The Treatise Paganini Never Wrote

Last night I was reading from Leslie Sheppard and Dr. Herbert R. Axelrod’s comprehensive biography entitled ‘Paganini.’ It’s a wonderful resource and well worth owning.

There were two things that caught my attention.

In 1797, while Paganini was yet a boy of 16, he had the opportunity to play for the much more recognized Rudolphe Kreutzer, who was 30 at the time. Apparently Kreutzer was extremely taken with what he heard, and his words of encouragement were a great source of inspiration to young Nicolo.

Naturally I enjoyed reading of this connection between Kreutzer and the Great One. But there is something else I came across that aroused my interest even more.

Paganini made a promise during his lifetime that he never realized. That promise was to create a treatise on violin playing that would enable violinists to become virtuosi in a relatively short amount of time.

What excited me about his promise was the implication that the learning of a skill can be greatly accelerated when a certain kind of ‘know how’ is present. I’d bet my last dollar that his ‘know how’ was both physical AND mental.

So, why didn’t the course materialize? Perhaps it was due to the fact that he didn’t have the advantages of digital technology. After all words alone are rather inefficient for communicating physical processes.

But with the digital technology of today a thing can be explained and demonstrated various ways and a person may easily review the material again and again until its fully digested. It’s so easy and efficient.

When I had the inspiration to create ‘Kreutzer for Violin Mastery’ it was with digital technology in mind. I felt that Milstein had bequeathed me the vital ‘tools’, and digital technology enabled them to be communicated efficiently and effectively.

Now, with ”Paganini for Violin Virtuosity”, the bar has been raised to the level of true virtuosity. Come reserve your copy and reap the benefits of this powerful program.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

POSTED BY CLAYTON HASLOP AT 8:11 PM 0 COMMENTS

MONDAY, MAY 28, 2007

How Paganini Delights the Ear

He wasn’t the contrapuntalist that Bach was. His music lacked the formal cohesion and structure of Beethoven. His use of harmony wasn’t as developed as Liszt.

Yet when played with imagination and passion it entertains and delights the most discriminating listener.

What Paganini did possess was a terrific sense of gesture, of musical effect, of color, and of melody. Had he not pursued a career as a composer/virtuoso he could today just as easily be remembered as a composer of opera rivaling the likes of Rossini.

To see Paganini as only the creator of highly technical music is to miss the mark by almost 180 degrees. He was first and foremost an entertainer – therein lies his charm, appeal, AND, to a violinist, challenge.

If you want to hear a fine Paganini player – aside from yours truly, of course! – listen to Gideon Kramer play this music. It’s the same kind of imaginative playing that serves the music of Schubert and Mozart, I might add.

So when I am guiding you through the technical challenges in the instructional DVDs I am also trying to enliven your imagination and creative juices. In this way when it comes time to entertain an audience or a living room of friends they won’t let you put the violin down all night.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. I had a terrific first day with ”Paganini for Violin Virtuosity, Vol. 1. For those of you still thinking about the investment in this course, bare in mind that each Caprice represents an investment of only $35.00. For the amount of detailed coaching you receive, 4 DVDs worth, this is a give-away.

The Intelligence of Your Fingers

In the Waldorf philosophy of education – if you haven’t heard about Wardorf, it’s an approach toward education based on the teachings of a brilliant philosopher by the name of Rudolphe Steiner – a great emphasis is placed on developing the young mind through the skilled use of the hands.

In short, clever hands make for clever minds.

I don’t believe this notion stops with children. Increasing your fine motor control at any age is excellent conditioning for the brain.

So I began reflecting on this last night after doing some instructional taping on the second Caprice of Paganini. It’s a piece of music requiring the finest control over the digits of the left hand of anything you are ever likely to do, short of brain surgery perhaps.

Actually, Kreutzer numbers 28 and 29 require a similar kind of finger dexterity and are an excellent warm-up for this Caprice.

In any case, what occurred to me in the exercise of recording was the importance of cultivating this ‘tactile intelligence’ in one’s practice. It’s something you can do, really, any time the violin is in your hand.

