Speed (especially on the violin, less so on the viola - I chalk it up to the rep being easier) has always been my nemesis. Getting violin showpieces up to tempo has been a bloody, tear-stained battleground. It's still probably one of my top struggles with the instrument. But through (I can finally say this) many years of playing and teaching, I think I've found a few things that help a bit. 1. Practice slowly to play quickly. Practicing in a slow tempo but with attention on quick-twitch actions teaches your muscles to be fast but without the emotional, mental, and physical pressure of having to do clumps of notes. Also, we can often discover sloppy spots (spots we wouldn't necessarily catch if we were plowing through at an ambitious but earless speed) in slow tempi and nip 'em in the bud. 2. This is kind of a fancier versions of #1: Rhythms. This involves playing long-short in various permutations in order to accelerate individual connections in "real time" but with enough under-tempo time to keep your cool. A subset of rhythms, or may be even an equally valued sibling, are playing with stops, or in bursts - ie. a few notes very fast (the "burst") followed by a stop to relax (the relaxation is critical - trains into you the soft, relaxed hands and chill parasympathetic nervous system that you need to play fast for extended periods of time). You can vary the number of notes in your burst, building progressively longer bursts. But if time is a factor, a two note burst can be fantastically effective. The main difference between rhythms and bursts is that, in bursts, your bow actually stops moving. 3. Repeated bows: change bows several times without changing the left hand (in the Suzuki Method, we sometimes call this tool "crickets" or "doubles"). This helps to accelerate the coordination but with enough time between individual changes to prepare the change. 4. Legato: play running notes under one bow - this allows you to focus on the left hand without the distraction of bow changes. Similarly, if it's a legato passage that's troubling you, sometimes practicing with separate bows can help you to see where the left hand may not have a coordinated transition. 5. When all else fails, inch up that metronome incrementally - and with as puny metric subdivisions as you can endure (which will help keep note values even). This is a good way to track progress and recent research shows that keeping the metronome on improves focus. With continued use of these tools, you should be playing faster...faster! All that said, courage helps! So once you've done the dirty work be BRAVE (that was my personal discovery from alto clef land) and you may surprise yourself:) copyright © cicely nelson 2016
I was actually a little bummed that I bailed on my regular TCI gig this past Sunday (I had friends visiting, so it was a great reason) - I just realize how gratifying it's been, getting back to performing regularly. Before June, I hadn't really performed since my graduation recital in April (well, no, I guess there was Bach double in May, but that was pretty low key) so I was initially a bit jittery about getting out there. We musicians are usually holed up in practice rooms and, quite honestly, it's hard for many of us to be really driven in our practicing without the impending prospect of a public performance. As I feel I'm so often telling my students, practicing is not performing - and vice versa! So I've been needing to get clear and remind myself (and my flock!): what is the difference between practicing and performing? Performing is easier and more fun imho, so let's deal with that first: Performing is not obsessing about technique, but rather, having spent some time with the work and having a sense of what you and the composer want to say, trying to express the meaning of the work to an audience (or, for a variety of reasons, it may not help you to think of the audience in particular, so let's just say, trying to give birth to the work in its entirety, to put it out into the ether). That's all well and good, but in the moment lots of things can arise (ego, frustration, tension, etc) and letting all of that go is part of what keeps you in the flow, creating continuous phrases. If you start beating yourself up about a gaffe, or admire that last shift you played, or your hand cramps up, the audience will feel that you're no longer present and they'll turn off as well. Performing is also helpful because it shines a spotlight on what we've been neglecting in the practice room. Some things don't come as a surprise; I know my left hand can be sluggish, my vibrato inconsistent, but there are also those slippery little mistakes - the ones that went just fine in the practice room - but passages that, on stage, will not get under your fingers. And you won't know until you put yourself out there. Practicing, on the other hand, is being a mindful detective. Staying absolutely present and noticing each note, assessing each phrase for technical errors, effective and musical phrasing, unnecessary physical tension. This can sometimes mean beginning your practice session with a play through to find the weak spots (and to practice performance - ie. physical and artistic endurance), but it most often involves dividing your piece into small chunks so that you can really break down your analysis into four distinct categories*: 1. Pitch 2. Rhythm 3. Tone 4. Phrasing (I would add a fifth, the awareness of one's body and the prevention of physical tension) Basically all musical hindrances fall into one of these categories. And our brains and bodies focus most efficiently when we break problems down. So begin by grouping your piece into tiny phrases (later you should make longer ones - when you're truly working on phrasing). Play the small phrase with an ear to what aspect may not be most reliable. Figure out why (easier said than done! But this is really where the fun work lies. I think it was Dorothy Delay who once said that errors only lie between two notes, so try to isolate an issue to two notes max). Once you've come up with a solution, repeat it a few times - enough that it begins to feel more solid, but not so many times that you go into autopilot (that's something that only comes after several days of this kind of isolation and repetition). And move along to the next mini phrase! After you've done enough to make a long phrase, you can play it through for musicality and just cause that's the fun part - reaping the benefits of your hard work! Many people have already written voluminously and compellingly about practicing, so please forgive any errors of omission, and please comment below if you'd like to add or disagree with anything! Finally, on the subject of practicing, for a long time, I've been wanting to write about the different ways to practice (ie. exactly how to solve these errors once we've uncovered them). Michael O'Gieblyn's YouTube video about the 17 ways to practice is pretty awesome for advanced players, and I highly recommend watching it and putting it into practice. But I was thinking of something more encyclopedic and maybe organized into categories (eg. speed, shifts, intonation, etc). Please feel free to comment below about things you would like help practicing and/or practice techniques that you find helpful. I love performing so much! Even my little gig here - where no one's really listening - makes me so very happy to send these notes out into the universe, so thinking this way really helps me - and I hope, you too! copyright © cicely nelson 2016
copyright © cicely nelson 2016
Interestingly, there have been a flurry of critiques of big time yogis this weekend with regard to their silence in the wake of these latest murders of black Americans at the hands of police. The critique is essentially, you have a platform, you're in the business of making people feel better, step up. I could not agree more. Evil is perpetuated by those who see it happening and don't speak up. I don't care how much you purport your business or your platform to be "irrelevant" or "apolitical;" there's no such thing as an "apolitical" member of society. If you're in the business of -isness, Black Lives Matter needs to matter to you. As religious freedom issues continue to be brought before the Supreme Court, we see that there's strong legal precedent for having one's constitutionally-enshrined right to express political views and yet still being obligated to carry out your business impartially. Yes, of course I'll be kind and loving towards all that I teach, but this is my political bent and I speak out about it because I understand it to be my human obligation. I'm by no means a particularly visible teacher, but I'll say here that that if clients feel differently (and personally, I've only ever heard support for BLM on the job) they can keep quiet, chose the door, or, hopefully, wake up. copyright © cicely nelson 2016
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