The Joy of Dancing Grey Cells

OK, let’s get back to one of your favorite exercises in personal sovereignty, playing the violin.

As I reported to you some time ago, I’ve been investing some energy into combining my live performance on the violin with choreography on my unicycle. It’s been eye-opening to such an extent I think you should know about it.

It’s all about making connections.

Some of the connections are physical. They challenge my ability to coordinate the movements of virtually all my extremities – with one exception – in a new and provocative way. My mind, and a few bones, too, I might add, sometimes aches with the effort.

Yet there are other connections that have emerged as well.

In the process of doing this my sense of the link between dance and music has become much more informed. I mean, coming to terms with the elements of dance and the elements of playing are two very different sides of the same coin.

Yet getting to know both sides of the coin in such a direct way has given me a thrilling insight into ‘coin-ness’ itself.

It’s that common fountainhead shared by both music and dance; the use of time to transcend time.

Now, you don’t have to play your violin on a unicycle to experience this. I DO recommend, and I may be putting out a new course on the practice, that you get up and move your feet during a portion of every practice.

And while you do, don’t forget to count. Counting is how we keep score over what we do ‘in time.’ Once you can play, count and move your feet try playing, counting and moving your Weight. After that, you’re ready to pay attention to cadence, gait, and lilt.

Once you do That, whilst playing ‘in tune’ and all the rest, you are ready for prime time with the best of them.

Now, in a few days I’ll be starting to film month 8 of the ‘Allegro Players’ course. And you can bet that I’ll be gently stretching folks in a whole new way, based on what I just said.

Not to worry, though, even if you’re confined to a wheel chair you’ll find yourself setting grey cells in motion like never before. Here’s how you can get on board as Violin Mastery’s great musical adventure continues.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. The ‘Allegro Players’ represents the second year of my monthly instructional DVD programs. Year one, my Beginners Circle, takes you from ‘out-of-the-box for the first time’ to the point you really ‘get’ what violin playing is all about.

How to Develop ‘V’ Power

As I lay my fiddle back in the case this morning, I thought of something Albert Einstein once remarked. He said, ‘To expect a different result from an activity that is repeated without some change is a sign of mental illness.’

Well, in the past I experienced my share of ‘mental illness’ during practice. I try to avoid it like the plague now.

The repetition of errors is something you want to keep to an absolute minimum.

Sometimes the little gray cells need things Real Slow to ‘get the picture.’ And you’ve gotta have good mental pictures – a.k.a. ‘neural maps’ – to safely conduct you through tricky music. And again, One very accurate, slow, thought-full performance of a passage is worth more than any number of fast, but flawed ones.

OK, enough said about that. Here’s what I mean to write about today.

I had a kind gentleman write in over the weekend asking how to develop a wrist vibrato in conjunction with a left hand violin hold. To date he has used an arm vibrato almost exclusively, especially in the first positions where he cannot use the side of the violin as a fulcrum for the hand movement.

First off, let me say this about the arm vibrato. Though I have reasoning for favoring a wrist vibrato – there is generally less tension in the arm and you don’t have to secure the violin with the chin and shoulder – there are times when bringing some arm into the sound works to good effect.

In months 7 and 8 of Violin Mastery Beginners Circle I teach and give exercises for both, though there is a much greater attention to the wrist vibrato.

After I have folks up and running with the wrist motion in third position – yes, using the side of the violin as a fulcrum – I begin to wean them off the crutch provided by the side of the violin.

The danger is that once the top of the wrist is floated away from the violin, the wrist flexion will cause the forearm to oscillate as well as the hand. This results in a net loss of ‘V’ power because the energy supplied by the wrist is now going in two opposite directions; the hand, and the forearm.

So, when you begin weaning yourself off the side of the violin you have to back up a few steps, slow down, look at your hand and arm in a mirror, and gradually develop control over the wrist such that you can move the hand back and forth without the forearm getting into the act.

Part of a good warm up, by the way, includes exercising one’s vibrato. In both ‘Allegro Player’s’ and ‘Beginner’s Circle’ I provide scales and arpeggios in part for their use in vibrato development.

