Six Steps to Great Violin Posture

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Good posture is essential for tone production, ease of playing and injury prevention. We’re all built slightly differently and there is no “one right way” to play the violin. However, these six steps are worth keeping in mind as a checklist for optimal playing:

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]1. Fix Right Foot First[/typography]

Start with your heels together and your feet in a “V” shape. Pick up your right foot and step to the side and slightly back. Your feet should be shoulder width apart. Move only your right foot, allowing your left foot to become a guide for the angle of the violin. Dr. Suzuki asked students to put slightly more weight on the left foot to keep the body straight. For young beginners it is helpful to trace an outline of the feet on poster board. This allows students to quickly find “rest position” and “playing position”. Beginners should always play standing. Later, when good posture is ingrained it is possible to transfer to a sitting position for orchestra and chamber music.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]2. Chin Power[/typography]

Keeping your body straight, look straight ahead and then turn your head slowly like a robot until your nose is lined up with your left foot. Then drop your chin, keeping your head straight or slightly tipped to the left. Try the same sequence with the violin. Get used to holding the violin only with your chin. Young students can place their left hand on their right shoulder, allowing the arm to hang. This ensures that the left shoulder remains free of tension and does not raise. It’s important to stay relaxed, allowing the violin to adjust to your posture, not the other way around. Keeping your spine straight, lean slightly into your lower back to bring the violin up. The violin rising to meet the bow helps contact with the string. Young beginners enjoy balancing a marble on the strings to show that the violin is not drooping.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]3. Nose, Fingerboard, Elbow, Left Foot[/typography]

When chin power is fully established, bring up the left hand. The nose, fingerboard, left elbow and left foot should all line up. Students who have difficulty drawing a straight bow in line with the bridge should make sure that the violin is not positioned to the left of the left foot. Bringing the violin in often fixes this problem immediately. Your elbow will gently swing further under to position your hand for the D and G strings and release back for the E string.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]4. The Left Hand[/typography]

Gently hold a racquetball in your left hand with your palm dropping. Take the ball out, maintaining the same shape. This is the correct shape of the hand for violin playing. When the left hand moves up to the fingerboard, first find the thumb, marking first position. The thumb should be vertical. For larger hands the thumb will lean back slightly towards the scroll. Allow the base of the first finger to rest on the other side of the violin’s neck. Keep the palm dropped. Gently turn your wrist to allow the fingers to form a relaxed roof over the fingerboard. Establish a soft, relaxed feeling in the hand and fingers while your arm is at your side and then keep this feeling as the arm is brought up into place. Never squeeze the violin’s neck. If your hand feels tight shake out and renew a feeling of relaxation. Relaxed fingers will naturally drop with the fingertips close over the strings. Fingers should drop on their tips with just enough relaxed weight to keep the string down. They should never press into the fingerboard. If the wrist is slightly turned, you’ll notice that the fingertips contact the string at a slight diagonal angle. The first joint of the finger should stay over the sting, only slightly behind the finger tip.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]5. The Bow Hold[/typography]

Loosely drop your right hand from your wrist and notice how the fingers naturally curve. This is how the bow hold should feel. The beginner can practice picking up a pencil with only the curved thumb and the second finger. This lineup should mark the center of the hand for balancing the bow. Start with your hand held out with the palm facing you. Bring the bow in, lining up with the base of your fingers. Make sure the thumb curves and pushes into the bow with a slight firmness. The thumb and second finger should form a ring, although they don’t need to touch. The third finger curves around the bow, the pinky curves on top and the first finger rests between the first and second joint. The bow should always be held loosely and never squeezed. Maintain a springy feeling in the fingers.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]6. The Right Arm[/typography]

The right arm should also feel relaxed and springy. Relaxed weight transfers from the shoulder through the elbow into a loose wrist and hand and into the string. Feel the connection of the hair and the string. Make sure the wrist is released as if you’re playing with a yo-yo and allow your elbow to settle and relax. String crossings should come from the hand with the elbow only following. When playing with more bow, the elbow and upper arm will push and pull the hand and the wrist will freely move like a paintbrush, rising at the frog and lowering as the bow is drawn to the tip to adjust the weight.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Building Good Habits[/typography]

Beginners will build a great foundation by focusing on one element at a time and creating good habits through correct repetition. If you’re a more advanced student and you face technical difficulty in any area of violin playing, attention to one or more of these posture points might lead to greater ease as a violinist.

