Feel the Pressure

On Wednesday the music scoring sessions for ‘Speed Racer’ came to a rather quiet and elegant end with a cue for string quartet. Certainly was unexpected, given the rest of the score used a full 100 piece orchestra and went by at break-neck speed.

Yesterday I headed north to have a visit with my folks, who live in the ‘gold country’ in the foothills of the Sierra. Beautiful spot to be, I must say.

Anyway, my dad and I were talking last night, and he felt I should elaborate on the amount of finger pressure I use in the left hand.

He had gotten his fiddle out after my last newsletter on the subject – yes, he is a player – and found that he could play with much greater velocity when he didn’t drive the strings all the way down to the fingerboard.

And his tone wasn’t affected in the least.

Many, many players I’ve worked with have been surprised to learn how little muscle is needed to make a pure, singing tone. Part of the problem may be that their whole hand tends to clench when putting down a finger.

In my ‘Beginner’s Circle’ program I demonstrate and continually remind the players to go slowly enough that they can limit the contractions in the hand to only the finger called for.

I also have had them lower the fingers to the string in such a way that they develop control over the whole range of motion – so many players play ‘digitally’, the finger is either up, or down, and they have no control or consciousness of anything in between.

Not so good.

In my system I want ANALOGUE control. That is control over the whole range of the finger motion. Only in that way can I consciously eliminate extraneous contractions of the hand.

At first this means playing slowly. VERY slowly. Once in the habit of spending practice time on a ‘cellular’ level you will be amazed at the results.

If you have my Kreutzer for Violin Mastery course you might want to go back and review how I approach #9.

Now, if you have played for some time, are not up to Kreutzer, and are finding yourself stuck, I think you will be surprised and delighted by what you see and learn about the left hand in the ‘Beginner’s Circle’.

In fact I’ve had several players do this. Each has commented on how much more satisfying their playing experience has become for taking time to revisit the basics with me.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. If you think about other athletic endeavors, like hitting a baseball, you will find the most outstanding hitters are constantly reviewing the fundamentals. And they don’t just rely on their own judgment. They have hitting coaches working with them, giving input and offering new ways to think about basic movements they’ve done for many, many years. This is the kind of insight advanced players can take away from the Violin Mastery Beginners Circle. Great stuff

Violin Mastery Goes to Washington

Wow, what a couple of days. Got up early Sunday morning and flew to Washington D.C. where I spent the afternoon giving an ‘intensive’ to a gifted gal who drove down all the way from Hartford Conn..

I don’t think she would disagree with me if I said she emerged transformed by the experience. She sure looked mighty relaxed and glowing with energy when she departed 2 1/2 hours later.

But the main events happened yesterday.

The morning was taken up with a lecture/demonstration/Q and A on sight-reading and rapid learning techniques, the afternoon with a master class. Both were given at the marvelous 30 million dollar music facility housing the Washington Marine Band and White House Orchestra.

The audience included musicians from the Air Force and Army, as well as the Marines.

And let me tell you, these folks can play.

One Curtis trained fellow zipped through the Waxman ‘Carmen Fantasy’. Couple others the Mozart G Major Duo for Violin and Viola. And a third, a CIM graduate, gave a highly polished reading of Prokofiev’s unaccompanied Sonata.

Now, in case you didn’t know this, the ‘President’s Own’ White House Orchestra dates back to the time of Jefferson. It is therefore the oldest orchestra in continuing existence in the United States.

Today the salary and benefits are quite attractive, and the competition to get in, fierce – over 100 players stood for a recent audition.

As for their duties, they perform a public concert series, they perform for official ceremonies and holidays, and they break down into smaller ensembles to entertain at state dinners and White House functions. In short they play all kinds of music in a variety of settings. Not a bad gig if you ask me. And the facility they work out of is a dream.

But getting back to my sessions, I’m thrilled to report they couldn’t have gone better.

I felt I took a pretty big risk, in the rapid learning session, when I invited orchestra members to bring in music for me to demonstrate my techniques on. The concertmaster took me at my word, and laid a pretty tough piece of music in front of me. It was quite chromatic and rhythmically tricky.

Some of it, in fact, was really beyond the ability of any violinist – and I know some great ones – to sight-read without error.

What I did do, and very persuasively from the reactions of the audience, was to demonstrate how the dynamic breathing and counting techniques I use get me up and running, even with such challenging music, in record time.

As I’ve said before, so much of it is having tools to get you in a highly relaxed, yet focused state. It really doesn’t matter whether I’m practicing at home or in front of 60 highly trained professionals.