And one last thing for Dr. John, aside from encouraging him to invest in the ‘Beginner’s Circle’ program, is this. After doing some wider, ‘slow oscillation’ vibrato moves on, say, whole notes in 1st position, then go back, narrow the range of the movement, relax the hand, and play the same tones with a faster rate of oscillation. In this way you’re coming to goal of a warm, expressive wrist vibrato from two different directions.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. By investing in a full year’s subscription to the ‘Beginner’s Circle’ you’ll not only save a nice sum, you’ll also receive all 12 months coaching at once. You can then move through the program completely at your own pace; a great way to review all the essential fundammentals.

The Importance of New Ideas

It’s truly a Fluid world we live, isn’t it. Sometimes I find my own fluid moving like molasses on a cold winter night. Last night it was moving like a Mississippi flood.

Sometimes the fluids around us flow with our own. Life is bliss and wonderfulness.

Sometimes they do not. And there is challenge.

In my practice session this morning there was plenty of challenge. What I thought I had memorized and secured in my fingers was nowhere to be found.

I was tempted by frustration.

Happily, though, I didn’t go there. I chose the other path. Getting on with it.

I recognized that what was happening was a necessary step in the process of learning. The kind of memory I used was not the exact kind that would enable me to remember today, tomorrow, and the day after.

And today there was a depth to my practice that was not there yesterday.

One has to remember that we often don’t know what we don’t know. Until confronted by it. I’m thankful I was confronted with my ‘not knowing’ this morning. It’s much better to find things out in the practice room rather than onstage when you want to show your best.

This is why it’s a good idea to constantly question yourself. Questions like, ‘why do I think I know this,’ or, ‘can I play this in front of my toughest critic and feel Good about it’, are useful; when you back them up with proof that you DO know it, and CAN do it.

Now, it’s important to set realistic goals for yourself. Yet they must be goals; that is, something for which you must reach and stretch. A steady diet of this and you’ll be amazed at the ground you cover.

Yesterday I received some wonderful feedback on the ‘Allegro Players’ program from someone who has been in it for several months. I think the course is successful for so many people is that it sets clear goals and shows you the steps to reach them successfully.
There’s a wealth of detail to keep the ‘new ideas’ coming.

If this all sounds like what you need you may get Month One of this great instructional DVD course heading your way today.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. This month – Month 7 – folks are tuning up their left hands with Chopin’s ‘Minute Waltz.’ What a gas!

How Not to Treat a Colleague

Today I won’t be writing about violin playing. So if you’re looking a little gem to help you with your up-bow staccato or your double-third playing, you’ll just have to wait for another day – or two.

Now, a few weeks ago I did a very daft and un-clever thing. I wrote what I thought was a good, instructional newsletter behind a little anecdote. The problem was, there were real identities in the story, and they were way too flimsily camouflaged.

No, I just didn’t think, when I went back and added some details of place and time, that they turned what was a very innocuous missive into an extremely discomforting betrayal of trust.

Ethical thinking is quite abstract, and requires advanced reasoning; the foundation of which, however, is a concern extending beyond self-interest.

It’s not the kind of thinking we’ve been seeing from our politicians or our captains of finance and investment. Well, it isn’t always present with me, either, I’m sad to say.

Often, as in my case, it is not an understanding of ethical law that is the problem. The problem is a lack of global awareness that would see that all the mental ‘programs’ we possess are up and running when they are needed.

When one of those programs – it could be memory in a concert, it is ethical thinking when writing about recent history – is not up and running when the need is clear and present, watch out.

Well, it is fortunate in my case that my ‘victims’ will not suffer materially from my error. The disappointment and confusion they must feel is enough.

The same cannot be said of our nation’s elected officials in the last 30 years. Both sides of the isle have betrayed the public’s trust egregiously. And we will pay with surrendered civil liberties and diminished quality of life for quite a while as a result. And if the halls of government could be scrubbed clean today.

All the Best,

Clayton Haslop

I Reached With My Ears

Every time I heard Nathan Milstein perform it was a revelation. He was that good. On one occasion, however, the opening minutes of a recital were quite alarming.

It wasn’t his playing.

You see, due to reconstruction of UCLA’s Royce Hall, an old ‘depression era’ auditorium was pressed into service for a season of concerts.

I believe the architects were thinking spoken word, from a microphone, when they designed it. For sure they weren’t thinking acoustic music.

My first inkling that things weren’t going to satisfy my normal expectations came as he walked on stage.

‘My,’ I thought, ‘this is pretty light applause’ – normally his welcomes bordered on thunderous.

