teaching pure mad joy

Violin teachers probably take too little advantage of the fact that it is pure mad joy to play music with other people. They could better leverage the best pedagogical tool of all: a student transfixed by the sound of two voices together, a student having the fantastic sensation of their one note pulling against some other note. Many professional chamber musicians got hooked when they experienced exactly that feeling at a young age, and if they were lucky they had teachers who nurtured a sense of wonder and love of sound all the way through their training.

Listening like this, we pay attention. Being embedded in a duet with your teacher who can hear perfect intervals and help you find the resonance of two instruments in tune is a sure-fire way to permanently wake up the ears. Playing in a duet when your partner plays tricky rhythms in accurate but expressive ways, and keeps a pulse that has character, and insists on following the meter’s hierarchy––these things teach people about rhythm in a hurry. Listening well is the perfect incentive for figuring out how to make sounds and phrase in ways that follow the logic of the music.

Additionally, if a player is overwhelmed by the delicious sensation of being in a ensemble, there is little room to bother with extraneous distractions. This last advantage is not peculiar to learning music, but is as important as the other advantages of using duets; if your student’s attention is taken up with thinking of themselves as inadequate or superior, they can’t focus on sound, meaning, or imagination. It doesn’t matter whether their self diagnosis is positive or negative; whichever side of that coin they are looking at occupies their attention, and they are left with only half a mind available to listen. Helping students learn to be engrossed in the music and to direct their own attention to constructive places is one of the teacher’s most important jobs.

When I’m teaching I work out ways for two violins to play difficult passages found in the standard repertoire, on the fly. Lately I’ve been writing down some of these little “arrangements” to help violinists use the richness of the compositions to untangle technical problems. Hunting for even more ways to incorporate more duet playing in my studio, I have been looking at existing literature and have found rich resources. The DuoKlier folks, (https://duo-klier.com/) who are publishing lots of arrangements for two violins, doing a great service to teachers and students everywhere.

...help with the crazy 16th notes in Saint-Saens Rondo Capriccioso

At the end of Saint Saens’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso the sixteenth notes go fast and involve big string crossings and shifting and some nicely crazy chromatic business. All that can obscure the fact that there is fun counterpoint going on at the same time. If you listen to the countermelody in the orchestra part, it is an amazing experience. Plus, it will help you sort out all the “technical” problems and prevent you from rushing too.

Try playing this duet version of the ending with another violinist, but play really slowly at first, so you have time to hear what is going on! There is plenty of time to go fast later on.

interleaved practice

When I was a kid I learned that you should cement your progress as you go. Practice and figure out how to do something correctly, and then stop and try to do that exact thing, correctly, nine times more. One person even told me to put ten pennies on my music stand and move one over for each correct repetition. I was told I should not go on until I had really learned that one spot. That made sense to me then, and it still sounds logical. I thought I would memorize the correct way to play by reinforcing it right away, but this turns out to be incorrect.

Instead, practice the first thing for three minutes, then the second thing for three minutes, then the third thing for three minutes and THEN come back to the first thing, the second and the third and then a loop around again a few more times. You don't feel as competent while you are doing it, but you are learning much more efficiently.

It turns out this is so much more effective than practicing the first thing for nine minutes and then thing two for nine minutes, and then thing three for nine minutes.

Here is a scientist talking about it: http://gocognitive.net/interviews/benefits-interleaving-practice

music with words

I'm having a blast working on Kurt Rohde's opera Death With Interruptions.  It is based on a book by José Saramago, translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Because the opera sets ordinary English words I'm always running across little phrases from the opera in ordinary conversations. And when I hear them, I'm reminded of the way those words sound when sung with Kurt's amazing melodies, rhythms, and sounds. It is adding a whole new layer of enjoyment  to my every day life. 

Nikki Einfeld plays a ravishing character, death. She can't help falling in love with music and a cellist she is supposed to have killed. Nikki is a coloratura soprano and her voice is actually to die for.

The other thing is that the people I'm working with are incredibly nice and, naturally, I've been seeing them lots since we've been working together all the time. 

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finger tips

If you play the violin eventually someone will bring up the idea of playing from the base joints of the left hand. Curve your finger so the fingertip is floating over the string. Then you lift and drop the finger by moving from the knuckle joint, where the finger joins the hand.

This is easy to say, but people sometimes find it difficult to do, which makes perfect sense: Apparently the fingertip is the densest site of nerve endings  in the body. You have really acute sensation at the point where the fingertip hits the strings. Back in your knuckle joint? Not so much!

Once you realize what is going on, though, you can put your attention fully on that sleepy knuckle. Hover the curved finger over the string and then enjoy activating the movement from the base joint of the finger. 

making a sound

http://i.imgur.com/owzMkQF.gif  This is an amazing little slow motion movie that shows the bow hair grab the string, pull, and then slip. This makes the string vibrate from side to side. You can see how it works. It turns out that string is an enormous jump rope swinging from side to side. Make it ring and get out of its way.