The other day I received an email from a very trusted source on physical fitness. He talked of the importance of training slow, and training fast. Same principles apply in violin training.

The secret is knowing when and how to do both.

First, slow practice. Most violinists don’t spend enough quality time playing slowly, it’s that simple. Well, not quite that simple. Notice I said ‘quality time’.

You add quality to your slow practice time when you engage with your vision of the final result as you do it. If you visualize yourself playing with velocity it will give you clues to finger pressure, string crossing and shifting efficiency. It will help you ‘red flag’ essential data, the stuff that will be crucial to have in your conscious mind when you play fast. Then, your slow practice allows your mind the space to catalogue, absorb, and get the ‘feel’ of that information.

Now let’s talk about the other side, training fast.

While you are still in the learning phase of a new piece, ‘up tempo’ playing can be very helpful for a couple of reasons. If you are using my counting method, you will quickly expose problem areas, even those that used to surprise you later on in the learning process. You know what I’m talkin’ about. The, ‘that never used to be a problem’ type places.

If you are using my breathing technique, you will be building the habit of playing relaxed, no matter the velocity of tempo.

What I have given you are a few essentials of productive practicing. Thankfully – wouldn’t it get boring otherwise – there is more to know. To ‘strike it rich’ where intelligent practice is concerned, I suggest you hop over and grab my ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery, Vol. 1” now.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. Remember, keep your head in the game when you practice slowly. Once the ‘autopilot’ gets switched on, you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

In its broadest sense, ‘fun’ can cover a lot of ground. It can refer to spontaneous moments of delight, the experience of exhilaration, a growing expectation of reward, the feeling of achievement, or just basic physical pleasures.

Simply put, however, the more fun you have, and the more types of fun you have in your life, the more successful your life will be.

Now, there is an art to manifesting fun. Here are my thoughts on cultivating it and nourishing it, specifically as it pertains to setting and realizing goals in your violin practice.

Get yourself in the habit of setting and achieving goals. Not just big, sweeping goals, like mastering all 42 Kreutzer Etudes, but little, immediate goals as well. An example of an immediate goal could be to play through the first 8 measures of Kreutzer #2 while counting, breathing and imaging.

Keep track of your victories. For some, like myself, this is something of a goal itself.

By keeping track of victories, I am not talking about empty praise. I am saying that when you have stretched for something, there should be acknowledgement that is in proportion to the effort expended.

Some of you may be surprised to hear this, but on a ‘bad playing day’, when even the thought of taking the violin out is an effort to me, I will give myself a good dose of credit for just getting the violin out of the case and beginning to play. Often that is enough of a boost to get me to the next goal, on such a day – warming up.

Recognize that occasionally you must be flexible with your goals, but, at the same time, don’t surrender them without good cause.

Sometimes even the simplest aim cannot be met. In the above example, if I were physically ill on my ‘bad playing day’ I might be doing my body a great disservice by attempting to play. In other words, have compassion with yourself when a goal you have set proves unattainable, and let it go.

So here is the bottom line.

Take 15 minutes of your day to set goals and review those you have met. Soon your life will have the focus of a laser beam. And, if you have goals that run through a range of time frames and degrees of challenge, you will also have a rolling waves of good feeling passing through you continuously.

What could be more ‘fun’ than that?

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. Don’t forget to integrate my Kreutzer course into your goal setting lifestyle. The dividends will be awesome!

Many people today, and there may be a few of you reading this email, are feeling that life is passing them by, and that few of their dreams are being realized. If this is not you, then you needn’t read further.

Now then, if you are still with me, let’s talk. Last night I was reminded of three pillars that are absolutely essential for a successful life. They are: VISION, BREATH, and COUNTING. Are you surprised? For the uninitiated you may well be, let me explain.

When I talk about VISION I am not talking about the service your eyes perform for you. No, I am talking about a very advanced brain function that we share with precious few species on this planet. I am talking about what some refer to as ‘the theatre of your mind.’

Does that give you an image? It should. Creating goals and then visualizing them in your ‘mind’s eye’ creates a target, a clear and present target, toward which you will move like a bee to a blossom.

By BREATH I mean something considerably more than the shallow, minimal-for-life type breaths most of us take in the course of a mediocre day.

I am talking about conscious breath, the breath that comes from your belly and is infused with intention. These are the breaths that activate the deeper parts, the creative parts, the parts of your brain that will problem solve and strategize for you.

