Beware Tempo di Mediocre

Don’t know about where you are, yet here right now the mornings are crisp and clear, the days warm and rich, and the nights ablaze with stars. A great time of year.

Yesterday afternoon I responded to an email on practice. And as I did so I realized something quite worthwhile. I realized that when I practice challenging passages requiring a quick tempo, I spend almost no time playing them at a medium or in-between tempo.

In fact, no less a violinist the Joseph Silverstein once called such tempi, ‘tempo di mediocre.’

Now there are exceptions. If I’m practicing to acquire a specific technique, like up-bow staccato or martele, I want to develop it over a range of tempi.

Yet to perfect Paganini’s 5th Caprice, where I know the goal is ‘as rapid as possible’, I’m not going to waste much time on middle ground. The point of the Caprice is not to learn spiccato – though it COULD be used to do so. The point is to stretch ones ability to get all over the fiddle at a full on gallop.

And by the way, as of a few years ago I play this caprice with the 3+1 ricochet bowing Paganini asked for in manuscript. Fact is, once mastered it’s easier to change bow directions twice per beat than 4 times per beat, but this is getting me off topic.

Slow, conscious practice is where the mental uploading is done and the hands are trained. Once accomplished, it’s about mental compression and a controlled explosion of energy. If the ‘test firing’ doesn’t go exactly as planned, I’m right back on hyper-slow re-examining all the pieces for inefficiencies, contrary motions, tensions, or a better way to ‘compress’ all the information I want to download in a hurry.

It’s funny, 15 years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of expressing this using a computer analogy. But there you have it, We are, after all, essentially biological computers. Might as well get with the program, so to speak.

Anyway, when you work with my Kreutzer program, especially volume 1 you benefit from all the detail I put into the slow practice – detail that is as much about deleting old, useless movements as it is about the pure fundamentals you want to cultivate.

In volume 1 I even perform them slowly to demonstrate the attitude of relaxation and ease that must be present before moving up-tempo.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. And just thought I’d mention that there are 3 etudes in volume 1 of Kreutzer for Violin Mastery that I carry in my head at all times and refer to frequently; numbers 2, 8, and 9. Two is great for tuning up one’s detache and right/left hand coordination. 8 and 9 are just super for developing the ability to move around the instrument seamlessly.

How to Learn in a Hurry

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.

Why Practice Techniques Fail

Don’t know whether you missed me last week or not, yet I did have a couple of good reasons for not making any deposits to your inbox.

I was in LA for most of the week, and I’ve been with flu.

Don’t know if what both my daughter and I have been experiencing is H1N1 – aka ‘swine’ flu – or not. Whatever the heck it is, I sure don’t recommend it.

The good news is I’m feeling much better now; quite a relief.

I did receive an email a few days ago that I’d like to respond to. The question was whether I use ‘rhythm patterns’ to practice fast 16th note passages.

Now in case you haven’t heard of ‘rhythm patterns’, they consist of taking straight 16th passages and playing them with 4 different rhythms as a means of getting more control and fluidity through them.

In the first version, one plays them in pairs, the first note as a dotted 8th, the second as a 16th. In the second version, the rhythm is reversed; the first note short, the second long.

A third variant consists of holding the first note of each group of 4 long, and playing the other 3 quickly. And finally, one plays the first 3 quickly and holds on to the last of each group.

Now, I haven’t used patterns in my own practice for many, many years for the simple reason that the ‘mindful counting’ technique I now use takes me much more quickly to where I want to be.

For one thing, it’s just too easy to run those rhythms on ‘automatic pilot’, if you know what I mean. And automatic pilot translates to automatic time-wasting in my book.

For me, consciously labeling the beats and visualizing the notes as I play them is the quickest way to give my arms and hands the guidance they need. Once I’ve done that, rhythm patterns, no rhythm patterns, it’s all the same to me. Not a problem.

The trick is to become the constant observer of yourself practicing good violin playing habits. Do this and good things are bound to happen.

Now one of the most affordable and convenient ways to acquire good playing habits is my Allegro Players program. It is designed for adult players with some experience who nonetheless have some less-than-ideal playing habits, and who want to fix them pronto.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. Just had another batch made of my little DVD entitled, Dynamic Breath Control for Violinists. Though it began life as the first month of lessons for my Beginners Circle it has a wealth of information useful to even very experienced players.

