Can YOU Have an Up Bow Staccato?

Many years ago I brought ‘Introduccione et Rondo Capriccioso’ to a lesson with Milstein. About 40 or so measures into the Rondo there are a couple of passages calling for up-bow staccato. Many a violinist – and at the time I was one of them – have found these a source of great frustration.

Sure enough, when I got to the passages my staccato was anything but brilliant.

Milstein stopped me. ‘The point is to make a brilliant effect here,’ he said. ‘I do not get on well with up bow staccato, so I do this.’ He then proceeded to play the passage using broken arpeggios, detache, rather the written scales.

The effect was thrilling AND virtuosic.

After that, I virtually stopped using up bow staccato for many years. I thought, if Milstein didn’t have a good one I could be excused from possessing one myself.

Then, about three years ago, I set about learning the 5th Caprice of Paganini with the original bowing – three notes down, Sautille, one note up. It isn’t a staccato bowing, yet it was a bowing I’d previously thought impossible for me to do.

It took some 6 weeks of daily practice using the mental and physical techniques I’d developed to combat the effects of focal dystonia in my left hand – I spent some 20 minutes a day on it.

Today I can play that Caprice with greater velocity and ease than ever before. And I use that bowing.

This accomplishment led me to return to up bow staccato. And sure enough, I’ve found that it too has given way to the same kind of approach.

The secret to it is this. There are two things that must be combined. The motions of the right arm must be absolutely free of extraneous movements – in this case the technique can be reduced the technique to a single muscle.

And you’ve got to get consummate control over the firing of that muscle – your timing must be impeccable. Once you have muscular efficiency combined with fine motor control you’re assured success.

But only if you KEEP these in tact as you build velocity.

This is the last stumbling block. Many folks think that once they put out a certain amount of mental effort they should be able to ‘just do it.’

It doesn’t work that way. You can only play Reliably as fast you can think.

Now, if you think that is a drag, well, you’re going to find the violin and a whole lot more in life a frustration. And if you step back and say, ‘Wow, I really CAN DO anything I set my mind to,’ you’re going to feel blessed indeed.

And that, my friend, is how to live the violin.

All the Best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. So many folks have been taking advantage of the Holiday Sale we’re having that I’m going to leave it open for a couple of more days. There isn’t a better way to learn the violin, but you’d better hurry on over before it’s too late to take advantage of this great prices!