Now let me give you a little image to go with it. Image that your fingerboard has little magnets embedded in it at each pitch location you are about to play. Now imagine that each of your fingertips has a bit of iron in it.

My, oh my, the closer you finger gets to the note, the stronger the attractive force. The keys to success, in the proceeding image are 2 things. Your mind must place the magnets in the right places, duh, and you must relax your left hand completely so as not to compete against the attractive force of the magnets.

It’s a win-win situation. Your mind is activated and your hand is relaxed. What a beautiful way to practice the violin.

One last thing, do this SLOWLY until you really get the hang of it.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. Volumes 3 and 4 of ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery”, have many, many important and useful insights and demonstrations on the movements of the left hand and arm. There is no better time to get this dynamite material into your DVD player than today.

Give Your Shoulder a Rest

I always get a kick out of watching my colleagues attach their various kinds of orthopedic devices on to the backs of their instruments. Silently I think to myself, ‘Poor blokes, still got their training wheels on.’

Fact is, most people use a shoulder rest for one of two reasons. Either they grip the violin between their chin and shoulder, and therefore need a device to keep that chronic muscle contraction from causing serious back and neck disorders, or they fear the violin will slip away from them without it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are many terrific players that rely on them. I also think, however, that they are missing a kind of intimacy with the instrument that you cannot have otherwise.

Of course, with intimacy comes a certain amount of challenge.

Learning to play without a shoulder rest after a long dependency does require commitment. But it’s a commitment to relaxation, a commitment to balance and finesse.

And yes, there is the potential for some embarrassment onstage in the early going.

But think about it, how many times has your shoulder rest leap from your violin in the heat of battle? You see, there are no guarantees.

The instrument is not to be controlled, it is, rather, a thing of beauty to be worked with. It’s a partnership rather than a dictatorship, in my humble opinion.

But hey, this may not be your way. After all, maybe you still ride a bicycle with training wheels too – haven’t seen anybody win the Tour de France with them yet, but anything’s possible you know.

Just kidding, the important thing, whether you use a shoulder rest or not, is to breathe well, relax your shoulder, and support the violin in part with your left hand.

P.S. Of course, it’s important to have great tools in hand when hunting. That’s what you’ll find in ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery”. Come get started with it today.

How to Play Mozart

A few days ago I had a very good violinist from a few states away fly in for one of my half-day intensives. When I say these are intensives I mean just that. We went for over 3 1/2 hours straight with nary a sip of water. She couldn’t believe how quickly the time passed.

Needless to say, a lot was accomplished.

We spent the first 2 hours or so coming to a new and comprehensive understanding of the bow arm.

Then it was on to repertoire. The Mozart Concerto in A Major to be specific.

Now, many highly accomplished musicians consider Mozart to be the most sophisticated and revealing composer a violinist can play.

I agree.

To play the Mozart A Major Concerto successfully, for instance, you must become several characters in a mini opera, demonstrate effortless mastery of the instrument, change moods and character in a flash, and do all this within a very ‘classical’ ethos.

In short, you’ve got to play squeaky clean with an abundance ‘color’ and expressivity.

One of the ways you can really help yourself toward this end, is to listen to his operas. Mozart’s understanding and love for the human voice is remarkable. And he transferred every bit of this affinity to his works for violin.

A second way is to master Kreutzer. His 42 etudes are both systematic and comprehensive. In fact, they will prepare you not only for the demands of classical period music, but for baroque and much romantic period music as well.

Providing, that is, you get all the juice from each one. And that is exactly what you will get by working with my course, ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery”.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. And for the ‘icing on the cake’ there are the half-day intensives – I still have a couple spots available during my Sacramento/Los Angeles visit in June – and masterclasses.

Contact me by phone or email for details and scheduling of the half-day intensives.

The 4 Theatres of Movement

Just completed a little ‘tune-up’ practice session. Tonight I begin recording the instructional portion of my soon to be released course on Paganini Caprices.

Part of the process refreshes my thinking on fundamentals. I thought you might enjoy some of what passed through my mind.

