Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

Received an email from a gal a couple of days ago. It touches on an insight shared with me recently, so I’ll share both with you. She writes;

‘Hello Clayton, I really loved your performance on youtube. My teacher studied extensively with Erick Friedman, she also has me hold my violin with the left hand. My fingers get tense over time, and it is difficult to keep my wrist steady when I move into different positions. Do you have any tips regarding these problems? Thank you in advance.’
Thierry

Well, I suppose everybody’s fingers get tense over time to some extent – particularly if your spending a good deal of time playing scales in tenths and fingered octaves.

Let’s assume, however, that you aren’t pushing yourself to such extremes. In this case you could be getting tense as a result of trying to force your hand into a position that is untenable for it.

I suggest the following.

Rest the violin in the cleft formed by your thumb and the base joint of your index finger; breathe, relax; and then just think of the fingers of the left hand meeting the fingerboard where the pitches are that you would like to play.

In other words, ‘let your fingers do the walking’.

Now, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t keep fingers out over the string when not in use. I still think this is a good idea. Just don’t make a federal case out of doing it.

Keep it simple, and let the hand, wrist and arm just follow the fingers to the notes you want to play. If you focus on keeping the left hand relaxed as you do this, you may find you are able to accomplish extensions with much greater ease as well.

This wisdom isn’t just my own, by the way. When I said that an insight was shared with me recently, I was referring to a friend who related to me words Ruggiero Ricci had spoken recently on the subject.

Both he and Nathan Milstein would have been in ‘lock step’ where the left hand is concerned.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. I did ship a large number of orders today for ‘Bach and Kreisler for Violin Artistry. So many, in fact, that I was unable to contact my webmaster to remove the ‘prepublication price’ from the order page. It’s still a great time to get a hold of this groundbreaking program.