December

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composer Michael Torke
composer Michael Torke

Music occupies the mysterious realm of metaphor, expressing realities which cannot be put into words. For American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961) music is inextricably bound to extramusical associations like colors, memories and feelings. His evocative titles give us a glimpse at these associations. In a previous post we looked at Torke’s synesthesia, a neurological blurring of the senses which allows him to “hear” colors.

December for string orchestra was written in 1995. Why do you think Torke chose this title? Is there something about the music which specifically feels like December? For me, there is something satisfying about the the way Torke’s music neatly unfolds with one small musical cell and harmony spinning into the next. Consider the role of repetition and gradual change in the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vejhlVMuQuA

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-torke/id4629207″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Javelin-The-Music-Michael-Torke/dp/B000004CWK”]Find on Amazon[/button]

Now that you’ve heard December, here is what Michael Torke has to say about the piece. His description sheds some light on mysteries of the creative process. Some questions worth considering: What is the source of a musical idea? Do extramusical associations unlock musical ideas for Torke, or are they just a simultaneous byproduct?

[quote]I remember experiencing a kind of cozy cheer in the early days of winter back in suburban Milwaukee, when, on the rounds of my afternoon paper route, I would anticipate with pleasure the forecast of the season’s first snow. The cold and the precipitation never bothered me; I loved the season: young girls wrapped up in parkas with only their bright faces showing, outdoor Christmas lights being strung out on the front lawns, warm meals waiting when I got back home. Music never literally represents things, but it does evoke feelings, impressions, and sometimes memories. In writing this piece, I noticed that the music that came out didn’t just refer to itself — it is my habit to set up certain compositional operations to give each piece its own profile — but that the music seemed to refer to things outside of itself. This is something I discover as I’m writing; it is not that I set out intending to describe the last month of the year through music; rather, the associations creep up on me, as I’m composing. I had originally called this piece Rain Changing to Snow because at first the listener might hear a kind of musical ‘precipitation’, a resultant wetness that comes from some of the strings sustaining notes that are moving in the other instruments. And as this develops, the music moves to a more tranquil key, where it sounds as though the rain has turned to snow and there is a strange stillness everywhere. But to me the music is about more than meteorological patterns. In my goal to write more thematic music which is less process oriented, I believe this music can afford a wide range of responses in the listener. I am against music that is merely cerebral, and I welcome the simple, physical experience of listening, and responding directly, without undue brain circuitry.[/quote]

December snow

 

The Unanswered Question

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New England ChurchIn the virtual isolation of early twentieth century New England, an organist and insurance salesman named Charles Ives (1874-1954) was imagining shocking and innovative new music. Ives created atmospheric collages of sound. He poured fragments of American folk songs and other material into a musical melting pot to create an exciting cacophony. Much of his music became widely known only decades later when other composers embraced similar techniques.

Previously, we listened to Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day from Ives’s Holidays Symphony. Now let’s hear The Unanswered Question, written in 1908 and later revised. Ives described this piece as a “cosmic landscape.” As you listen, pay attention to three distinct and independent musical layers: the strings, the trumpet and the woodwinds. Which voice do you think is asking the question? What is the response? What do you think the question might be? What feelings does the music evoke?

I grew up listening to this great recording with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Chicago Symphony. Close your eyes and become one with the sound, giving the music your full attention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDqXNDGWuOs

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ives-holidays-symphony-unaswered/id261231202″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Ives-Holidays-Symphony-C/dp/B0000026G7″]Find on Amazon[/button]

Three simultaneous but contrasting realities exist in The Unanswered Question. The strings remain placid and unchanging throughout the piece with chorale-like music built on triads. The trumpet enters with an atonal statement which emerges from a completely different sound world. The woodwinds react, at first calmly and then with increasing agitation.