He began tuning. ‘Umm, quieter than usual,’ I thought.

Yet I still braced myself for the strong piano chord and the cascade of violin notes that opens Respighi/Vivaldi’s ‘Sonata in Re.’

What came out were mere powder puffs of sound. Dumbfounded, my brain struggled to bridge the gap between expectation and reality.

I’d say it took a matter of 2 or 3 minutes. It was akin to walking out onto a darkened street after being in a brightly house. The need eyes several minutes to dilate and begin pulling in the stars and planets that fill the sky.

And sure enough, within minutes my ears, too, had locked on to the unfolding aural drama coming from the stage.

In the second half he played the Brahm’s D Minor Sonata. The visceral effect his playing of it had on me is felt even as I write this.

Now, here’s the point of my telling this story.

If you project a quality tone out there for people to listen to – you know, with ‘put something’ behind it – and back it up with musical content, the message will ultimately be heard; loud and clear.

Your focus must always be on the Feeling of playing the violin, and of making music. Let the listener’s ears come to you rather than you trying to fill a space that can’t be filled.

Remember, the most powerful and memorable moments of a performance are often the ones ‘on the threshold of sound,’ as my old USC conductor used to say. Just don’t forget the ‘put something.’

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. There’s plenty of ‘put something’ in my Bach and Kreisler for Violin Artistry
course.

Just Smoke and Tears

When asked how I’m able to do what I do, I often reply, ‘just smoke and tears, my friend.’

The truth of each goes deeper than you might think.

Let’s talk smoke. I manifest ‘smoke’ in a number of ways. And all apply to some degree or another. There’s smoke as in creating a deception – not a bad thing if your intention is merely to delight.

And then there’s the kind of ‘smoke’ that appeals to right brain predominance. No, I’m not talking a certain banned substance.

I’m talking about using sound and musical intention to move both myself and my listener into an experiential form of consciousness. The burning incense and Sage is for this purpose, actually.

‘And then, of course, there is the use of the word in the way you probably thought; something behind which one tries to hide. A screen, or cover.

Yes, I mean it that way too; of feeling just a light breeze away from being exposed a fraud in every way.

You know, just yesterday I heard read some of Graucho Marx’s letters read aloud. In one he admitted to holding that sentiment. In fact he felt convinced it was so.

Why did he feel this? – I know I’m digressing. Because he felt that humanity cannot know the true measure of anything. Well, with that in mind, how could he utter so much as one word without being tempted into irony. A comic genius is born.

OK, let’s move on to tears. Tears flow from feeling. The feelings can be of sorrow and joy, or of pain and ecstasy. They all come and go as I play, and I endeavor to take none so seriously as to hold on to it beyond its useful life. My job is to appreciate feeling, and to share THAT sentiment with my audience.

So there you have it, smoke and tears. That’s how I stay into violin playing.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Here’s a course that’ll have you in tears of joy doing moves on the violin you never thought you could.

Time, and Your Metronome

Day is breaking over the high desert. Looks to be clear and beautiful.

Now, I received an email the day before yesterday that I’d like to share with you. Take a quick look.

Hi Clayton,

I’m glad you mentioned rhythm in your email. My son has been working on Bach Double’s second violin. He’s been struggling to get the accurate rhythm when he plays duet. Besides practicing his music with the metronome, are there any other way to gain timing accuracy? How can he be accurate when the metronome is off?

Your opinion is greatly appreciated. I do enjoy reading your emails.

Regards,
Celia

No, I didn’t send to you because of the last sentence, though I did decide to leave it in.

OK, so first of all, Celia, I’d like to speak generally. Then I’ll get somewhat specific.

Time is a flow. The flow can be quick and lively, moderate and easy, or intentionally slow and thoughtful – and all points between.

The rhythms of music rest on the flow of time.

So that’s all very well and good. Yet there is a more to it. And this is where we can get more specific.

Playing the violin is somewhat complicated. There can be quite a number of actions going on at the same, or near the same time. This makes it challenging to play all the bits and pieces of the music within a steady flow of time.

So how much is gained by using a metronome, and does it really enable one to sense the flow of time.

I regard the metronome similarly to shoulder rests. One must understand their limitations. A shoulder rest is not the answer to holding the violin, though it can some support, and a metronome is not the answer to developing an inner sense of time.

Metronomes are digital. They give you a tick every so often, yet there is space in between. The flow of time is analogue. It is continuous.