I do what I am in the habit of doing. And it works.

As for the performers, I found a few recurring themes. All of them left some music ‘on the table’ in their performance. That is to say, they had mannerisms and reflexive habits that diminished their effectiveness in some small way.

One had a way of distorting the time just before awkward shifts. He wanted to create extra space for the movement. But when I exposed and eliminated the wasted motions and hidden tensions from his hand, Bingo, clean, noise free shifts with no space empty spaces.

Another had some unconscious mannerisms in his bowing. What might be called ‘unsightly bulges.’ Had to get him to slow down a little too. Until he began to really get the sense of what a singing, continuous tone is all about.

Anyway, I know I’m going on about this experience, but it was a great deal of fun and very rewarding to see great results and smiling faces at the end of the day.

And I got a few orders for my ‘Paganini for Violin Virtuosity’, too.

You know, if the ‘president’s own’ find great value in learning my secrets for mastering challenging music, you might want to check it out for yourself.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. One took away a Kreutzer set as well, actually. They’re the best ticket I know to get your fundamentals in tip-top shape.

P.P.S. As I write this I’m on a plane heading to LA. Tomorrow morning I begin scoring the music to ‘Speed Racer’ with Grammy winner and Oscar nominee Michael Giacchino. Stay tuned for a report from the trenches.

How to Accelerate Your Learning

Got an order today from a very busy professional violinist who is looking to increase the rate at which she is able to learn new music.

Let me tell you a little story to shed some light on her concern.

About a year ago I arrived at the sessions for Mission Impossible III. I was the concertmaster on the project, so I opened the book a few minutes before the session to take a look at what was coming. I was shocked to see that the first cue of the day started with some incredibly difficult writing.

My first thought was, ‘Oh no, I don’t think I can learn this before we’re going to be asked to play it.’

Now, as a word of explanation, when you’re sitting in the section, you can get away with a little schmutz, if you know I mean. When your sitting right under the conductor’s nose, it’s a very different story.

My next thought was this. ‘OK, breathe, count, and play through this thing slowly, just calmly putting your hands on the notes.’

The first time through I had to slow way down in a few spots in order to think, speak, breathe and play simultaneously. The second time was noticeably easier.

With several minutes to spare before the conductor’s downbeat, I was laughing at myself for having that initial thought of alarm.

And I felt Totally Awake.

Now, there is one more important ingredient in doing this. You must have highly efficient well-formed playing habits. In other words, no extraneous movements to struggle against.

All this is what Kreutzer for Violin Mastery is about. And my thinking about all this is simple, ‘like causes produce like results.’

Do as I do, and you’ll be eating pages covered in black notes for breakfast.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Two of my favorite ’hand trainers’ are #11 and #12. Pay special attention to how I maintain a stable hand position through the shifts.

Cut Right to the Gut

Going to continue talking about the weekend’s master class. Specifically, today, about playing from the gut. Many people give lip service to doing this.

We actually DID it. And I mean with gusto.

As a warm up I had the class on the floor for a good 20-30 minutes Saturday morning. We did ‘dynamic breathing’ with a vengeance.

Point was to not only breathe from the diaphragm, but to FIRE UP the diaphragm contractions to an explosive level while keeping the rest of the body absolutely relaxed.

What a feeling. After few minutes I felt quite a buzz; a totally clean, natural buzz that put a smile a mile wide on my face.

Course when I stood up I about fell over, too.

While regaining our equilibrium we discussed the benefits of flooding the body with oxygen. Courtesy of a medically trained class participant we learned that doing this lowers CO2 levels in the blood stream, alkalizing the system in the process.

And that’s a very good thing from the standpoint of health, in case you didn’t know it.

But the real intent for me was to get folks transferring all that ‘gut power’ right into their bow arms. So on we went.

Next we played scales, separate bows, with accents on each note. The idea was to use the diaphragm muscle to drive the outward and inward thrusts of the bow – we’re talking horizontal energy here, not the downward hacks many mistakenly use to produce strong emphasis.

We exploded the bow down the string with out breaths. We swept it back up the string with decisive in breaths. Bang, bang, bang, bang.

No tension, just guts galore.

Then I got an attendee, who had been having tension issues with the first page of ‘Praeludium and Allegro’, to really put it to the test.

What a pleasure it was to see him power the bow back and forth with absolute abandon.

And it wasn’t just the right side that benefited from this. His intonation, shift timing and finger articulation were all improved while he focused on the breathing.