There are several ways of interpreting the question and its response and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts in thread below. The trumpet may be asking “The Perennial Question of Existence,” as Ives wrote. The woodwinds may be saying, “I don’t know!” with increasing impatience. Or maybe, as Ives suggests they begin to realize the futility of the question and start to mock it. The strings represent an eternal and unchanging reality. In the end, the question remains. It’s stated one final time by the trumpet as the strings’ G major chord fades into eternity.

These lines from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 poem, “The Sphinx” may have inspired Ives:

[quote]Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Always it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply.[/quote] 

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]From the Steeples and the Mountains[/typography]

Here’s another interesting piece by Charles Ives. In From the Steeples and the Mountains Ives musically depicts the glorious cacophony of church bells ringing out from various steeples and then echoing off the mountains. Listen to the way Ives creates a collage with layers of sound. You may also hear echoes of Taps. This is from a recent recording by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony:

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/charles-ives-american-journey/id458829080″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/From-Steeples-Mountains/dp/B001MOH3D0″]Find on Amazon[/button]

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Christian Zeal and Activity[/typography]

Like Charles Ives, contemporary American composer John Adams (b. 1947) traces his roots to New England. Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity seems to pay homage to The Unanswered Question, although it ends up going in a different direction. Adams uses the hymn tune, Onward , Christian Soldiers, but slows it down and alters it in a way similar to Ives. In an interview with Edward Strickland (American Composers: Dialogues on Contemporary Music, pg. 185) Adams explains:

[quote]In any hymn the voices tend to move in blocks, so I went in and unhinged the hasps and let the four voices float in a dreamlike space so that they only rarely come together, and the effect was very beautiful. At moments it almost sounded like some unwritten Mahler adagio. I didn’t mean it to, but it just ended up sounding that way.[/quote]

Above these string lines, we hear the taped voice of an evangelist. Adams cuts up the tape and repeats fragments. His emphasis is on the expressive sound of the voice rather than the meaning. Listen to Christian Zeal and Activity and consider the ways it reminds you of the Ives. What emotional impact is created by the seemingly disparate combination of the strings and the recorded voice?

This is the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Edo de Waart:

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/adams-john-chairman-dances/id79655383″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Adams-Chairman-Christian-Activity-Lontana/dp/B000005IY2″]Find on Amazon[/button]

Four Sea Interludes

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oceanToday is the 100th birthday of twentieth century English composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976). Let’s celebrate by listening to Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from the opera, Peter Grimes. Played during scene changes, these interludes express the drama of the opera’s unsettling story. As you listen, consider the mood that Britten evokes and pay attention to the orchestration. You can read the synopsis of the entire opera here.

Here is a recording of a live 1990 performance by Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony at their summer home in Tanglewood. It turned out to be Bernstein’s final concert.

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Dawn – Lento e tranquillo (0:00)
  2. Sunday Morning – Allegro spiritoso (3:41)
  3. Moonlight – Andante comodo e rubato (7:42)
  4. Storm – Presto con fuoco (12:42)

[/ordered_list]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE6GRSOaRw4

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As you listened to the first interlude could you sense the shimmering sea, the splash of waves and a vast expanse of unbroken water stretching into the horizon? The music reflects a calm sea, but underneath there is a sense of foreboding. In the second interlude we hear church bells ringing and the sounds of seagulls. Towards the end of the final interlude as the storm subsides, the eternal presence of the sea brings a feeling of calm and safety…or is there still something slightly menacing lurking below the surface? The final lines sung by Peter Grimes are:

[quote]“What harbor shelters peace, away from tidal waves, away from storms? What harbor can embrace terrors and tragedies?”[/quote]

You can learn more about the life and music of Benjamin Britten here and here.

