right hand technique part 1A

right hand technique 3

Maintenance

So you learned and successfully performed the concerto/sonata/caprices etc but now you have two months before you need to play it again. It is a dangerous phase; playing the piece too much could deteriorate your level but practicing the piece in details every day would keep from learning new pieces, could dull your musicality and is simply boring. On the other hand, practicing the piece too little (or not at all) is not wise when another performance is looming, especially if you are not an experience performer.

When I practice in "maintenance mode" I go over the piece every few days, or even every day, but each time I approach the piece/movement/ passage from one of the different aspects listed bellow.

Intonation - playing slowly and repeating every shift several times, trying to be as aware as possible towards the target note and avoiding relying on motion memory.

Sound - using the Beam of Light method (which I explained in previous entry) I try to play with the cleanest, most attractive sound I could produce.

Technique – there are some passages that needs constant technical work. It could be difficult spots or certain techniques (such as up-bow staccato or trills). In these instances I practice as if I never played the passage before.

Re-learning by heart – one of the nastiest traps we fall into is when we rely too much on motion or music memory when we learn stuff by heart. If we suddenly "get stuck" after forgetting one note or lose our place it is a good indication that we rely too much on knowing the tune or "finger memory". There is also the terrible moment when we doubt every move we make and every note we play. It is a very common phenomenon. To strengthen my note-to-note knowledge as well as detect the weakest links, I practice the passage by heart at least 50% of the tempo, using staccato on the slurs (but keeping the original bowings). I finger each note at a time before I play it and if possible say to myself the name of the note. It is important not to "spill" into playing the piece slowly and relying on the tune. This is a very difficult practicing technique but also a very effective one.

Musicality – It is always good to innovate and try and find new angle to your musical output. As a practice method I play the passage at least once in a complete opposite musicality than the one I usually do. Most of the time it helps re strengthens my resolve about my old decisions but sometimes I find interesting ideas to play with…

Performance – All of the aspects listed above are good and true but sometimes you just need to pick up that fiddle and play the damn thing through without looking back or sideways. It helps if you record yourself and listen back. Try and have a "performance feeling" during this kind of practice. Do not move about the room or stop for any reason as you will not do this on stage.

The list above covers most of the things you want to keep and strengthen but it is not complete and also should not only be restricted to maintenance practice (you can work on it before).

From My Journey Through Bach - The Beam of Light

The Beam of Light:

When I want to describe a beautiful, attractive sound I use words like ‘pure’, ‘clean’, ‘full’, ‘colorful’ and ‘unified’.

The quality of our sound is the most powerful expressive tool we have, yet I find that many students take their sound for granted and focus their practice on other playing in tune or fast enough. As important as those other subjects are, nothing affects your listeners more than the sound that come out of your instrument. It is your calling card, your essence. With a good sound you could convince anyone to listen to you, while it is not important how in tune you play if no one wants to hear you saw the violin.

Playing the violin well is very difficult: putting the fingers in the right place at the right time, remembering all those notes, battling anxiety and trying to “do the right thing. We get so busy with it, we sometimes tend neglect our sound or ignore those small mistakes such as scratches between notes, slides, uneven vibrato and such. After a while, they become ‘background’ noises and we even stop hearing them altogether.

My best tool for sound is a practicing technique I call “The Beam of Light”. As I slowly practice the piece I imagine a beam of light across my line of vision. The beam width represents the deepness of my sound and its surface, the purity of it. Within the beam there is a second, wavy line, which represents my vibrato in the same way a sound wave could be seen on a monitor.
When I play I ‘watch’ the beam of light with my mind’s eye. If I scratch the sound my beam becomes tarnished or if I hit the string too hard it wobbles and shakes. Your entire focus should be on the ‘now’ and ‘before’, (as opposed to performance practice in which you focus on the future). It is important to practice slower than the actual speed and if possible, by heart. I find this technique incredible effective in developing sound awareness.