And the great news is that those areas, once activated, will provide you with inspirations and ideas, free of charge! It is merely their purpose in life to help you succeed. In return they require only one thing.

They require that you to COUNT; that you keep track. You must tell your higher brain how far you have come. How far you have to go. You must tabulate for it everything that can be tabulated, everything that can be measured, in short everything that has any bearing whatsoever on the goal(s) you have set for yourself. This data is the grist for the mill that is your activated higher brain.

Do these three things and you will change your life.

Do these three things in your violin practice, and your playing will take off like a rocket headed for the moon. The beautiful thing is, you can use the same techniques you use to practice most effectively to live most effectively.

”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery, Vol. 1” will teach you how to do all three of the things I just talked about. Don’t you think you had better jump over and grab one?

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. While you are there, click on the link to my Kreutzer Masterclass, indicate your interest in coming, and then make it one of your lesser life goals to perform all the etudes on Vol.1.

There are indeed few of us who have no fear of performing in front of people, especially if those people are sitting in judgment, as, say, at an audition or competition.

By the way, when I told Nathan Milstein of my intention to play at the Flesch competition he shook his head in disgust and said, “Why waste your time, it would be better to take a vacation.” And he was right. But let’s save that for another day.

Getting back to ‘nerves.’ Take a moment to give thanks that we have them. Yes, I mean that. When nervous energy becomes excited energy and is brought under control, you have a powerful source of ‘high octane’ fuel that can boost performance beyond anything you have done in your practice room.

The raw, uncontrolled energy of nerves is ‘fight or flight’ energy. The adrenaline is pulling blood from your extremities, and preparing you for a sudden, explosive burst of activity – either fighting for your life, or running like hell to save it.

Once you have ‘given thanks’ for this energy source your next order of business is to get control of it.

As you contemplate an approaching concert, audition, or competition, feel your level of nervous anxiety. That gives you an indication of how much energy converting you will be doing on the day of.

Once you have a sense of that you can lay a little strategy to handle it. The ‘fight or flight’ response is going to pull blood from you extremities. You are going to experience a loss of fine motor control. The more anxiety you feel over an event the more adrenaline you will need to process.

You will process that adrenaline by showing up as early as your anxiety sense tells you to show up. The more anxiety the earlier you will arrive.

Now it’s the day of.

You begin warming up. At first you will feel the effects of adrenaline. Relax about it. Move the bow back and forth, vigorously. Focus on making a full, rich tone; begin to enjoy the sensation of movement.

Do not start with the most difficult passage you will have to play!

Now you are ready to engage your mind. Slowly begin downloading into you consciousness all of the rich detail you have stored there during practice sessions – the feelings, the visualizations, the musical intentions.

I have begun this process up to 11/2 hours before a performance.

What is essential is that you have secured in your practice sessions all the knowledge and feeling that you will need to put on a great show.

Knowing that you are as prepared as you can possibly be is a wonderful feeling in and of itself. Don’t settle for anything less.

To unlock your potential for preparation I highly recommend you take advantage of my learning methods now. They will give you the confidence of a tiger in hot pursuit of prey.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

Have you been told for as long as you can remember to make your fingers strike the fingerboard like little hammers? Often it’s not a bad idea.

But in highly legato Adagio music the effect can be dreadful.

Almost 30 years ago I was engaged to play the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Neville Marriner – he wasn’t a knight then. It was my 1st time playing the work and needless to say I worked backside off on it.

The slow movement is one of the most sublime pieces of music ever written for two string instruments. It is also a study in legato playing.

Very quickly I realized that getting the smooth progression from note to note I was hearing in my ear was not going to happen by hammering away with my left hand.

But in all my years of study to that point not one of my teachers had breathed a word about any other way of addressing the fingerboard.

But think about it. The most legato note to note movement is analogue, not digital. Think of a human voice ascending from one pitch to another without interrupting the air stream.

This was what I wanted to reproduce on my fiddle, but how to do it? No, playing the whole thing with one finger was not an option – nice try, if that popped into YOUR head. The solution to this little puzzle emerged when I began slowing my left hand articulation down, way down.

What I discovered amazed me.

I not only unlocked the secret of legato playing, I created a left hand that purred through fast passages like a 16 valve Jag E Type with the ‘pedal to the metal’. You can put that same ‘greased lightning’ into your left hand by ordering my new course, and checking out #9.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. When you realize the value of this one lesson you are going to wonder why the course costs so little. Go to Kreutzer for Violin Mastery, Vol. 1.