Now, I’m not saying you’re going to huff and puff your way through every piece of music you play. But I’m definitely suggesting that the conscious use of your breath will inform your playing on a deep level and get you in touch quickly with the most efficient, pure way of doing things.

The folks learning, or relearning, the violin with the Violin Mastery Beginners Circle are getting all of this from the get-go. I expect them to make progress on the violin at two or three times the rate normally experienced. And with a far better outcome to boot.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. The more you feel as you play – and this goes for the physical sensations in your body – the more you have to offer an audience. It’s a nice feeling to get in front of people knowing you’ve got some fire in your belly as well as your fingers, when you need it.

In Pursuit of Calm, Clear Fingers

At the past weekend’s master class we covered a lot of ground. In the course of things we took a very close look at the workings of the left hand, particularly with an eye to achieving ‘velocity.’

It’s funny, in a way, how you have to go incredibly slowly sometimes in order to clear the way for going super fast. The trick is to really do slowly exactly what you intend to do fast.

A lot of folks have trouble have trouble doing just that, however.

When playing things slowly the fingers must all remain quietly poised over the strings ready to fire. And when they are called upon they must execute with absolute clarity and lightness.

I think it really surprised people to witness just how lightly my fingers are contacting the string when I’m playing fast. The strings don’t even touch the fingerboard.

Aside from the minimal amount of muscle energy required to orient my fingers out over the string, there is no tension in my hand. And when a finger is ‘fired’, just the muscle involved with that finger fires, the rest of the hand remains quiet.

Getting this level of control takes a willingness to play quite slowly with tremendous focus. After all, you’re seeking control over small, individual muscles here.

Once you begin to get this control, however, things can proceed quite quickly. The first step is the hardest – slowing yourself down and isolating the muscles of each finger.

It can be almost a painful experience for some.

But again, once you get it the first time it comes much easier from then on.

All the detache Kreutzer etudes are great for developing this focused, relaxed, independence of movement. It’s always great to have a model and an inspiration when doing this. You’ll find just on Kreutzer for Violin Mastery.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. We also spent a fair amount of time straightening out bow arms. It begins and ends with getting right hand tracking in a straight line from one end of the bow to the other. Kreutzer, Vol. 1 is also just the ticket for getting the kinks out just about any bow arm.

Who Breathes Music

Before I get started I’d like to thank all of you for the wonderful notes of last week. Truly heartwarming and inspiring to read.

At the recital of last Friday, I believe my playing reached some wonderful heights. In the weeks leading up to it I had a daunting challenge to overcome. The ‘dystonia’ in my left hand was fierce.

Finally, on Monday last, I reached the fevered pitch necessary to pierce through the lastest blockage. I won’t say the rest of the week was easy, but I knew from that point that I was NOT going to let anything prevent me from speaking powerfully with my violin on Friday.

After the performance I had dinner with the attendees of the weekend’s master class – I’ll talk more about what we accomplished over our days together tomorrow.

I believe it was difficult for them to comprehend how much I’d gone through leading up to the event. The point of even discussing it with them – and with you now – however, was to underscore my belief that what I am capable of, ANYONE is capable of.

I am special only in understanding of what must be done to produce results. That is, in fact, the only reason any of you reading this should bother to continue doing what I say.

You know, I could’ve blown this recital off quite easily. The publicity was very light for it, and the tickets sold could easily have been refunded. I confess to having thought of it MANY times during the ‘dark weeks’, when the fingers of my left hand seemed to actively defy instruction.

But something in me just wouldn’t accept that outcome.

Going through this ultimately raised my game, not only from the standpoint of playing, but also, and more importantly to me now, from the standpoint of understanding what I have to offer as a teacher.

In the process I had to go even deeper into the tools and techniques I’ve used for success previously. My appreciation for what breathing properly, visualizing with intention, and playing with a pure understanding of playing fundamentals can do for one is greater than ever.

I don’t understand how the issue with my hand came to be, but I sure as heck know how to prevent it from stopping me in reaching my violin goals.

Bottom line is this, the violin is perhaps the most multi-faceted activity a human can engage in. And I think I have some valuable insights to offer in the practice of it.

Over the weekend several people ordered ‘Kreutzer for Violin Mastery’, all 4 volumes. They are getting a program that will serve them well for many years, if they apply themselves to it.

If you haven’t already done so you can reap the same benefits at http://www.violinmastery.com/kreutzer.htm

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. An even higher level of violinistic problem solving may be found in the practice of Paganini. My one-of-a-kind course pierces through the challenges found in 8 of his Capricen.