That is what I want to appreciate when I’m playing. I want a sense of FLOW.

Now, it’s clear that Celia’s son is not working with one of my courses. If he were, he would be familiar with my system of counting. What I call ‘verbalizing the beat.’

There are two parts to my system. The first involves gaining the ability to name the beats as you learn the notes and rhythms of a piece. In this first stage, I do not care whether the flow of time is constant.

In stage one, the notes and rhythms come first, yet – and this is important – I do Name each beat as I come to it. Yes, it does make things a little more challenging up front; the payoff is big down the line.

So, in this first stage, when the music gets hard, I slow down. I go as slowly as it takes for me to play the music while verbalizing each and every beat. Correctly.

Once I can DO that, I begin listening to my count in a different way. I begin listening to the Flow of the count. And I begin to demand that my hands keep pace with the flow I’ve set.

In stage two the Count is boss. It drives the hands.

Now, there is a lot more about this and the efficient use of practice time I can’t communicate in an email.

One thing I might recommend, Celia, is that you consider acquiring the Violin Mastery’s Allegro Players program for your son. Though the course is addressed to adult learners, I can guarantee there will be a wealth of time-saving, playing-improving information in it he could benefit from.

I would even suggest taking it to his teacher and asking whether it could be combined to good effect with what they are already doing together. I have a number of folks doing just that.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. You know, as with all my monthly courses, you can discontinue them at any time, if you subscribe on a monthly basis. There is so little to be lost, and much to be gained. I’d say a trial month is a ’No Brainer’.

On Getting the Sense of It

Yesterday afternoon I spent 5 hours on the road driving from Palm Desert CA back to Sedona. It’s a remarkable drive.

For one thing, the ‘bones’ of the landscape are laid bare to the eye due to the lack of vegetation. Bear in mind, I was driving through the northernmost reaches of one of the greatest Deserts of the world.

Punctuating the low lying, flat, former basins are rugged, eroded mountains, which have been thrust skyward by the Pacific plate’s assault on the North American plate.

So it’s an epic landscape. There for the eye to see is geologic, climactic and ecologic history stretching from the most recent rainfalls back millions of years.

As I drove I struggled with the ‘sense’ of it. I tried to visualize the laying down and building up of the various strata, and the tremendous upheavals that stood ancient layers of rock almost vertical from the way they were formed.

I felt huge slabs of rock breaking free of high cliffs and embarking on a relentless process of reduction, ultimately being born aloft as sand and deposited in huge heaps where wind currents collide.

So it occurred to me that on one of my trips I will carry a camera, document the adventure, and pass it all on to you in a newsletter.

No, it’s not violin playing, but anything that inspires or excites can be relevant to music making. And that, after all, is what we are about here.

Incidentally, one of the things we talked about at the master class over the weekend was how to get the ‘sense’ of music.

I think there are many similarities between getting the sense of a landscape and getting the sense of a piece of music. First, you have to know what’s there, in literal terms.

Sometimes players don’t realize they are distorting the music in the process of ‘getting their hands on it.’ Perhaps they are not reading rhythms accurately, or are distorting the flow of time unconsciously.

After repeating the mistake, even once, it can become habit, and the mind tunes out any further investigation.

It’s like my looking out of the window as I drive, seeing a mirage, and then reporting to you that a lake has formed in a good part on the Sonoran Desert.

With music, which is, after all, quite abstract, this is much easier to do.

So my first concern is really learning the paper. That is, paying close attention to every rhythm, dynamic, articulation mark, and then placing all of these in a consistent, reliable flow of time.

Once you’ve gotten that far you’re ready to start drawing some conclusions as to the sense and meaning of the music. Sometimes ‘feeling’ indications are supplied through words and phrases placed in the score itself.

Yet sometimes the music is so abstract, and the expressive markings so minimal, that one has to test various hypothesis before finding the one that resonates most strongly with one’s own nature and the likely intentions of the composer.

The music of Bach can be this way. Just listen to Milstein play the unaccompanied fugues, particularly in his early recording, as opposed to the way Hillary Hahn plays them. There is a completely different sense of purpose to the two interpretations.

Yet now I’ve gone beyond the intended scope of this newsletter. My intention was merely to remind you to look closely at the page, to account for the execution of each note and rhythm before entering into the realm of interpretation.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. My Bach and Kreisler for Violin Artistry course takes you through the entire process of getting specific and consummate control over two great pieces of music.

