A Game of Adjustments

In baseball, one cliché that players and broadcasters deploy on a regular basis is, “It’s a game of adjustments.” The phrase can apply to a player adjusting to a new team or environment, a batter tweaking his swing, pitchers adapting to fewer juiced batters, and more.

The phrase “game of adjustments” came to mind in my practice session today as I worked on (what else?) bowing.

A few weeks ago, Ms. L. was trying to get me to push my bow hand further from my body on down-bows to keep my bow straight. (I know—shouldn’t I be able to bow straight by now?) I kept thinking I was doing it, but I wasn’t. “Exaggerate it!” she told me, and I pushed my right hand out at what felt like a truly ridiculous angle. “That’s it!” she exclaimed.

At my last lesson, she was prompting me on my up-bows. “Point the bow away,” she said, and gestured for me to pull my right hand in. (My baseball fan self enjoyed a private giggle over the notion that, just as in baseball, you follow “down and away” with “up and in.”) Again, I had to exaggerate it to get it right.

In practicing a scale tonight, I was focusing on keeping my bow straight by bowing at these ridiculous-feeling angles. But my bow was skating all over the place. When I looked in the mirror, I found that the angles were, indeed, ridiculous. I looked away and tried it again, not even paying attention to how the angles felt, but just thinking about down and away, up and in. I checked the mirror, and there it was: nice, straight bowing.

So sometimes I have to exaggerate, with conscious physical effort, in order to adjust something. Other times, I just have to give myself a little mental prompt, without conscious physical effort, in order to adjust something. In this case it seemed like a progression as I internalized the change. But sometimes it really is one or the other. Hmmm.

On Creativity, or Benefits of Being a Dilettante

I’ve been out of town for a brief (fun!) getaway, so practicing has been on hold and my lesson for this week is cancelled. I won’t have much to say, violin-wise, until I resume my practice routine (over the weekend). However, I came across two interesting sets of thoughts about creativity that I thought I’d pass along.

First, via Notorious Ph.D., there’s this note from a Pixar animator named Austin Madison. (And when I say “note,” I mean a handwritten note on Pixar stationery.) He encourages persistence when you are in a drought between streaks of productivity/creativity. Seeing this encouragement in human handwriting somehow makes it seem more real, more personal, and more achievable.  

Then, via undine, there’s this article from The Wall Street Journal that discusses current research on creativity. The author, Jonah Lehrer, points out that creativity consists of “a variety of cognitive tools, each of which applies to particular sorts of problems and is coaxed to action in a particular way.” In other words, anyone can be creative if he/she has the wisdom or insight to choose the right tool for the job. Lehrer also talks about circumstances that foster creativity, one of which is this:

“If you're trying to be more creative, one of the most important things you can do is increase the volume and diversity of the information to which you are exposed.”

What a great argument for something like my little violin endeavor. Although my writing here is all about music, most of my life is not. Like most people I know--those who need/want and are lucky enough to have full-time paid employment, that is--I spend many/most of my waking hours at work. I am lucky to have a job I love (most of the time), but it can deplete me if I'm not careful.

To enjoy my job and do it well (creatively!) and enjoy life, I have to recharge. What recharges me is to "increase the volume and diversity of information to which [I am] exposed." What does that look like for me? Spending time on a regular basis with small circles of awesome people whose life experiences stretch over the whole world. Reading all kinds of shit that was never on a graduate school reading list. Watching baseball. Working on my second language skills. And now, immersing myself for a few hours per week in music, pushing my physical/mental/musical limits.

Give yourself permission to be a dilettante--it's good for your brain.  

Finger-Gazing

I feel strangely compelled to document what the fingertips on my left hand looked like today after an hour of practice. Weird, huh?

Photo by TR, 8 March 2012

Smoother Shifting

One thing I’ve been working on in general (but particularly in scales, arpeggios, et al. and in the Bach) is smoother, more accurate shifting. Somewhere along the line I developed a habit of clenching my left hand too tightly as I played, and this habit was right there again when I re-started this violin thing in October. Ms. L. has convinced me that this tension interferes with accurate shifting.

I have to admit that when she first told me that, I wasn’t totally convinced. I knew that playing with too much tension in my left hand would tire it out too fast and possibly lead to other problems, and knew that I needed to address it, but I didn’t think that tension was making shifting/intonation suffer. In the first week or two of my lessons, Ms. L. pointed out an inaccurate shift I’d made in a scale and talked me through loosening up my hand and not pressing my fingers so hard on the string. I went along with it, but thought the intonation problem was just about me not having played a three-octave G major scale in about 17 years until that week. I figured that shift just needed some brute force repetition. But ever since then, she has gotten after me periodically to loosen up my hand.

And, what do you know? At the same, time, in the Bach, some persistent intonation issues and Ms. L.’s coaching in lessons have gradually convinced me that I need to deconstruct some of my shifts. For example, on a shift from first position to third position where I’m playing two third-finger notes in a row (e.g., G in first position on the D string, then B in third position on the D string), I truly need to keep my first finger down as a guide finger and even listen to the upward slide (in practicing, at least) in order to land accurately. I was practicing that in the time leading up to my last lesson or two, but not really worrying about tension in my left hand.

In my lesson last Friday, we worked through one of these difficult spots in the Bach, shifting from first position up to a first-finger A flat on the E string. It’s not really second position, it’s not really third position, and I kept not really getting it. Though I didn’t realize it, I was clenching my left hand all the while. As I worked at sliding my first finger up to the right spot, Ms. L. kept telling me, quietly but firmly, “Too much pressure. Still too much pressure.”

Finally it clicked—not the actual note, but letting up pressure when I shifted. And it felt good. And then the shift came easier, and then others did too. And as I’ve worked on it in practice yesterday and today, it’s coming more naturally!

So, OK, OK, OK. Playing with less tension in my hand, or at least consciously releasing tension in my hand when I shift, is not just good on general principles—it actually helps me shift more accurately. Hopefully I will get better at playing with more looseness in my hand in general, not just on shifts.