Like Little Hammers Hitting the String

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.