Was Nathan Milstein a Liar

A couple days ago I sat down to look at emails over my afternoon espresso – I allow myself two a day.

Anywho, there was one from a new subscriber and client that made the contents of my demitasse seem down right freezing.

In fact I almost burst a head-gasket I was so steamed.

It seems my good fellow lives down under, in Australia. The teachers he’s been suffering under, and he tells they are typical there, insist that one play WITH a shoulder pad and NOT hold the bow in the Russian style.

Never mind that he’s expressed a preference for the Russian bow hold and is more comfortable SANS shoulder rest – that’s WITHOUT, if your sipping French roast – than with.

And when my new friend pointed out that Milstein advised producing certain bow strokes ‘from the shoulder’ (meaning with the upper arm), one of his teachers accused Milstein of LYING about his own technique!

Now that’s chutzpah for you.

You see, Milstein was about 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and his arms were short. He played using the upper arm because it was expedient for him to do so in many situations. He also used his upper arm to produce a wonderful spiccato stroke – I watched him do it on more occasions than I can shake a stick at.

So calling Milstein a Liar, I mean really.

The good news is that the Milstein legacy is being preserved by quite a number of Violin Mastery clients in Australia. My new friend has himself just acquired Kreutzer for Violin Mastery, ‘Bach and Kreisler for Violin Artistry’, AND Paganini for Violin Virtuosity, Vol. 1.

Now that’s a trio that’ll keep a fiddler engaged for quite some time – and go a long way toward silencing trash-talking, no respecting, self-glorifying pedagogues.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Mind you, it’s not just in Australia that you find misguided violin instruction. And I think the best way to protect yourself from it is with an elegantly efficient, stood-the-test-of-time approach to violin playing. Here’s the course that gives you exactly that.