Today’s message should be very helpful to you, IF, that is, you are like most violinists and can always use an insight or two to keep your right arm technique sharp.

You see, most players have four main challenges where it comes to their bow-arm; keeping it straight, keeping it horizontal, achieving clean, non-disruptive string crossings, and coordinating changes of string and direction with the left hand.

Now, you may think of disagreeing with me. You may be thinking, ‘my biggest problem is with spiccato, I can do all those other things.’

If that’s the case, I’d say, you’d be wise to pay attention, your spiccato difficulties may have more to do with these things than you think.

Actually today I’m just going to discuss the first two challenges; keeping the bow straight and keeping it horizontal. For most of us ‘straight’ is pretty well understood to mean parallel to the bridge. What is less understood, in my experience, is the need for the components of the bow arm to facilitate the horizontal travel of the bow.

And for these to happen there are exactly 3 joints we have that must ALLOW them to happen; the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder.

Take the wrist, one of the most common no-nos I see is a raising of the wrist at the frog. Raising the wrist immediately takes one component of your bow-arm out of the horizontal plane of movement that is so necessary to an efficient, seamless bow.

So how should the wrist flex. The wrist must flex forward, remaining within the ‘plane of motion’ the bow arm inhabits whilst also maintaining the bow in a position parallel to the bridge.

This idea of staying in the plane of motion extends to the elbow as well. I see a lot of players introducing unnecessary complications to their bow-arm by elevating and lowing the elbow in the course of drawing a full bow.

And then they wonder why the bow ‘chatters’ on the string, or they have difficulty with quick string crossings and such. Well, there’s just too much going on, and all that contrary energy is getting fed right into the bow stick.

And last, there’s the shoulder. Oh yea, the shoulder. How fresh is the memory of my father standing next to me tapping my shoulder to get it to relax during my early years of practice.

Though relaxed, the muscles in the shoulder must nonetheless control critical movements of the upper arm that comes into play at the lower part of the bow and during string crossings.

I’ll talk more about string crossings tomorrow, yet for now it is important to understand that although the shoulder is bearing the weight of the arm and bow, it must nonetheless be relaxed, at it plays a critical role in moving the bow straight and horizontally at the frog.

This is to say that one cannot confuse the vertical movements involved in string crossings with the lateral movements of the upper arm involved in bowing.

This morning I again made a worthwhile investment into my practice by playing Kreutzer #2 at the extreme frog. And you might be interested to know, that for me to accomplish it, at tempo, from top to bottom with a really smooth detache bowing, I ‘belly breathed’ like a stallion in heat. You’ve got to keep the upper body absolutely relaxed to do this, and belly-breathing is a secret every violinist should know facilitates this.

What I’m talking about here is covered in one little instructional DVD that I’ve ‘lifted’ from my ‘Beginnings Circle’ weekly learning program. It’s truly a must-have for every modern violinists library.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

More often than not, the well used saw, ‘haste makes waste,’ is true.

There are times, however – and I’m sure you’ve experienced them – where you MUST play hurry-up AND you can’t afford to make a mess of it.

It’s when excitement and fear wrestle for pre-eminence. And when a cool head is essential.

These are also the time when we feel most alive.

Well, there is a young lad that wrote me yesterday who is in this position as we speak.

Here is what he wrote;

Dear Clayton Haslop,
I don’t know if you get this in time, but I want to ask you something. I’m in high school and we have to ready two solos. I have chosen Vivaldi’s La Primavera and I’m doing the 3rd movement. My other solo is Double concerto for violin by J.S. Bach, the 2nd violin solo part. The trouble is, is that our teacher revealed to us that we need one solo ready for next week. I think that I could get the Double concerto done for next week. I’ve been doing it bit-by-bit measure by measure. I’m using the Suzuki book, level 4 version. I’m only confident up to part A. Are there any tips that you could give me that would help me improve and get ready for this “audition”? Any help would be appreciated. I’m still quite young compared to the masters.
Sincerely, Leon

Ok, here are some ‘tips’ that come to mind.

If ever there was a time to focus, now is it. For the next week you are going to eat, sleep, breathe, in short, LIVE the Bach Double first movement. The mental practice you do away from the violin is absolutely as important as the practice you do with the instrument.

Set as a goal that by next week you will be able to play the movement from beginning to end in your head accounting for every note, every rhythm, every change of bow.