Following the Ninth

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A new film is out which explores the legacy of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony, directed by Kerry Candaele, highlights the timelessness of the music and its political and social significance. From Pinochet’s Chile to Tiananmen Square to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the final movement’s Ode to Joy has emerged as a universal response to oppression. Its themes encompass freedom, liberation, and the universal brotherhood of man. Here is the trailer to the film:

Read about the film in this New York Times piece and watch this clip with Bill Moyers. Here are a few excerpts from reviews:

[quote]Thrilling…….smartly assembled and gracefully paced. -The New York Times[/quote]

[quote]The reach of Beethoven’s final great work extends way beyond the concert hall, as this stirring documentary attests.-Film Journal[/quote]

[quote] A captivating portrait of how art can serve as an inspiration for struggle for freedom….around the world.-Santa Cruz Sentinel[/quote]

Premiering in 1824, Beethoven’s Ninth, with chorus and elements of opera, was the most expansive symphony ever written. Composers who followed Beethoven would struggle to come to terms with this mysterious and daunting work.

The symphony emerges out of silence. We have the sense that the piece began sometime before the volume was turned up. In the last movement, Beethoven quotes the first three movements, musically negating each in favor of the Ode to Joy. In this way, the final movement moves to a higher plane, transcending everything which came before.

We’ll give Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony the full Listeners’ Club treatment at some point in the future. For now, enjoy this performance by Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Also check out Leonard Bernstein’s historic performance celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. Keep an eye out for the movie and consider the ways in which the Ninth Symphony’s powerful universal themes still have meaning today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJQ32q2k8Uo

A Question of Timing

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images-3Timing is an important element in music as well as comedy. A great comedian knows how to build up to the punch line of a joke . Similarly, great composers have an intuitive understanding of proportion in music. They know how long to repeat an idea before moving on. They allow the music to unfold organically in a way that seems “right”, as if the piece is composing itself.

As musicians, we also have to consider timing. How are the notes working together to create a phrase, or musical sentence? How long should a note be stretched? Should the music sit back on the beat or have a sense of being right on top of the beat? How do we group notes to create a sense of flow? James Morgan Thurmond wrote an interesting book on this subject called Note Grouping: A Method for Achieving Expression and Style in Musical Performance.

Top instrumentalists and pop artists alike have mastered the art of timing. Listen to the way the young Michael Jackson shapes each syllable in a flowing and expressive way in the The Jackson 5’s 1970 hit, “I’ll Be There.” His performance coveys a natural and powerful sense of timing, right down to the release of each “there” in the repetitions of the chorus at the end of the song. Or listen to Broadway legend Barbara Cook shape the lyrics in Stephen Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind.” 

Violinist Isaac Stern summed up the importance of timing the following way in an interview: [quote] “Music in essence is what is happening between the printed notes, not on the notes themselves. How in that milli-milli-millisecond of time in going from one note to another note do you do what you do? Instinctively, thoughtfully, with head, heart, taste, and talent.”[/quote]

Watch Abbot and Costello’s famous “Who’s On First?” routine. Think about how it may be similar to the flow, development and timing of a musical performance. The routine centers around the confusion which ensues when players on a baseball team happen to have unusual last names such as “Who”, “What”, and so on…

Remembering John Tavener

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English composer John Tavener passed away yesterday. Born in 1944, Tavener was known for meditative choral music, influenced by minimalism and Gregorian chant.

Here is the Winchester Cathedral Choir singing, As One Who Has Slept:

Here is Lament of the Mother of God:

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Beethoven’s "Eroica", Part 2

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Monday’s post featured the first movement of Beethoven’s revolutionary Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (“Eroica”) Op. 55. This music, which helped plant the seeds of Romanticism, introduced shocking new sounds and an expansive, heroic form. Let’s continue and listen to the other three movements:

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Marcia funebre. Adagio assai[/typography]

Beethoven’s second movement is a solemn funeral march. Paying attention to the rhythm, consider what aspects of the music suggest a dirge. Why do you think Beethoven chose to put this type of movement in the middle of the “Eroica”? Does the atmosphere remain the same throughout the movement or does the character of the music develop into something new? Can you hear the sounds of the funeral procession fading into the distance at the end?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l_bPmJifV4

From the opening of the movement you probably heard the basses creating the rhythmic foundation of the funeral march. Beethoven creates a ponderous, weighty feeling by marking the downbeats with the lowest instrument in the orchestra.

