Put a Spider on Your Strings

No, I’m not trying to trigger your ‘fight or flight’ response, just give you an image to better inform your left hand.

A few mornings ago I managed a little jog in the hills surrounding our house. It had been a while. As usual I did a lot of visualizing as I ran.

Those of you that know my work, or have been following this newsletter for some time, know that I like to think in images. They are powerful tools for opening neuro-pathways.

On that particular dewy morning I was jogging along thinking about Kreutzer #27. It’s a legato etude in D minor requiring a lot of extensions and compressions of the fingers.

I planned to record the instructional material on it the following day.

Suddenly, my eyes picked out a spider web in the foliage off the road. I stopped briefly to investigate as it was a beautiful and symmetrical web.

Just off center was the spider itself, busily completing its creation.

As a watched, spellbound, I noted that the spider’s body remained almost motionless. Only moving quickly and efficiently to a new position as each section of web was finished.

While working on an area, the spider’s forelegs danced from strand to strand guiding new filaments into place.

Now, think of the base of your hand as the spider’s body. It rests quietly in place unless required by the music to move to a new position. The dancing forelegs are like your digits, stretching and compressing as needing to touch the pitch locations on the strings.

The movement of your bow finishes the picture. It merely spins out tone like the stream of filament emanating from the spider’s abdomen.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. If you think this a useful image for you, you’re going to love my image for #23 – think water bugs racing over the surface of quiet water.

Remember, Vol. 3 and 4 will not only be full of colorful imagery, they’ll have oodles of demonstrations to bring them to life. And today is your final opportunity to reserve a copy at the lowest pryce – yes, I do know how to spell the word – you will likely ever see it.