[05/26, 11:46] I would like to impress upon you the satisfaction to be gained from taking maximal responsibility for your own learning as a violinist/musician. By applying the principles involved (it is not rocket science!), finding great examples to emulate, having an objective view of yourselves (video recording), and experimenting A WHOLE LOT until it pays off, you can fast track your progress quite significantly, and experience the deep satisfaction of having engineered your own progress. It is truly a very special kind of satisfaction that not many people have the privilege of experiencing. The principles are quite simple, but powerful: balanced working of flexor and extensor muscles; muscles used must be proportional to the task (larger muscles should do heavier work, while smaller muscles should do the finer control); efficiency of mechanics (the most efficient use of energy); maximally utilizing the characteristics and possibilities of the violin and the bow (for example, making the best possible use of the natural springiness of the bow when playing spiccato), etc. A little contemplation and experimentation with the application of such simple principles can lead to enormous results. And every gain in skill that you achieve in such a way will provide uniquely personal satisfaction. When reading biographies of and interviews with great performers, you will find that they almost never claim that any teacher "taught" them to play the fiddle. The are immensely grateful to their teachers for having inspired them, and for having shown them the right "path" (principles), and for having instilled in them the values of self-discipline and perseverance and critical thinking, and for having exposed them to seminal influences, and for awakening their aesthetic sense, and so on. But almost none of them claim that any teacher "taught them to play the violin". In a fundamental sense, NO ONE CAN TEACH YOU TO PLAY THE VIOLIN. You have to teach yourself to play the violin. Only you have the full experience of your uniqueness of mind, heart and physiology. Only you have the full awareness of your experience while learning. Learning ultimately is an inside job. It happens inside you where you are the boss. You have to drive your own bus. A good teacher can recommend some good routes, and provide examples of good driving, but you have to do the actual driving of your own bus to get to your destination.
[05/25, 19:43] I like the idea of generating many different possibilities and then choosing what you like best. Modeling great violinists is also an excellent learning strategy. Dorothy DeLay occasionally used that strategy by instructing us to prepare a piece to sound and look like a particular famous violinist. I remember her telling me to bring the Mendelssohn concerto to a lesson looking and sounding like Itzhak Perlman. (It led to a lot of laughter, which in itself was conducive to relaxed learning.)
[05/25, 20:03] In similar vein, she sometimes went to the piano (she could actually play the piano quite well!) and said, "as a soloist, you are going to play with some truly awful orchestras and terrible conductors, so I am going to give you some practice with it!". With us playing the solo part, she would then play the piano transcription of the orchestral part and suddenly speed up, or slow down, or play wrong harmonies or terribly distorted rhythms, or skip a few bars, or make wrong entrances, while we had to stay focused and adapt immediately to whatever she was doing at the piano. It was challenging, but also great fun, and taught us to be really flexible. The more options you have as a performer/interpreter, and the more flexible you are, the greater your chances of delivering masterful performances.
[05/22, 12:48] When you realize that any passage in your music can serve as a bowing exercise, your practicing will go to a whole new level. You can repeat any passage with different kinds of bow strokes - detache, martele, spiccato - different bow lengths, at different sounding points, in different parts of the bow. That way you achieve several things simultaneously: you repeat the notes, while also developing better control of different bow strokes. Win-win!
[05/22, 12:56] Piet Koornhof: And if you do that as a routine, your bow control will improve remarkably. It conditions you to always be aware of exactly what your bow is doing.
[05/25, 19:43] I like the idea of generating many different possibilities and then choosing what you like best. Modeling great violinists is also an excellent learning strategy. Dorothy DeLay occasionally used that strategy by instructing us to prepare a piece to sound and look like a particular famous violinist. I remember her telling me to bring the Mendelssohn concerto to a lesson looking and sounding like Itzhak Perlman. (It led to a lot of laughter, which in itself was conducive to relaxed learning.)
[05/25, 20:03] In similar vein, she sometimes went to the piano (she could actually play the piano quite well!) and said, "as a soloist, you are going to play with some truly awful orchestras and terrible conductors, so I am going to give you some practice with it!". With us playing the solo part, she would then play the piano transcription of the orchestral part and suddenly speed up, or slow down, or play wrong harmonies or terribly distorted rhythms, or skip a few bars, or make wrong entrances, while we had to stay focused and adapt immediately to whatever she was doing at the piano. It was challenging, but also great fun, and taught us to be really flexible. The more options you have as a performer/interpreter, and the more flexible you are, the greater your chances of delivering masterful performances.
[05/22, 12:48] When you realize that any passage in your music can serve as a bowing exercise, your practicing will go to a whole new level. You can repeat any passage with different kinds of bow strokes - detache, martele, spiccato - different bow lengths, at different sounding points, in different parts of the bow. That way you achieve several things simultaneously: you repeat the notes, while also developing better control of different bow strokes. Win-win!
[05/22, 12:56] Piet Koornhof: And if you do that as a routine, your bow control will improve remarkably. It conditions you to always be aware of exactly what your bow is doing.