FIDDLESTYLES

Vibrato – when and how much?

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Fiddlerman

Vibrato is one of the violinists greatest expression tool when used correctly. Many argue as to how much and how often one should vibrate. Basically we should vibrate more when playing romantic music and tighter when playing classical music. When playing baroque music it is a great idea not to vibrate at all. Many believe this to be boring while I think it adds imagination to expressing ourselves in other ways. We’re forced to do more with the right hand when we can’t take advantage of vibrato as an expression tool. We must do more with phrasing and dynamics instead. This can make playing baroque music much more interesting and creative and even educational.Basic rules:Vibrate wider on the lower notes and tighter on the high ones.Do not vibrate more than the leader of the section in an orchestra.Vibrate more on accents and downbeats in classical music.Vibrate from the tone and downwards for correct intonation.Don’t play some notes with and some without vibrato unless intentionally thought out.Try to vary your vibrato as much as possible and save the most intensive vibrato for the most expressive phrases to avoid being boring.by: Fiddlerman

via violinist blogs | Fiddlerman.

Why do we play scales?

One reason is to warm up. Playing scales nice and slow, even painfully so, where getting a good sound is next to impossible, is very good practice and warm up.

We need to warm up both the right and left hand.  Play scales over the frog of the bow, not using more than 5-6 inches for smooth bow changes.  Also, play long full strokes to get used to using the whole bow. Play scales with slurs as well. Slur eighth notes, triplets, sixteenths as well as different articulations. Practice the most difficult strokes while still maintaining concentration on intonation and sound production for each and every tone.

Another reason to play scales is to establish finger patterns for every key signature so that the fingers come down in the right place for the right key automatically. Playing scales in every key signature helps us play in all keys with little thought. Music consists mostly of scales and arpeggios.  Try to perfect your scales as much as possible and to memorize what your hand feels like with the position of each and every finger on all four strings. Eventually these finger patterns will come by themselves though the work towards perfection is forever. Use your warm up time for relaxed enjoyable and calm playing. Don’t be in a hurry to speed up tempos. The opportunity to play fast will come and also perfection after having devoted quality time to your scales.

via violinist blogs | Fiddlerman.

Why Sherlock Holmes played the violin

For me, one of the best things on the radio, apart from the World Service, is Mark Tully’s Something Understood. Quirky, original, imaginative, quite uninterested in the “ratings”, it is always a pleasure to listen to – even if it is broadcast at an awkward hour: 6.05 on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday was called “Sleeping on it” and Tully used it to explore all those aspects of thought which do not rely on the rational intelligence: intuition, dreams, impressions, the unconscious and so on.

The broadcast opened with a reference to Sherlock Holmes and how he played the violin as a relaxation from his highly advanced cognitive processes – and as a way of allowing inspiration to help solve the crimes he is investigating. Then there was a wonderful quotation from Rilke: “Everything is gestation and bringing forth… beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence… That alone is living the artist’s life, waiting with patience and humility…” Didn’t St Paul also talk about this kind of gestation?

Mozart, it seems, was able to harness both sides of his mind, the creative, intuitive side and the conscious, rational side, at the same time. According to Tully, mystics, poets and artists have always understood the Bible’s words: “Be still and know that I am God.” He thinks that scientists are just beginning to catch up on this aspect of the mind. I have to admit that the public utterances of Richard Dawkins have given me little confidence that this is the case (though a scientific friend tells me that his book Unweaving the Rainbow is very poetical). Humility is in order here, as shown by Tully’s quote from the physicist Richard Feynman: “It does no harm to the mystery to understand a little about it.”

Following the broadcast I happened to read a crime novel by the Catholic Herald’s own writer-in-residence (and books editor), Stav Sherez. Entitled The Black Monastery and set on a Greek island, it encompasses mystery, long-buried secrets, the horror that sin and evil can unleash and a few original twists of its author’s own. The very contemporary heroine, Kitty, gazes at a massive granite cross and yearns “so much to believe in something greater than the world in front of her”. I should warn readers that the book is not for bedtime reading.

And how did I find a link between the civilised reveries of Mark Tully, with his intimations and ruminations, and the darker revelations of The Black Monastery? Reader, I slept on it.

via Why Sherlock Holmes played the violin | CatholicHerald.co.uk.

Violin playing improves childrens reading levels

Playing the violin as an extra-curricular activity could help improve childrens reading levels, it has been suggested.Christina Patterson, writing for The Independent, said that not only does playing a musical instrument help to broaden a childs mind, it can also improve their performance in the classroom.She explained some 84 per cent of school children who took up the violin prior to a recent assessment saw their reading levels rise by two levels.Similarly, 75 per cent of pupils saw their abilities in the field of mathematics improve.Ms Patterson said: “Its so obvious that children can do anything if we teach them how to do it that it almost doesnt seem worth saying.”She added how she was moved by a recent performance by Lambeth schoolchildren at London’s Royal Festival Hall, where they “beautifully” recited musical variations of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and other such school classics.Londons Music Education Fund has recently been launched by Mayor Boris Johnson, with the initiative aimed at providing encouragement to more youngsters to pick up musical instruments

via Violin playing improves childrens reading levels | News at Gear4Music.com.