Visualize the Feelings

In a few hours time I’ll begin the 6th Master class I’ve run since Violin Mastery went live. I’m looking forward to a great event.

One of the things on my mind is how to make the following statement true for everyone present: ‘Anything you can think, you can play.’

Now, many folks don’t exactly understand what I mean by ‘think.’

It’s not just to see, and be able to name the piches and count the rhythms. It’s not to know the fingerings and bowing either.

What I’m talking about, really, is a kind of kinesthetic knowing; of knowing the feeling of the body playing. And of placing that ‘flow of feelings’ within a specific time context, or what we call the tempo.

That is really all there is to the mastery of the violin.

Now, there may be one or two details to fill in, however. There is something to be said for understanding which specific muscles are best used in violin playing. It’s also important to think in terms of gestures.

Together that means, getting control over the best muscles to be used, organizing the movements of the muscles into certain patterns, and placing the patterns in a specific flow of time.

Now, the way I’m writing might sound a little too dry and academic.

The actual experience is anything but. And that is what I appeal to in my courses. The physical sensations, including that of the sound coming out of the violin, are uniquely rewarding when you have your creative mind engaged in the process.

In the coming installment of my Allegro Players program, I’ll be teaching a wonderful piece of music by Fritz Kreisler

And when folks ‘get creative’ in the process of mastering this work, they will be resurrecting the very essence of the man that created it.

Well, if that doesn’t just ‘magnify the soul’ I don’t know what will.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Now, if Paganini’s the man you want to connect with I think you’ll be thrilled with the results you get with Paganini for Violin Virtuosity, Vol. 1.

Peeling Back Those Layers

Just put down my violin, after one heck of a practice session. For the past couple of days I’ve begun focusing on repertoire that will be played at my Sedona Masterclass/Seminar, beginning on Friday.

One of the pieces is ‘Tzigane’, by Maurice Ravel – quite a knuckle-buster. If you don’t have it in your CD library you owe it to yourself to pick it up. It’s quite a bag of tricks.

Now, ‘Tzigane’ is not normally a piece one picks up and puts together in 6 days. Especially if you studied it at 19, performed it once in the interim, and then left the piece dormant for a few decades. As I have done.

And as time seems to allow just 90 minutes of practice a day now, I’m working fast.

Which isn’t to say I’m doing a lot of fast playing, either.

No way.

I’m spending most of my time in contemplative, slow motion. I go so slow that I’m able to zoom in on every pitch location, string change, shift, dynamic, beat name, fingering; in short on event in the music and in my body.

All simultaneously.

Now, the ‘saving Grace’ is this. I realize that there is a finite amount of information for me to know about any one piece.

It’s simply a matter of my taking the time to discovery it, and to percolate it into my mind and body.

OK, so your body is stiff, sore, tight and resistant. It doesn’t mean you’re condemned to remain that way. I can assure you of this through personal experience.

Much of the time your body is conforming to pain boundaries you’ve set for yourself. And Most of those boundaries get left unchallenged and are deemed permanent.

You see, we often stop short, as a result of our body fearing pain; we forget we have the power of breath, which fosters relaxation, and awakens the body to healing.

This doesn’t just concern physical pain. At times there is a kind of ‘intellectual’ pain that we shrink from. Yes, getting the mind around some things can be uncomfortable. In many cases this is so merely because outside ‘authorities’ have told us so.

Well, it’s time to question that authority. No, not necessarily in a headlong rush to judgment. Rather in a calm, curious, and persistent manner. Pushing a little away here, a little more over there.

Go as slowly as necessary.

Practice is about cultivating an ongoing epiphany. It is what real Artistic Vision is about.

I can’t imagine a better way to spend time.

On Friday a number of players are either going to experience this blessed state for the first time or they are going to Deepen the experience they’ve enjoyed with it. If they don’t I’ll send them home with their money back.

Life, and violin practice, are all about peeling back layers, until you finally expose the truth lying behind layers. That’s all it is.

Verify that statement in every practice session and you will be a great artist.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Recently I completed my 12 month program Violin Mastery Beginners Circle. Now it is available in its entirety; 13 DVDs, 4 CDs, music, and some 60 pages of written notes. It’s a program for those folks that want a real, up front and personal experience with the violin.