How You Play from a Shoulder

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

Getting That Up Bow Staccato

I got a very brief note in my inbox yesterday, a gal pleading for help with her up bow staccato. Seems she’s got a yearning to play ‘Liebesfreud’ and the darn bow just keeps trying to whack her in the forehead.

I’m joking, she didn’t exactly say that.

What she did say, though, is that her bow bounces too high, causing her to lose control.

Now, just from this statement alone I know that Leigh has not spent time with me on Kreutzer #4. Don’t even have to look in my records.

Nor has she gone through the Allegro Players course or my Paganini for Violin Virtuosity, all of which would have addressed the issue she’s having.

Yet I am going to forgive Leigh ALL of that and give her a tip or two that just might lead exactly where she wants to go.

First of all, an up bow staccato – or spiccato, for that matter – arises out of a martele stroke – in Italian, Marcato. And this stroke itself arises from detache.

Detache is generated by the forearm, almost exclusively so; and the Horizontal movement of the forearm involved is controlled by the bicep and triceps muscles, nothing more.

String crossings, on the other hand, are accomplished by discreet movements of the upper arm, controlled by the elevator muscles in one’s upper torso.

Further, the WEIGHT on the string comes from either the natural weight of the arm, or, in the case of forte or fortissimo, a combination of arm weight and those same elevator muscles just mentioned.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve said nothing about the Muscles of the hand or forearm, and I won’t. They are completely neutral in this.

I will say, however, that the wrist must be pliant to the extent it flexes forward to allow the straight travel of the bow as it moves toward the frog.

So to sum it up, an up bow staccato is produced by discreet movements of the forearm – ala martele – up bow, in a pure, horizontal plane.

ALMOST end of story.

The final element is Control. And I don’t mean the ‘Control’ agent 86 would call for help in the TV series from the ‘60s, ‘Get Smart’.

No, I’m talking about the control one has over the specific firing of the bicep muscle, and elevator muscles at string changes.

This is something that must be trained, and in an orderly, relaxed way. The order comes from verbalizing each and every beat as it is arrived at, first SLOWLY, and gradually faster; the relaxation from belly-breathing all the while.

The third and final element of control has to do with VISUALIZING all the above just prior to doing it. This is the key to the ‘deliberate action’ I wrote about yesterday, in fact.

Now, in case this sounds like a lot, consider again what I’m actually saying. Up bow staccato is about the specific, relaxed control over the firing of a couple of muscles.

As father Guido Sarducci would say, ‘It’s a piece of a cake’.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

Put Your Fingerings to the Test

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.

Why Deliberate Action Rules

Late in his career the legendary American pianist Mieczylaw Horszowki – isn’t that a mouthful – was asked if there was anything in particular he did or thought before going on stage.

He said, ‘I step out with my right foot.’

I’ve never forgotten that statement. To me it speaks volumes about the mindset one wants when setting out to do anything extraordinary.

It’s the mindset of Deliberate Action.

Now, there are performances I’ve attended where the performers had a different mindset. Something more along the lines of ‘cavalier’, I might say.

Rarely have I heard anything I wanted to hear again, from such players.

Nope, the greatest ones I’ve seen are those that ‘take the stage,’ from the first step. And they don’t surrender it until the last bow.

THAT is when I feel I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth at a concert.

Now, this mindset doesn’t just happen. Deliberate action is something to be practiced from the moment one has the intention to practice.

How you walk to the case, open the same, tune, and draw the bows are setting you up for the entire session. And, believe it or not, for every performance you play from then on.

The more practiced in deliberate action one becomes the more effective, and affecting, one’s performances will become.

So, if you have the false belief that X amount of practice, or X amount of repetitions, or X amount of music played through are the prerequisites for success, think again. It’s the quality and richness of the ‘deliberate actions’ you take that will determine your artistic and technical growth.

And, in the face of ‘performance anxiety’, it is deliberate action that will make the difference between less than your best and more than you ever thought possible.

Today I took some ‘deliberate action’ on several Paganini Caprices. Eight of them, #1, 2, 9, 13, 14, 16, 23, and 24 are taught in volume 1 of my Paganini for Violin Virtuosity course. And every bit of what I say in the four instructional DVDs is geared to get you in the mindset that produces real results, both in the practice room and on the concert stage.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. I’m aware that there are other instructional DVD programs now available for violin study. Most, if not all, even cost less than mine. And some have worthwhile things to say. However, I don’t know of any that bring the professional experience and training I’ve had to bear on the subject of violin playing. And that is the difference I care about.