And when you take up the violin each day, Leon, your hands will be on fire in anticipation of what they are going to produce.

As you ‘get your hands around’ the music you don’t know you must play slowly, yet with great attention. You want to make as few errors in pitch and rhythm as possible. You want to play as relaxed and as efficiently as possible. You must resolve to play as slowly as it takes to get it right.

As you do so take mental notes of the physical feelings associated with playing slowly and easily, you want to run those in you mind during mental practice..

By the way, don’t try to play from beginning to end as you learn the piece. You will confuse yourself and deaden your concentration by doing so. Make a plan; divide it into sections – each letter is good. Learn one section until you know it is in your head at a given tempo – not fast – before going to the next.

Carry the music around with you the next day, mentally playing through, with detail, what you learned the night before.

When you begin to practice each day, review and polish previous sections before moving to a new section. Gradually increase the velocity with which you are able to play learned sections without sacrificing one bit of accuracy.

It should feel like flowing water. To make it go faster you simple increase the slope of the flow. Gravity does the work, and there is no increase in resistance.

In your plan make sure you allow yourself at least 3 days at the end for putting it together. In other words, you must have all the individual sections in your hands with 3 days to spare.

So, Leon, this is the opportunity for you to raise your game significantly. When I was your age I was truly on fire to master the violin. At one point my teacher told my parents I was doing a month’s worth of learning every week.

Now it can be your turn.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. Now, I had the benefit of very good instruction as a high-schooler. Even so, I could have made even faster progress with what I know now and have packed into the Kreutzer for Violin Mastery program. An ideal choice for Leon.

This is the first time in quite a while that I will have actually managed to send out a newsletter on all 5 days of the business week. Today’s will be short, however, as my daughter is off school and tugging at my sleeve to play ‘unicycle chase.’

So, playing from the shoulder. The first time I actually heard the phrase was on my first visit to the Milstein masterclass. And on that hearing it was a real puzzler, I must say.

On consideration, it makes total sense. As I written in the past few days, Milstein was a great believer in using the largest muscles possible to control the bow.

Those muscles are certainly not to be found in the hand, forearm, or even upper-arm. They are in the back, torso, and shoulder. Those are, in fact the muscles that control upper arm movement.

So if Milstein had said, ‘play with the upper arm,’ he would have been saying virtually the same thing.

Now it should be said that Milstein was not a tall man, and his arms were short. If you watch him play you will indeed see that his upper arm plays a very large role indeed in his bow arm.

Average and taller than average folks, with longer arms, will have difficulty doing as much with the upper arm; which is why you will hear me talk so much about the forearm.

Yet for people of any size there are two aspects of bowing in which the upper arm must certainly be employed; string crossings, and when close to the frog.

String crossings, as I said yesterday, are accomplished by the ‘elevator’ muscles of the torso.

Drawing the bow back and forth near the frog will call on the exact muscles in the shoulder Milstein was referring to.

Today I spent some time playing scales and Kreutzer # 2 at the extreme frog to fine tune my control of all these muscles. The thing one must bear in mind when doing this is that the horizontal movements of the bow must be independent of the vertical movements at changes of string.

By staying in the lower third of the bow, even someone with my length of arm is required to play from the shoulder. And by keeping my fingers quiet this is quite exclusively so.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

You know, if you take just about any passage of music in the violin repertoire and gather 5 players to play it, chances are you will see 5 different fingerings being used.

This may not be the case, however, if those 5 players came from the studio of one teacher.

Now, I consider that I have had four main teachers in my life.

What is interesting, as I look back, is that two of them tended to have specific fingerings for any given passage, and sought to adjust my technique to accommodate them.

The other two took a very different tack.

In high school I studied with a very gifted Italian violinist by the name of Guido Mansuino. His theory was, if you couldn’t play a passage with a given fingering after 3 honest attempts, it was time to find a new one.

Milstein was much the same way.

In the interim, however, I spent 3 years with Eudice Shapiro, at the USC School of Music. Now Shapiro was a truly extraordinary violinist, one of the finest of the 20th century, in fact. Yet I would still place her firmly in the school of ‘adaptive technique’, where fingerings were concerned.

And I must admit to having chaffed at the bit in this regard whilst under her tutelage.

It was only when I arrived at Milstein’s door that I again began to feel the excitement of musical exploration, of personal innovation.

And fingerings were a big part of this agenda.