You see, there are exactly 4 ‘theatres of movement’ you must be intimately connected with when playing. They are the fingers of the left hand, the left fore and upper arm, the right forearm, and the right upper arm.

Let’s look at them closely.

The fingers of the left hand are responsible for finding notes within a position. When the music you’re playing is diatonic – in one key, that is – and fairly slow, this is not such a difficult assignment. Things get complicated, however, when the music is fast, chromatic, and requires quick extensions, compressions, and movements across strings.

To accomplish these feats we develop independence of movement, flexibility, and a light touch.

The left arm gets us from one position to another.

Now, shifting requires a coordinated movement of both the forearm and the upper arm to move the hand in line with the fingerboard – generally not much of a problem going up the violin. Turns out, however, it is much more natural for us to accomplish this going toward the body rather than away from it. So downward shifts tend to be more problematic.

Now the right side.

The right forearm is largely responsible for the horizontal movement of the bow. How weight is transferred to the bow through the forearm, and how rapidly the forearm draws the bow across the string determines the kind of tone we produce.

The right upper arm is, again, LARGELY concerned with changing strings.

Now, just to shed a little more light, know that most of us will find it easier to go from an up-bow to a down-bow when crossing from a higher string to a lower one, and from a down-bow to an up-bow when crossing from a lower string to an upper string. By being aware of this you can sometimes arrange bowings to make things easier for yourself.

Now remember this, just as with the concept of yin and yang in Asian philosophy, you will find that even in cases of extreme yin there will be a tiny amount of yang to be found, and vice-versa.

In other words, your right upper arm will often move Sympathetically with the horizontal movement of the forearm, particularly when full bows are called for. This doesn’t mean it is in the driver’s seat, however.

And further, sometimes you will pivot from the elbow when crossing back and forth between two strings, leaving the upper arm quite still.

But these, as the saying goes, ‘are the exceptions that prove the rule.’

What is absolutely essential to clean, beautiful violin playing is complete mastery of these 4 theatres of movement. Come get started on the course that lays it all out for you in living color today.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT; I will be coming to Sacramento and Los Angeles the 3rd week in June. I will be scheduling 2 half-day ‘intensives’ in each city for 4 highly motivated doers. Contact me by phone or email for details.

How to Play the Certain Way

Yesterday I had a concept running through my head all day long; like a tune you just can’t stop humming.

I first read it in a very valuable treatise on self-development penned in the early years of the 20th century by Wallace D. Wattles. Wattles, by the way, is today recognized as the founder of the ‘motivational movement’ that has inspired hundreds of thousands to entrepreneurial success in this country.

Not only is it a great read, its message is as appropriate to violin playing as it is to the stated subject, the accumulation of wealth.

Just have a look at the following passage;

‘The ownership of money and property comes as a result of doing things in a Certain Way; those who do things in the Certain Way, whether on purpose or accidentally, get rich; while those who do not do things in the Certain way, no matter how hard they work or how able they are, remain poor.’

He goes on to say that ‘It is a natural law that like causes always produce like effects.’ That, very simply, is the basis of my instructional DVD courses.

But let’s return to this notion of the Certain Way. For me the concept implies two things, one obvious, one rather more subtle.

Most of us would immediately think that doing something in a certain way means doing it in a particular, or fixed way. That is true.

But beyond this lies something more profound. The deeper implication speaks to a kind of foreknowledge. When you act in a ‘Certain Way’ you act with inner surety informed by purpose, and feeling.

It is not just an empty formula that is slathered freely like mustard on a hotdog bun.

Yes, I’m talking about Vision, about Intention, about Passion.

Without these qualities you have an empty vessel with nothing in it to nourish or sustain a human being.

Not a good state of affairs for an artist/violinist.

So, when you view the instructional DVDs you have received from me, you must take the visualization process seriously. Your visualizations must carry physical sensations. Sensations that are pleasing, exhilarating, relaxing, or whatever is appropriate to the music at hand.

What is the FEELING of the right hand passing through space in a straight line parallel to the bridge in Kreutzer #5?