The Three stages of Sound

I divide the sound to three stages, which I call ‘head’, ‘body’ and ‘tail’. The ‘head’ is the moment my sound begins, i.e. when the bow touches the string, the ‘body’ is when the bow moves across the string and ‘tail’ represents the way I end the note. Different techniques have different requirements, for example a fast spicatto is all ‘head’, martelle technique is partly about being able to stop the note, while a slow high pitched note which end the piece is very much ‘body’ and ‘tail’.

These three stages represent (mostly) bow techniques, so when I detect a mistake in the sound (using the Beam of Light technique) I define it under one of the three stages and thus understand what I should physically do to correct it.

For example: a scratch in the head of the note indicates a problem in the approach and touch phase of the bow to the string. You may want to alter the way you begin the note by changing the way you start (from the air or from the string), the amount of bow, the relation between speed and weight, the amount of hair which is in contact with the string or several other possibilities.

Note that starting a note from the air or from the string are two different techniques, each with its own timing in approaching the string and its own pros and cons. Some schools of violin prefer one over the other (at this moment in my life, and since I began using the Beam of Light, I use the string technique much more than the approach from the air), but I suggest you master both.

If you detect a sound mistake in the ‘body’ part, you should check if your bow is straight, if you control the movement of the stroke the entire way, if the weight you apply on the stick co-relates to the speed and the changing of the bow flexibility etc.

A ‘tail’ problem is usually about bow control. You need to master not only your approach to the string but how you end a note and whether you decide to stay on the string on need to lift the bow.

There are also mistakes in vibrato such as over or under-use, unevenness either in the ‘body’ of a note or changing it for different fingers, too tight or nervous vibrato and uncontrolled delayed vibrato. Without getting into too much detail (since this book is really about playing Bach, not playing in general): most vibrato mistakes derive from holding don the finger too tight, holding the neck of the violin too hard, and leaving too many fingers down on the string (such as in chords).

Recording yourself is a very good way of assessing your sound, and applying the Beam of Light as a practice method will help you clear your sound from very common mistakes.

excerpts from "My Journey through Bach" - Fugues

Although I will be explaining each individual fugue in detail in the following chapters, I believe there is a need to address the subject generally, as fugues are the most difficult kind of music to master on the violin. A fugue, as we all know, is a musical form. It can be found in chamber works, symphonies, and of course in the keyboard repertoire (especially for the organ). But the violin is, in essence, a melodic instrument, and we struggle to fulfill the role usually given to several players, or to the keyboard.



A fugue is not a creation of beauty in the classic/romantic sense of the word; it does not carry a beautiful melodic tune, like the theme of Beethoven’s Spring Sonata or Chausson’s Poeme, or even in other movements of the solo sonatas and partitas. In other words, you probably never found yourself humming a fugue theme while in the shower...

The interest, and the beauty, arise from the construction of the form; we marvel at the complexity of Bach’s creation, and as performers, struggle to achieve technical and musical mastery of such ‘un-violinstic’ pieces, which are almost alien to the instrument’s ideal of a single singing voice.



I always ask myself how a violin fugue sounds from the listener’s chair (and I mean the ‘ticket-paying’ chair, not the ‘fellow-musician’ chair.). I suspect the audience often hears a very different piece to what we think we play.



Your main aim in presenting a fugue should be that the audience will understand the form without needing to have it explained to them in printed word or in a pre-recital lecture. To achieve this, you should present the theme in a clear, precise way and show, with timing and bow control, how it travels between the voices. This is the single most important musical element to highlight, and your audience should register (consciously or unconsciously) every time the theme returns. I can not stress enough how careful you should be to play the theme in the same way every time, unless you find a good reason for the change (such as an harmonic change from the original theme). This is more easily said than done, since the fugal-road is full of musical potholes and traps.