Charlottesville violin maker crafts instrument worthy of ancient master

The musician and the violin-maker endured the final agonizing throes of anticipation in silence.More than a year had passed since they hand-selected a slab of aged Engleman spruce with the hope of transforming it into a musical work of art. Now the moment was at hand when the instrument would speak for the first time.Internationally celebrated concert violinist Max Rabinovitsj tuned the strings as violin-maker Oded Kishony watched. Then with a sure, graceful movement of the bow across the taut strings, the violin came to life.As Rabinovitsjs fingers flitted along the fingerboard, the musical notes soared from the dark register of sound into the exquisitely sheer upper range. The trills and flourishes immediately announced to the trained ears of the two men that a violin worthy of the ancient Landolfi violin that had inspired it had come into existence…………..read more

via Charlottesville violin maker crafts instrument worthy of ancient master | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Scientists Learns Secrets of Strad Violin

It’s likely that even Joseph Nagyvary doesn’t know exactly when the obsession began to take over his life.

Perhaps it goes back to 1957, when as a young Hungarian refugee in Switzerland he was allowed to take lessons on Albert Einstein’s old violin. Or perhaps it was the first time he heard the extraordinary tones of a Stradivarius violin, and began to wonder why the work of one craftsman has not been surpassed in more than two centuries.

He admits he never became a great violinist. “I only play the slow tunes,” he quips.

But he thinks he has discovered the secrets that allowed Antonio Stradivari to turn out such incredible instruments in his shop in Cremona, Italy.

The old master himself probably never understood all of those secrets, Nagyvary says, and that’s the reason his craftsmanship died with him in 1737. He didn’t know exactly what to pass on to his sons.

Bug-Free Wood

Many years ago Nagyvary turned his attention to science. He is now a biochemist at Texas A&M University, where he has researched such things as nucleic acids and cancer, but the 66-year-old professor never gave up on his first love.

For more than a quarter of a century, he has published dozens of papers explaining his theories about Stradivari. He even makes his own violins, which many experts say rival those of the old master.

Nagyvary says he began traveling down that long road in the 1960s, while he was in northern Italy. He noticed that wood artifacts in museums from the early 18th century frequently showed damage from wood-boring insects. They looked like “Swiss cheese,” he says.

“But I discovered that [wooden objects from] the cities of Cremona and Venice had no, or very little, wood infestation from that period,” he says.

It seemed clear to Nagyvary that someone in Cremona had come up with some way of protecting wood from the insects, and the technique was used by everybody who worked with wood, including Stradivari.

Nagyvary began experimenting with all types of preservatives, including borax. It seemed likely that borax would have been used because it was known as an insecticide long before the 18th century.

via Scientists Learns Secrets of Strad Violin – ABC News.

Hilary Hahn – Favorites

Slow Practice for String PlayersAt a recent Q&A session with kids and their parents, someone piped up, “My son likes to play through his pieces instead of practicing them. His violin teacher says that he should practice slowly. What does this mean?”As anyone who has taken private lessons is probably aware, one practice technique encouraged by teachers is indeed “slow practice”. However, it can be difficult to know where to start when beginning to apply such a method. Many students – at one point, me included – wonder why its so important to do this, what theyre expected to listen for in the process, and how to relate that to their “up-to-tempo” efforts.Below, Ive described some of my favored approaches to slow practice, but these were all around long before I began violin studies. Some people stick with one method; some prefer another. I mix it up, doing all of them individually from time to time, depending on my needs on any given day.To any students out there who may need slow-practice advice, Id suggest reading this through, trying these different options, and figuring out what works best for you. Remember that slow practice is only one of many different practice techniques. A good practicer will alternate it with other musical work, in order to improve consistently on numerous levels. Finally, I have to mention that if you feel like your teacher understands you, chances are that he or she will be able to guide you in the right direction better than anything you might read on someones website.

via Hilary Hahn – Favorites.

Londoner breaks violin speed record

Oliver Lewis plays fastest ever Flight of the Bumblebee on live TV

A violinist from London has broken the record for the fastest performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. Oliver Lewis played the piece live on BBC children’s show Blue Peter in a time of 1 minute 3.35 seconds, knocking nearly a second off the previous record. A Guinness World Records official was in the studio to witness the performance.

via The Strad – Londoner breaks violin speed record – 20 October 2010.

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