We have thousands of human-written stories, discussions, interviews and reviews from today through the past 20+ years. Find them here:
Nicola Benedetti
What is your opinion of the playing of Nicola Benedetti?
In Thursday's Independent (London), Paul Kelbie reports that 17-year-old violinist Nicola Benedetti has been signed to a "£1 million-plus, six-album record deal" with Universal Music, "the most prestigious classical label in the industry. Her first CD will be released in the spring." Kelbie notes that Benedetti became "the first Scot to win the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award" last May." Writes Kelbie: "She has completed her debut album for Universal/ Deutsche Grammophon with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Harding ... And there are plans for two potentially lucrative tours of the United States, which could propel the teenager into the league of international superstars."
Replies (17)
I think Benedetti's an appropriate role model for young players, particularly teenage girls who seem prone to idolising... well, you can imagine who I mean;) I was away for Young Musician weekend, but many of my students tuned in and were blown away by her performance (not least because her chinrest fell off in the middle of it...). She's reportedly a nice person as well, and encouraging to younger players.
Her chinrest fell off in the earlier stages, she nailed it on for the final...
A crucified chinrest? Like yer style, Nic.
Sue, I am John, not Nic. Hehe
Yeah, I watched that on TV aswell!
Don't you think all of the competitors looked so mature for their age?
I wish I was that talented... I still can't play the violin properly; the other day I played a chord and smashed my dear instrument with the nut of my bow...yet again.
(And I think John, that Sue was 'talking' to Nicola-'Nic'-Nicola?)
One-Sim :0
You must remember that Nic has been playing the violin since the age of 2, and practices 7 hours a day. 14 years of that must mature the mind/ send you crazy!
Oh, is it seven hours? I thought it was five; I'll have to revise my favourite student guilt-trip.
That is pretty crazy. Makes me wonder how good I could be if I starting practicing 7 hours a day...
7 hours is too much IMHO. 3 or 4 I think is best. Sarah chang apparently never did more than 3 or 4 a day. You can accomplish just as much in 4 hours as you can in 7, in my humble opinion.
Not if you stay focused for most or all of the 7 hours. Practicing longer allows one to do more detailed work.
Greetings,
in the sense of quality, practicing longer hours does not allow one to do more detailed work. The degree of quality is a discrete variable.
If the more means a greater quantity of detailed (IE quality) work then this is theoretically true.
But it also presupposes two things which are not necessraily true and experience tends to suggest they could
be harmful:
1) Detailed work is good , therefore the more the better.
2) That practicing is primarily about detailed work.
If you check out my column on practicing you can see the argument that long hours with concetration is possibly an illusion because we want to feel that the sacrifice we are making is worth it. In essence we are justifying our own p-unishment and kidding oursleves. Curiously, when the number of hours is reduced through unfortunate circumstances for one reaosn or another many people improve a lot more. The reason is largely that the majority of players have many misuses of the body or errors in what they are doing (inevitable in a hyper complex skill) it is actually illogical to do a lot of practice on one area if at the same time one is increasing the depth of habituation of the other technical problems. Do you really pay attention to your bowing while working on the intonation of a difficult passage for thirty minutes? Sometines students would be better off not picking up the instrument at all. I cite as an exmaple of this Galamiian asking Steinhardt do nothing but arm movements in fron of a mirror when he began lessons with him.
Practice , as Flesch pointed out, also includes perfromance and chamber music. Especially paling through with the piano. So many violinists practice detail until their hands bleed but spend so little time on performance that they are unable to do perform. Their `sensible` solution? More practice....
Finally, if one recalls countless interviews with great players and teachers , although some advote long hours and did do that at some point in their life, there is a definite tendencity to finding five hours the maximum just about abyone can and need do on the instrument.
I note in passing that if you practice seven hours a day with enough breaks to jsutify your claim that detailed work is occuring then you will have no time to enjoy nature, read, spend time with family and friends, study, do community service and so on. In essence you will be so boring that however well you play the violin there will nothing of interest coming out.
Is it worth it?
No.
Cheers,
Buri
Buri I know exactly what you mean about some people being better off not practicing - I have some students who play worse with practice, I guess this is a primary example of not knowing how to practice. I once foolishly played for 8 hours thinking that this was good, but all it did was cement the little mistakes that I was making, and making them sound 'correct' in my falsely accustomed ear.
Don't look at me; I've never done more than three.
ALSO If you practice slow enough you can work on Bowing/intonation and dynamics all at the same time. Just ask Perlman.
Nicola Benedetti tells Julian Lloyd Webber more about her recording plans in an interview published in The Telegraph (2004 January 27):
http://tinyurl.com/6ckjc
The 17-year-old violinist says her contract is "for five or six discs and the good thing about it is that I have total control over the music I record.."
She adds: "I am convinced that classical music can sell if it is marketed in the right way.... I will only play music I believe in. I would never say never, but I would only record music I really love. I like jazz on the violin but I'm not sure I would be very good at that....
"I'd love to record the standard concertos: Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart. I also want to play Prokofiev's and Shostakovich's first concertos. And I love the Elgar Concerto. As for contemporary music, I have just recorded a John Tavener piece and have also played something by Craig Armstrong. I want to play contemporary music but it has to be able to communicate with an audience."
¿Any relationship with the great violinist Rene Benedetti?
This discussion has been archived and is no longer accepting responses.
January 20, 2005 at 09:06 PM · I saw her winning performance for that competition on tv, it was staggeringly good. What a great player she will be when she peaks. One to watch out for!