Fine Points, Part 3

Just ‘dismounted’ from the violin. You know, many are the days I rebuild my playing from the ground up – focusing on the horizontal travel of the bow; the position of my left hand; the independent, light action of each finger, etc.

They are the ultimate basics of playing and always worthy of holding in one’s consciousness. Today I felt rather stiff from a workout at my gym last night, so I gave myself the pleasure of a nice, slow warm-up with these in mind.

Now should you be in the least concerned about the ‘form’ of the above here’s a link you’ll find Very worthwhile.

And by the way, what I said yesterday about string crossing also applies to shifting. That is to say, I use the change of bow to trigger the horizontal movement of the hand to the new position – when the shift occurs under one bow I pick the spot on the bow that, when reached, triggers the movement.

Remember, no anticipatory movements in the left hand.

Ok, there’s one thing in all this that I’d like to go a little more deeply into.

Our bodies like to work automatically. It’s the way our brain is wired – think of walking, breathing, etc. And by doing so the Conscious mind is left unencumbered with such tasks. It’s an efficient system.

Yet sometimes this system works to our disadvantage.

For example, once our conscious mind senses a rhythmic pattern to what we’re trying to do, bingo, it puts as much of our movements as possible into an ‘autopilot’ mode, so to speak.

Problem is, the rhythm of music has nuance to it. It is not Really so predictable as the automatic mind would think.

And secondly, in the case of creating and holding an image of where you next mean to go on the violin, the body tends to react immediately to the image – this is the anticipation I talk about.

So, what is key to your success, in large moves around the violin, is to break that reflexive response that is triggered either by the rhythm the body is in or the newly formed image taking shape in your brain.

Again, this is something we can all fall into and which creates audible imperfections in our playing.

The question is, are you patient and passionate enough to ferret these things out. If you do, wham! You’re playing just went to a new level.

All the best, Clayton Haslop

P.S. Again, Kreutzer for Violin Mastery is a great place to find instruction on all that I’ve been saying.