Memorization: Patterns

One key to helping you memorize pieces and tunes, is to identify the form, patterns, and motives (melody lines) that repeat. Other than that, play the thing over and over and over, and listen a lot as well to high quality recordings.

Count, "How many times does this same thing happen? Is it the same rhythm, but an octave higher? A third lower?" 

Train Your Ears to be World Class

If you are starting out with the violin or fiddle late in the game (age 20+, or in some people’s (not mine) opinion 2+) there are a couple of things that you can do to make yourself sound like a professional very quickly. The first is to develop your ability to differentiate between two notes and find their sweet spots. And the second thing to do to make succulent and rich sounds as though you have been playing for ages is to tackle bow technique. 

This first thing is what the pros call “intonation” or having “good intonation”, we really need to reverse the theology of the well-tempered clavier (for all the praise of Bach, I definitely have this major caveat about him and his work. Also, tuners don’t help you train your brain to recognize when you have found great intonation, so after you get your violin in tune, put the tuner away! Ringing tones (for violins that’s any note that is G,D,A,E) are the violin’s superpower, find them, delight in them, luxuriate in their brilliance! They are not the sole possession of the soloist elite, you can find them on the very first day you tune your violin up and begin to play.

The second tip today, is focus on bow technique, and by this I mean, use that contact point (digging into the string, and then lightening up so the bow is “gripping” the string, then playing.). Learn how to get the notes you play to “speak” right away, and don’t let yourself be sloppy. Don’t let yourself get away with sounding bad ever, just keep trying and trying until you get it because if you keep at it, you definitely, definitely will be triumphant. * This involves a lot of listening, listen specifically to the bow technique and choices of your favorite fiddlers and violinists. Experiment and try to find different ways to find the same sound they get. Watch YouTube videos and practice in the mirror.

Don’t settle for less, and don’t give up after a try or two, press yourself to try something 100 times, 1,000 times, 10,000 times, however long it takes! You will get there, I promise!

*The closer you are to the bridge the more bow pressure you will have to use to keep the same tone quality as when you are nearer the fingerboard. If your sound is “thin” use more bow pressure and a slower bow, if it is crunchy, use less pressure and/or a faster bow. Experiment!

Violin Psychology, train yourself to trust yourself

1.       You are worthy of trust. Who is going to have your back if you don’t have your back? Trust yourself.

2.       Experiment. A lot. There is no personal failure linked with experimentation. If it didn’t work, you didn’t fail, and for that matter, neither did your experiment because it yielded a result, perhaps surprising, but nonetheless, results.

3.       Practice being detached. Try saying “Hmm, How interesting…” at the end of each repetition of some new skill you are trying to develop

4.       Stick it out. Do not quit after only 10 attempts at something, talk to me after you’ve tried and failed 1,000 times.

5.       Love yourself. The reason you picked up the violin at all was to do something fun and new for yourself. Because the inner-child in you smiled when you thought of learning the fiddle.

6.       Know that type-A personalities are drawn to playing the violin. Perfectionists. We hate failure… Do not forget how hard you have worked to get so great at what you are great at. To be great at playing the violin, you will have to that work hard.

7.       This is a tricky instrument! Cut yourself some slack. The only thing that ever, ever looks easy is hard work.

So have some faith, you can do it. To me, practicing the violin is much more rewarding than training for a triathlon. Think about how many hours people go through just to run, bike and swim a few seconds faster than someone else! We play the violin to make the journey of life sound a little bit sweeter!

Playin' the Rests, When a Fiddler is at Their Best

"When do I get to play, again?" I would seriously ask myself in band rehearsals. Playing in a new style can feel like going to a dinner party in a foreign culture without knowing the customs and etiquette.  Different musical ensembles determine the role of violinist and fiddler, and it is quite different than the usual "full-time" job, which means playing almost every possible second of every song, like in classical music and instrumental ensembles that feature the fiddle, a la trad Irish music.

Making the transition between classical music and other “band” forms can feel a little strange. Suddenly we are not the soloist playing the whole time. We are more obviously part of a team, together creating music, with the violin or fiddle playing more of an accent role, and *not playing when the singer is singing. This is a hard transition sometimes because our natural inclination, from our training, is to be the voice, the singer, around which all the other music is written. We are the Sun in the sky. Yes, violinists and fiddlers do not lack egos. And we wouldn't play as well if we didn't. To quote Isaac Stern (with a slight paraphrase), "You have to be a little arrogant to get on-stage and play the violin as a soloist." :-)

It is OK to “play the rests” as they say. And it is appropriate more often than not. It is much better to just stop playing and listen, than to keep playing long drone notes that tire you out, which no one in the audience can hear anyway, and come in at the most opportune moment to help the song be fully expressed, as you are now part of an organism, called a band, that creates music differently than a simple soloist. It is a different way of being, a different way of listening, and it is a lot of fun. Maybe Classical soloists would do well to think of themselves as weaving themselves into the fabric of the whole. In a band, not only do you get to "do your thang" you also get to stop and listen to other people do theirs while being on stage, where all the magic is. Remember to wear ear plugs.

Where is the Middle of the Bow?

How do you define where the middle of the bow is? A recent lesson spurred this internal inquiry. I have long been an advocate of playing near the frog, as it is, in my opinion, where you can find the soul and wildness and heart of the violin.