Get that feeling before you touch the string with the bow and you’ll be a doer of the Certain Way. It’s that simple.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. If you’re ready to transform your playing, and your Experience of playing, ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery”, is your ticket to success.

Practice, How Much IS Enough

I read recently where it takes some 10,000 hours to become the master of a skill. Of course it’s a given we’re not talking about bussing tables here; and I ought to know. You see back when Nixon was yet a president in good standing I learned and practiced that little ‘skill’ on a very high level.

No, we’re talking about such exceptionally rich and complex skills as playing the violin, performing brain surgery, and, say composing symphonies.

So let’s see now. If you practiced 5 hours a day, six days a week, 50 weeks a year, then we’re talking somewhere in the neighborhood of seven years to become Maxim Vengerov.

Sounds like a bargain to me.

What about you, is the violin worth that to you?

Even if it is, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to ‘take it on.’ After all, life is full of choices, and we may have several passions we want to indulge at one time. This is, after all, where art meets amateurism. And I mean amateurism in the best sense of the word.

One does not have to be Maxim Vengerov to derive great joy and pleasure from the instrument. But let’s take a look at what kind of time investment is typically required to reach some recognized levels of achievement.

In as little as an hour a day you can, in 3 years, equip yourself to the point of playing in community orchestras and enjoying a diversity of chamber music with like minded friends.

Push that up to 2 hours a day for 4 years and you’ll be qualified to teach beginning students, do paying ‘gigs’ and land a chair up in the front of the 1st violin section of your community orchestra. You’ll be playing early Beethoven string quartets quite credibly, I might add.

Let’s talk about becoming a professional.

Just add an hour a day to make it three. Do that for 5 years and you should be well qualified for any regional symphony orchestra. You will have the pick of the best paying gigs in your smaller city. You’ll even have the tools to develop one heck of a teaching studio.

But what about a major symphony orchestra, you ask.

Now we’re talking serious commitment. But add another hour and a couple of more years and you’ll have it. Yes, at 8,000 hours you’re there, would be the conventional wisdom.

By the way, competition for positions today is fierce. You really must be very close to the concert-artist level to win a major audition.

Now, would you be shocked if I told you 30%-40% could be cut from the figures I gave you by adopting a certain mindset and specialized practice tools?

Milstein told me that at the time he studied with Leopold Auer he only practiced 1 1/2 hours a day. He even brought this fact up with Auer, asking if he really should be practicing more.

Auer said to him, ‘Practice with your fingers and you need all day. Practice with your mind and you will do as much in 1 1/2 hours.’

OK, I think Milstein was exaggerating a tad about the 1 1/2 hours. Maybe his watch ran a little slow.

But in any case, I agree with the premise wholeheartedly, which is why I maintain a violinist with a fully conscious mind can do so much more in a given amount of time than the average Joe.

But you must not take anything you do for granted. You must be ALIVE and fully AWAKE when you practice. And you must take good advice seriously.

If you have one of my courses or have been to one of my masterclass/seminars you’ve benefited from some quality advice. After all, much of it comes from Milstein himself.

All you must provide is your full attention to the process. And there is nothing more nourishing and rewarding than doing that.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Even if you missed getting your copy of ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery” before yesterday you needn’t fear. This program is still a terrific bargain when you consider all the valuable hours of coaching that will be at your fingertips. Come turbo-charge your practice sessions today.

Find Your Groove

To play your best, in any situation, you must be both relaxed and highly focused. In fact, one of the most important functions of practice is finding that state and learning it so well that you can summon yourself to it at will.

No matter what is going on around you.

There’s a nice little bonus to this. It’s a beautiful space to be in.

So why are we not there 24/7, as the new saying goes? Good question.

The most obvious reason is tiredness; probably 75% of you reading this are really getting enough sleep.

Two more subtle and insidious factors are; the constant, background fear we carry around of what others think of us, and guilt. We don’t feel we’ve done enough, or are worthy enough.

Gotta let those go, my friend, the promised land is waiting.

In order to DO your best you must be FREE to BE your best. It’s that simple. So go ahead, take a deep belly breath and make your day.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. And don’t forget, ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery” can support you in your highest playing aspirations.