A Tennis Tip for Violinists

Yesterday afternoon a couple gals from around the block came to look after Claire, and my wife and I headed out for our local tennis courts.

We began by doing our usual warm up at mid-court, the benefits of which resemble a warm up of slow scales and arpeggios on the violin.

After we had hit for a few minutes, though, I suggested we both make a conscious effort to put our feet in motion BEFORE the other person was struck the ball, rather than waiting until it was on its way over the net – as you may know, getting yourself in position relative to the ball is about 50% of the game of tennis.

The change in the quality of our hitting – i.e. control and consistency – was immediate and dramatic.

A few minutes later we took a break for water, and my wife says, ‘So, are you going to write about this in a newsletter?’

Hummm.

Here’s the deal. Tennis is a ‘real time’ activity, just like making music. And in both one is frequently responding to slight, and not-so-slight, variations in the flow of time – in tennis time measured by the speed and direction of the ball.

Now, there is a something we’ve got to be aware of for this to happen in the most efficient manner possible. It’s called inertia.

In tennis inertia takes the form of standing in place, waiting for the ball to start back across the net. In violin playing inertia takes a more visible form by way of foot-tapping and scroll-bouncing.

Now don’t get me wrong, in music that’s about a ‘groove’ – baroque and classical fast movements, much ‘pop’ music – I can’t say I have a problem with this; though in excess it can certainly be distracting.

But in finely nuanced music, and that’s a lot in the romantic-contemporary literature, one cannot afford to put the body on ‘auto-pilot’ in this way.

One must be alert and able to respond Right Now to the music’s ebbs and flows.

This is why I recommend, as challenging as it is, verbally labeling the beats – whether silently in one’s head or out loud in practice. Doing this is like keeping one’s feet moving in tennis. It is, in fact, the opposite, of scroll-bouncing or foot-tapping in violin playing.

Mental counting is creative and activating; scroll-tapping passive and dulling.

When I’ve prepared a score to where I can mentally label the beats as I play the music, no matter how challenging to accomplish, I know I can adjust, in an instant, to changes to the beat.

No, it’s not anticipation. It’s absolute, moment to moment Watch-Full-ness.

All the best, Clayton Haslop