At 5:11 the music tip toes almost hesitantly into a new theme in C major from C minor. It quickly crescendos to a sudden heroic statement or proclamation in G major (5:40). Isn’t it amazing how this heroic music can emerge so quickly from the depths of despair and then evaporate (7:32)?

But Beethoven soon has a new surprise in store for us, perhaps the most significant so far. At 8:16, the second violins suddenly launch into the subject of a fugue. A fugue is “a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (known as the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others.” Like the development section of the“Eroica’s” first movement, the music gets increasingly worked up, almost seeming to transcend everything we’ve heard up to this point (10:04). As you were listening the first time through, you may have been shocked by what happens next. At 10:42 we think we are returning to the quiet, predictable opening…but listen to what happens…

It’s no exaggeration to say that this is music which changed the course of music history from Brahms and Wagner through Mahler and beyond. This collection of pitches still speaks to us today as powerfully as it did in 1804. In fact, we often turn to great music like the “Eroica” when we need to try to make sense of tragedy. The Boston Symphony played this movement when President Kennedy’s assassination was announced to concert goers at Symphony Hall in 1963.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Scherzo and Finale[/typography]

The word “Scherzo” translates as “joke.” What comes to mind as you listen to the opening of the Scherzo? Maybe it’s breathless anticipation? Do you feel like the lid is about to blow off and the music is set to explode, no longer able to contain its excitement?

The final movement begins at 6:16. Are you surprised by the music which follows the dramatic opening of the movement? It’s only a harmony line without melody…a seemingly insignificant fragment of music. But this is the seed from which the last movement blossoms. What follows is a set of variations which cover exciting and far reaching musical territory. Notice how many different ways this theme can be developed and the contrasting emotions which result. What is each variation saying?

Beethoven’s music conjures up a complex sea of emotions. We often overlook humor in Beethoven, but listen carefully to the passage starting around 15:30. We know that the end of the piece is just around the corner, but listen to the way Beethoven plays with our expectations. I’m not sure if the music beginning at 16:28 is funny or frightening or maybe a mixture of both. How does this music set up the coda? What emotions do you feel as you listen to the end of the piece?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0eWcb1_uGM

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Interesting Links[/typography]

Now that you’ve heard the whole piece, you may want to go deeper with some analysis by Leonard Bernstein. Here  is Michael Tilson Thomas introducing the piece and then giving a performance with the London Symphony. Also, check out this episode of the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score this link from NPR.

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]The “Eroica” Through Time[/typography]

Over time, interpretations have changed. This fun clip documents the opening chords of the first movement from the earliest recordings up to the present. You’ll hear a variety of tempos as well as tunings. Remarkably it seems fairly easy to guess the style of each performance, based on the opening chords (quite a time saver).

If you want to choose one contrasting performance, I recommend John Eliot Gardiner’s performance with the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. This performance attempts to recreate the instruments of Beethoven’s time. You’ll notice that the tempos are significantly faster and the tuning is lower. Also notice the limited use of vibrato in the strings and the valveless trumpets and horns. Brass instruments at that time could play a limited set of pitches controlled by the lip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6JtVCYIPYw

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/symphonies-nos.-3-eroica-4/id150992376″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Revolutionary-Symphonies-Nos-Eroica/dp/B0000057EY”]Find on Amazon[/button]

Keep listening to this powerful, revolutionary music. You’ll continue to hear new, exciting things. Share your thoughts in the thread below. If you have a favorite recording of the piece, let us know about it.