Take for example the G minor fugue’s theme. The last note of the theme (Bb) is the resolution and thus a point of less energy. The second time the theme appears, the last note is a double stop (from bottom to top – Eb and D), and you must decide whether to imitate the theme in the same way or show the harmonic surprise by increasing energy (volume and intensity). The third time the theme is played, the last note (double stop from top -Eb and G) is a clear resolution again, and must be played with diminished strength, yet it is easy to let enthusiasm or sheer mounting pressure take over, and whack the last double stop. You must be very careful (always, but especially in the fugues) not to let technical difficulties dictate the musical line.



A very good exercise in musical understanding is to mark in the music each time the theme appears. You will soon be struggling with the concept of what exactly a ‘theme’ means theme’ and whether what you play is the original line, or a development of thematic material.

Does a change of one note affect whether it counts as the theme? What about a change of two or three notes? These sort of questions used to keep me awake at night, so now I take sleeping tablets and count separately the number of times the ‘pure theme’ appears and the times the ‘altered theme’ (up to two notes changed) makes an appearance. When you add these together, you get the number of times your audience should register ‘theme’ during the fugue. Whether you want to highlight the difference between ‘pure’ and ‘altered’ depends on individual cases and personal taste. There is always a risk of overstating your ideas but the usual, most common mistake, is oversight.



Just remember: Theme Rules.

intonation in shifting

I divide the movements we use in playing to "conscious" and "unconscious" (or "aware" and "unaware"). Just like driving a car, there are movements so ingrained in us that we do not think about them in a form of direct command (accelerating, checking the rear view mirror, vibrato, putting fingers in tone and semi tone distance), i.e. we do not tell ourselves "step on the accelerator, shift gear", we simply do it on command.

I use the driving example not only because most of us have experience in it but because in driving and playing the violin, we change our perspective for the same movements when circumstances change. Bad weather, icy road, broken lights in a junction or a police car behind us makes us bring those unconscious movements into the conscious mind. We pause, we slow down, hesitate, evaluate, and become acutely aware of a possible danger, sometimes to the point of making a mistake. Those of us which were unfortunate to need to re take a driving test later in life would know how every movement we used to do without thinking suddenly becomes painfully exposed.

In performing (playing the violin) we go through the same transition of awareness; movements which we did not think twice about executing in the practice room become conscious, non more so (in my experience) then shifting, intonation's greatest threat.

Even once "acclimatized" on stage (after 10 -15 minutes of playing), and fairly more relaxed, a long shift or jump will always come to the forefront of the brain. We'd think about before hand, worry about it, calculate our way towards it, then breathe a silent sigh of relief or utter a curse under our breath, depending on the outcome.

To practice a shift many times is important but this method might also hide false security, since our "motion memory" would correct most shifts on the third or fourth (sometimes even second) try. The problem is that we need to nail it on the first go.

The best test for "first time" is performance practice; a lesson, a class, a private run through or just coming back to the shift in later times during the practice session.

When I miss a shift under these circumstances I try to realize whether the mistake happened because I was not paying attention (shifting unconsciously, throwing the hand with the hope my motion memory would save the day) or was it a conscious shift (I thought I knew exactly where I put the finger down) which was simply in the wrong place.

My advice is first of all never taking any shift for granted while in the safety of the practice room. Work consciously on every single shift, from slow pace to performance speed, with and without vibrato (if vibrato is needed), always aiming to the target, asking yourself not only what went wrong when it happens but also what you are doing right when the playing the shift correctly. If during the performance you manage to relax to the point where shifts become subconscious again, well, lucky you, but I would prepare for worst case scenario when it comes to shifting.

The awareness of what went right is important because many times shifts fail because of bad body position. When we play it again we subconsciously correct the body position to be more comfortable. The implications for such understanding are obvious.

Be realistic about your shift: prolonging the time between the notes is a good working tool but you should concentrate on adhering to the exact circumstances of the piece (using the same speed, part of the bow, bow direction and articulation).

Pay attention to bow control, many shifts fall from grace because we move the bow too soon.

In practice, do not use vibrato to correct intonation mistakes. In performance: cover cover cover.

And I leave you with this thought: even the best pro basketball player in the world, with thousands of games under his belt, would still aim the ball while shooting to the basket.