There are many reasons to play in other parts of the bow to elicit different color tones and more gentle characteristics, but none of them can replicate what you get when you play at the frog, both in terms of technical control and tone production. In my ruminations, I had an idea that the middle of the bow is not necessarily determined by the mid-point of the bow hair and the arc of the stick, but instead it could be determined by weight.  The middle part of the bow determined in this way, is the balance point between the frog and the tip. In swordsmanship I think it is called the “tang.” On further experimentation I found that what I consider to be “at the frog” or “near the frog” is actually the balance point, the middle of the bow by weight! 

Check out Mstislav Rostropovich playing Bach Cello Suite no. 1 to see what I am talking about in action!

 http://youtu.be/xr5P_cyhbOQ

I invite you to watch how the musicality shifts in imagery and tone color, as he plays first in the lower half of the bow, then in the middle and then at the tip for the string crossings. 

Perform What You Love!

I recently had a lesson with a student who worked very hard on her current piece even though she hates it. It’s the “up bow” song, O Come Little Children from the Suzuki Book 1. I remember not liking that piece very much when I was a kid, for the very same reason. She came into her lesson and suggested that she not perform this particular piece at the school recital since she performed it so well in her lesson. I told her that she it was good for her to perform a piece that she didn’t like because that would show her tenacity and serious commitment. But I was wrong. If she works hard to learn the concepts in the pieces she is assigned to play and learns to perform them well, but would rather perform other pieces that she feels more akin to, why shouldn’t she?

It has taken me years to figure out the difference between what I should do and what I want to do. When using music as a means of emotional self-expression, it just won’t do to play delightful Mozart when one is brooding and feeling dour and cranky. The famous cellist Rostropovich has said that one must change one’s own personality to play the pieces properly that are written by composers. To be able to do that means one is functioning at a super high maturity vibration, which I would say he could do quite well, but it is rare in us normal folks, and while I think he is right in some ways and we should open up to different ways of thinking and experiencing the world (Epistemology rocks!), in other ways there are pieces that just suit one’s soul, just the way one is, and suits us because of who we came into the world being.

I believe as the storyteller Martin Shaw describes, that we are not just storytellers, we are story-carriers, and stories come to us to be told by us, and other stories don’t want to be told by us, they want a different voice, and that is perfectly alright. We can tell the difference between music that is for us and music that is not by whether we feel intrigued by it or not. It is a feeling of being pulled towards the piece. Of course, this urge can change over time as our emotional landscape and life situations change. I feel as musicians, we should move in the directions we are drawn towards as opposed to following a prescribed pattern that doesn’t move our heart in any way. In the sacred space of the stage, it is best practice to have our hearts as open as possible; to be a vessel through which that which we love can come into the world. I would like my students to cultivate that knowledge and understanding. So in my next lesson with my student, I shall tell her that concerning the pieces that we work on together, the only pieces she will be asked to perform on-stage are the ones she loves.

And that's the essence of Violin and Fiddle play- playing what you love, and what makes your heart smile. :-)

Why I Love Solfege, and Why You Should Too!

I had my first revelatory dream a couple weeks ago. I’ve always wanted a revelation to come to me in a dream, and it finally happened! I realized how useful solfege actually is, and that I should teach and use it all over the place. I studied it at University, but never really figured out how to apply it to my life… until now!

How? Why? What is Solfege?

Well, Solfege is a system of mono-syllables that go up a Western Major scale like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge

Do(pronounced: Doe), Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do

Think of the song from “The Sound of Music” that starts “Do a deer, a female deer, Re a drop of golden sun…”

This system becomes super useful in things like improvisation because practicing solfege along with learning the names of the notes allows you to transpose (play a song in a different key) to different keys effortlessly. A “mi” (also known as the 3^rd degree, or note, in the scale) is going to be in the same place of the transposed song you are playing no matter what key you choose, while the name of the note may change. If you go up a half step, the 3^rd scale degree that once was C is now C-sharp. A musical line that goes “Do-Fa-Sol-Ti” is going to be in exactly the same place in the song no matter what the key, in that same order, intervals and everything. Amazing!

Another reason that I love solfege is because I don’t have to say “C-sharp” really fast, I can say just one syllable, and that makes singing, and keeping in rhythm much easier.

And yet another reason I am in love with solfege is that it helps me know where I am harmonically in the music. “Am I playing the 5^th degree of the scale, or the 3^rd degree at the beginning?” “Look how the composer plays his way back to Do.. that was unexpected, and very clever!” (Do is also known as the tonic, as in the chord that makes you feel “ahh, the world is healed,” and is also known as the 1^st degree of the scale- in A Major, A is the tonic note, the note that the A Major scale is built around.) 

And for my last reason for this post that ensures my ever-enduring love of solfege is that it helps with intonation! Yes! Because a “Sol”- the 5th scale degree, or 5^th note in the scale, in any octave is still just Sol! For example, the opening of Mozart’s fifth violin concerto can be understood harmonically with solfege, and when you can sing Do-Mi-Sol-Mi-Do in-tune, you’ll be able to play with great consistency the first notes of this incredibly delightful work in-tune. In this way the solfege system helps dissolve a lot of the fear of playing up high in the violin stratosphere of the upper positions because it makes your technique (technique is the scaffolding around which you build the piece of music you are learning)more reliable. 

Using solfege allows a whole new level of depth to be explored and played around with. I encourage you to try it! Have fun!

If you have anything to add concerning your feelings and experiences with solfege, or any questions, please comment below :-)