Approach

Who doesn’t dream about a sweet and melting sound, of a sparkling staccato and juicy chords? Yet somehow the common notion that violin is one of the hardest instruments causes many enthusiastic players to fail to relax while playing.

Consciously or unconsciously they feel overwhelmed by the coordinative challenge to align bow and fingers. Unwanted sonority and sounds, and unnecessary muscle tension right up to pain- especially in hands, arms and shoulders- are common grievances, which intensify in the presence of an audience. This unpleasant experience is also often called stagefright.

In my teaching, I emphasize the fact that the separate movements are simple and easily executed. The challenge is in combining the various movements required to play well. To avoid unwanted tension and sound, we look at what we effectively need to do, for example to realize a down stroke on the e-string. The goal is to become able to perform any movement as relaxed as possible – the guiding idea being passivity. This is the basis on which to recognise upcoming tension and to release it back into that well-known relaxed feeling. Right along the lines of ,,less is more’’.

If a player succeeds to achieve an optimum of flexibility and adaptability of the working muscles and joints, musical ideas can be implemented effortlessly. The body will be guided by the musical and tonal vision just like it is when we talk.

Therefore two skills have to be developed: On the one hand, to recognise, localise and loosen muscular tension, and on the other hand to develop a vivid musical imagination, which ‘is capable’ of guiding the movements.