out of playing "technique."
The crucial difference is between "technique" and "mechanics."
"Mechanics" means the angle of the violin to the body, or keeping the left fingers close to the strings, moving the fingers from the base joints, drawing a straight bow, standing with your feet correctly positioned, etc.
The list of essentials is not even very long. All of them are easy to describe and to explain (in very few words), and therefore easy to teach. If somebody has ongoing difficulties in any of the basic areas, it means that in some way the problems are not being identified, not being analyzed correctly, and therefore not being helped.
In my book The Violin Lesson I quoted a story from the great "success guru" Brian Tracy’s The Power of Clarity:
There was once a nuclear power station that had developed a fault. The power output was slightly below normal but none of the plant’s engineers could locate the source of the fault. So they called in a specialist.The specialist, a man in a white coat with a clipboard, wandered around taking notes. The control room contained a host of dials and meters and readout displays, all connected to equipment located around the plant. After a couple of hours the specialist took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and marked a large ‘X’ on one of the readout displays.
‘Replace the unit linked to that display,’ he told the management, ‘and it will fix the problem.’
They did as he suggested, and immediately the power output returned to 100%.
A few days later the manager of the plant received the bill from the specialist, who was asking for a fee of $10,000. Now, although this was a multi-million dollar plant, it was the manager’s job to keep down expenses. So he wrote back to the specialist thanking him for his work, but saying that $10,000 seemed a very high amount to charge considering he had been at the plant for only two hours. Would he please itemise his bill?
Some days later, a new bill arrived from the specialist and this time he had broken it into two parts: $100 for time spent on the premises; $9,900 for knowing where to put the X..
So spotting problems and solutions in violin playing is all about "knowing where to put the X." It only takes a whole year to sort something out if you don’t know where to put the X.
And then there is "technique." Real technique comes from musical expression: you feel such-and-such in the music, and because of that – and without knowing that you are doing so – you make a particular subtle little squeeze on the bow, or the vibrato is wider, or the shift lighter or faster, and so on. These things come from making music. So if you spend a year playing only exercises or scales...well, what can I say? It is just a very, very bad idea. A colossally bad idea. And surely one that comes from basic ignorance of what is possible.
But then, many talents are ruined by their teachers. The talented, fine players we know of and hear about are often only the survivors of teachers, not the products of them!
You might also like:
- Interview with Simon Fischer: Double Stops
- Interview with Simon Fischer: The Violin Lesson
- Interview with Simon Fischer: Warming Up
Replies
Mr. Fischer, as the person who informed you of the copy of your book that is to be online (at only that one website, I might add, if you want it taken down now :), I must say that I think your teacher was simply a product of a Russian teacher, as he seems to have wanted you to play with no shoulder rest and a Russian (aka "absurd"?) bowhold. :D
This article came at the most opportune time. Thank you!! I have a parent who is pushing me to give their child more and more studies for the sake of studies.
Dear professor Fischer, thanks so much for posting this great blog entry! The anecdote where you sit next to your former teacher 16 years later is priceless! Many thanks, also for all your books. I have learned so much from them.
To previous commentator A. O. !
I think you have absolutely misunderstanding about russian violin school, and moreover violin bow hold!
Look at the history with wide opened eyes instead of haitress!
Great article.
A note to A. O.: I don't think it is about the Russian bow hold. It is just about a strange bow hold that doesn't work that well as far as I can see.
There exist different bow holds and they are certainly OK. What is not OK is if a bow hold is "non-productive" or whatever you could call it.
Anyway, the point of the article that music is what it is all about is a vital point. That is a main reason why someone wants to play.
Great article! Had two teachers do this to me ( minus the shoulder rest and bow hold dilemma ). When I asked one of them about performing he said, "Juries should be enough. When you learn your technique, people will ask you to perform someday. " Even worse, was that one of them would never hear most of the exercises. It was uninspiring for sure and during those times I could never bear to practice more than an hour a day. I don't know how I managed the discipline to get a decent grade on those juries.
Thanks for the great note.
Thank you Simon, I love your books and now your discussion here!
I admit, when I went to graduate school (and was not a music major, as I'd been in undergrad), my teacher had me do three months of open strings, for the sake of my bow arm. I knew, from talking to other students, that this would be the prescription for me from this teacher, who was known for "fixing" people's errant bow arms! I welcomed it heartily. Being SO left-handed, my bow arm had needed attention for a long time, and this concentrated work helped me immensely. That said, I was a little older and entered into the situation with a desire to fix my bow technique; it did not feel punitive, especially with the good-faith attention that my teacher gave to every bow stroke. It felt like important work. It WAS! This teacher also brought out a lot of musicality in me later, it was all good!
Excellent post. My first teacher managed to completely destroy my natural sense of rhythm and phrasing. I can't remember exactly how - probably by pushing me too hard to do other things, and neglecting to develop it in line with everything else. But I do remember the pain (not physical!) I went through with my second teacher to recover it. It took a long time.... and involved mainly repertoire, very few etudes. Real music to cure a musical problem!
Right is boring.
INTERVIEWER: "What do you do when you play a wrong note?" MILES DAVIS: "I play it again."
“Do not fear mistakes - there are none.” Miles Davis
"I never wanted to learn how to paint the right way, but I was always interested in learning how to paint the wrong way." Picasso
"Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don't fit in a very interesting way." "Honor thy error as a hidden intention." Brian Eno
"this isn't the right thing to do, so let's go" Iggy Pop
"Wrong is right." Thelonious Monk
"they suddenly heard a wild impossible mistake in jazz that could only have been heard inside their own imaginary head, and that is a new art." Jack Kerouac
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." Frank Zappa
"But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know." Sun Ra
"Those are the records I like - When something doesn't sound quite right - Those are the records I buy" Eddie Argos
"In Chrome sometimes when recording we use our 'mistakes' and work them and make them gold." Helios Creed
" If you're listening to this song you may think the chords are going wrong, but they're not. If you think the harmony is dark and out of key. You're correct." George Harrison
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. Oscar Wilde
"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it." Duke Ellington
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." Martin Luther King, Jr.
I had at least 6 piano teachers over a very long period of time. All but one never once used the word 'biomechanics.' Only the second (Alice Carrard) and the last (an amazing musician who is about a year younger than me) taught me anything of lasting value.
Teacher number 4 did rescue me, he took a great interest in all his students including the plainly non-talented like me, so I will forever remain grateful for his tuition. But there were some REALLY bad things he taught me. In particular, he taught me to key-bed, which is a disaster.
love the article, yeah 200% percent agree that Simon Fischer is one of the best violin teachers and tutors, his books are amazing !!!
Videos where i teach violin: https://www.facebook.com/shmuelviolin/
hermosa la nota, el relato es util para quienes estan en la instancia de aprendizaje.en este caso todo suma incluso los maestros que dificultan el poder abordar el violin sin temores
yo tube la misma mala experiencia...aun asi me ayudo,....hermosa nota
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October 3, 2016 at 06:11 PM · Thanks for the great post!
I love your books too.