Extend Like a Kirov Dancer

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.

Getting the Virtuoso Mindset

Last night I was shown an absolutely astonishing video on YouTube of a teenage boy playing the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on accordion, of all things. He played it blindingly fast, and as musically as I’ve ever heard it.

And he not only played the solo part, he played the accompaniment, the tuttis, everything. Really, it had me riveted to the screen from start to finish. And the kid must have been all of 15.

Search Tchaikovsky and accordion on YouTube and I think you’ll find it.

Anyway, that, and my practice this morning got me to thinking of the mindset behind such feats. Clearly it’s a mindset that goes beyond the discipline of hours of rote practice.

It’s a mindset that is continually asking what can be done to make this piece, this passage, this scale, this tone more communicative, more alive, more clear, more effective.

It really has nothing to do with time, in the end. It has to do with the passion to grow and explore new ways of thinking and doing things.

Some folks take something of the opposite tack to accomplish the same result.

Randy Newman is one of the best spokesmen I know for this approach.

On several occasions I’ve heard Randy Newman ask himself, and this is in front an entire orchestra, ‘how can I make this sound less shitty.’

And when he says this a lot of us laugh uproariously.

The plain and simple fact is, many musicians do have pessimistic streak in them. Yet the good ones don’t let that get in their way, either. Just constantly trying to move forward.

Anyway, sorry for the profanity just now, yet it just wouldn’t ring true of Randy if I left it out. And as you know, I think the world of him, his heart, and his music.

And speaking of heart and music, I’m just about to begin filming my next course, on the Mendelssohn E Minor Violin Concerto. If you’ve ever had the dream of mastering this most loved concerto in the violin repertoire you’ll want to keep a lookout for a special offer I’ll be making soon.

In the meantime, however, I’d be spending some good time in volumes 2 and 3 of my Kreutzer series. These lay a great foundation for what will come soon.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. Actually, I think Volume 1 of Kreutzer for Violin Mastery a wonderful warm-up for Mendelssohn as well.

My Most Challenging 3 Hours

It’s hard for me to believe, yet 20 years have elapsed since the event I’m about to relate to you.

At that time I was only just recently married to my wife, Tania, and we decided to embark on a project to ‘get the word out’ on our creative work.

Tania was then an aspiring composer, I was interested in acquiring management and having more of a presence as a solo violinist on the concert stage.

So we decided to hire an orchestra and produce a full-scale ‘demo’ recording featuring a movement of a concerto she had only just written for me, as well as 3 other movements drawn from the standard violin repertoire.

For those I chose the first movement of the Dvorak Concerto, the final movement of Mendelssohn, and the 2nd movement of Mozart’s G Major Concerto.

We rented a hall, paid for insurance, engaged a contractor, conductor and recording engineer, acquired the necessary scores and music, and hired a sixty piece orchestra – top studio players and members of the LA Philharmonic.

All the while I was practicing my you-know-what off.

Now, the conductor I chose to work with was a former teacher of mine; a wonderful musician and very, very knowledgeable about conducting.

What he was not, however, was in front of an orchestra regularly, and I came to discover, as we worked together, that he’d had almost no experience following a soloist.

So the big day arrived.

I can’t begin to tell you how much pressure I was feeling. Being up there in front of a bunch of highly trained musicians, and having put a great deal of our financial resources on the line; it was kind of a do-or-die situation.

We began with Dvorak.

Sure enough the conductor was so overwhelmed he seemed almost deaf to my presence. I began feeling that awful, scary, sinking feeling that comes when one senses that things are close to unraveling in a big way.

Yet I wasn’t about to go there without a good fight. After all, I had a group of the most responsive musicians in the world sitting there. My wife, with a great set of ears, was next to the recording engineer, scores in hand.

And I hadn’t spent all those hours in my studio twiddling my thumbs.

So collectively we just played over the top of our conductor, so to speak. We did what we all knew we needed to do. And though there were some tense moments, particularly in Tania’s piece – which none of the musicians had seen or heard previously – the final, edited product was really quite extra-ordinary.

I still keep one of those ‘demo’ cassettes on my desk as a reminder of that day; of how far preparation, keeping one’s head, and the help of others can take us.

All the best, Clayton Haslop