He himself was constantly looking for new and innovative ways of doing things; often playing different fingerings in successive performances – he was unrivalled in his ability to do this.

In short order I found myself investigating three, four, or more ways of fingering a passage before coming to one that allowed for the right musical impact as well as a fluid, facile execution for my hand.

And it fired my imagination to do so.

Admittedly, there are times when your fingering options are limited, and you really must rely solely on technique to get the job done.

Yet that is truly more rare than most violinists realize.

So if you run into a problem playing a passage, stand back and take a fresh look at those fingerings. Chances are, with a little investment of time, you’ll surprise and delight yourself with a much more effective way of getting the job done.

And you’ll actually be SAVING time and effort in the bargain.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. Now, the fingerings you find in ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery are the result of considerable attention on my part. Yet as you go through these etudes/caprices absorbing all I have to say about technique and practice, I do challenge you to improve upon them. In the process you will learn a great deal about what YOUR left hand is all about.

You may find this rather surprising, yet back in the mid-eighties yours truly here became familiar with ballet in a way few musicians do.

I married a dancer.

Now, the marriage, as it turned out, was rather short-lived, and I must admit to at least 50% of the blame for that. Yet, at the same time, I received a lot from that marriage, a lot of positive things. And those are what I chose to remember now.

I met Jamie during rehearsals for an interesting ballet, set to the music of Beethoven’s ‘Archduke Trio.’ Immediately I was intrigued, she was obviously highly sensitive and artistic.

When we arrived onstage, and I began to watch her dance, I fell in love.

Jamie had a way of completing movements that took one’s breath away. It was in her ability to HOLD an extension, something that she attributed to training for years with a former Kirov dancer.

Truly it set her apart from all but a very few American dancers at that time. After all, this was several years before ‘the wall’ came down. The Russian approach to dance was only present in this country through the handful of dancers that had managed to defect from the Soviet Union. A feat not easily accomplished.

In any case, I learned something from this exposure that has influenced my practice and thinking about technique and expression ever since.

You see, many a player will ‘chicken out’, lose their nerve, when face with large leaps of position or string. They will leave themselves room by prematurely departing for the new destination.

The great artists do not compromise. They FIND a way to sustain every note, full value, before proceeding; no matter what the seeming distance separating one from another.

And this you can do too.

On the violin the secret lies in understanding how to move one’s hands and arms efficiently and accurately; to take away the need for time.

One of the best etudes for learning and practicing the secrets of extension, is Kreutzer #12. This is the final etude you’ll find in Volume 1 of Kreutzer for Violin Mastery.

You may find this rather surprising, yet back in the mid-eighties yours truly here became familiar with ballet in a way few musicians do.

I married a dancer.

Now, the marriage, as it turned out, was rather short-lived, and I must admit to at least 50% of the blame for that. Yet, at the same time, I received a lot from that marriage, a lot of positive things. And those are what I chose to remember now.

I met Jamie during rehearsals for an interesting ballet, set to the music of Beethoven’s ‘Archduke Trio.’ Immediately I was intrigued, she was obviously highly sensitive and artistic.

When we arrived onstage, and I began to watch her dance, I fell in love.

Jamie had a way of completing movements that took one’s breath away. It was in her ability to HOLD an extension, something that she attributed to training for years with a former Kirov dancer.

Truly it set her apart from all but a very few American dancers at that time. After all, this was several years before ‘the wall’ came down. The Russian approach to dance was only present in this country through the handful of dancers that had managed to defect from the Soviet Union. A feat not easily accomplished.

In any case, I learned something from this exposure that has influenced my practice and thinking about technique and expression ever since.

You see, many a player will ‘chicken out’, lose their nerve, when face with large leaps of position or string. They will leave themselves room by prematurely departing for the new destination.

The great artists do not compromise. They FIND a way to sustain every note, full value, before proceeding; no matter what the seeming distance separating one from another.

And this you can do too.

On the violin the secret lies in understanding how to move one’s hands and arms efficiently and accurately; to take away the need for time.

One of the best etudes for learning and practicing the secrets of extension, is Kreutzer #12. This is the final etude you’ll find in Volume 1 of Kreutzer for Violin Mastery.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. Interestingly, a sensational etude for applying the same skills for clean, accurate shifts is found in number #11. Kreutzer was a smart guy, he just didn’t supply the ’how to’ maunal to go with his etudes. Good thing there’s one available now.