Things I Never Thought Of Before

In my last lesson, Ms. L was working with me on loosening up my left hand for the pseudo double stops in the Bach. She pointed out (again, because she has to, because I keep clenching up my hand in that section) that I will be able to play it better with a loose left hand. I have to work on letting my thumb and first finger get away from my fifth-grade-style death grip on the neck. Of course, this also plays a role in smoother and faster shifting.

Then she pointed out something really interesting. “It will help if you stand up straighter and stick your sternum out,” she said. “If the instrument is well supported on your shoulder, that takes pressure off of your thumb.” That makes so much sense. So. Much. Sense. And I never thought of it before. I never thought of the biomechanical chain reaction from my posture to the muscles in my left hand, and no teacher that I remember ever pointed it out to me before.

Of course, change is hard. As much as I totally get this concept in my mind, I wanted to immediately protest, “But it’s not that simple!” I am fairly tall, and even the very nice stand in her studio barely extends high enough for me to see the music if I am standing with decent posture. The crummy old folding stand I use for practicing definitely does not extend high enough for me to practice standing up, so I practice sitting down. I can then extend it high enough for decent, but not excellent, posture.

Maybe I need to set the stand on top of something, if I can find something big enough to support the whole base of the stand without getting in the way of my feet. Hmmm.

Half Steps and Whole Steps

I wrote recently about practicing the section of the third movement of the Bach that runs from about 2:00-2:18 on this recording. It went well in my last lesson, and I should be working more on other things, but I thoroughly enjoy trying to improve this section. It reminds me of the daughter of friends of mine.

She is fourteen months old. I see her two or three times per month, and she’s growing and changing all the time. A few weeks ago, she could only walk with a parent holding her hand. The week after that, she could take a few steps on her own, but never ventured more than about six feet away from her parents. A week or two after that, she was walking securely and roaming around the whole room. And on top of that, she can point out numerous objects—the ceiling fan, coffee cup, cell phone, piano, and more—when asked, “Where is the…?” in two languages. She occasionally babbles what sounds like a string of half a dozen syllables or so at a time. When she does that, those of us around her try to figure out what we’ve just said that she might be imitating, or which words she recognizes that she might be trying to produce. The changes in her from one visit to the next are small, but unmistakable.

This section of the Bach reminds me of that incremental but unmistakable growth process. In a three-steps-forward-and-two-steps-back kind of way, it winds its way up, and up, and up. But it’s not repetitive. You can anticipate where it’s going, but with the accidentals in there, it’s not entirely predictable. The whole steps vs. half steps really feel like they matter. I feel like I have to play it with clean, precise intonation to get that effect—steady, inevitable growth, with a few surprises that keep things fun and interesting.

Then, in the first pseudo double stop part, maybe that’s adolescence and all hell breaking loose. :-)

I wish I had a better musical vocabulary for describing and for understanding what’s happening in all of this, but I don’t.

The most recent time I saw this little girl, she was falling down more than she did when she was just learning to walk. It was as though she had become so confident in her walking that she was pushing herself to go just a little bit faster than she could handle. Falling didn’t slow her down much, though. She just got back on her feet and kept going. “Good for her,” I thought. That’s how you make progress. I certainly need to be reminded of that in certain respects.

Practicing and Exercise

One thing that held me up from returning to music for a long time was the sense of obligation/guilt to exercise more—or at least attempt to.

Like anyone, I had (and have) a limited amount of discretionary time outside of my full-time job and other non-negotiable obligations. I’ve found that I can usually only handle one “extracurricular activity” at a time—playing on a recreational slow-pitch softball team, taking a continuing education class, that sort of thing. Whenever I contemplated taking up the violin again, I told myself, “If you have that kind of time, you should be exercising more.”

These days, that attitude strikes me as harsh. It strikes me that I was sort of punishing myself for gaining weight (as I have over the years): “No music for you! Hit the gym.” At various times I did maintain a good exercise habit, though I was streaky with it—a few months on, a few months off, that sort of thing. I exercised most consistently when I set up a reward system for myself where I got to buy a book at the end of any week where I had exercised six times. A foot injury brought that routine to a screeching halt, and I never have managed to find an exercise routine that both appeals to me and accommodates lingering foot problems.

Maybe the foot injury gave me reason to be less harsh on myself about not exercising. In any case, when the idea struck me last fall to take up violin again, I didn’t shame myself out of it. And now? Maybe letting go of the guilt actually has motivated me. As of yesterday, I’m going to try to fold one unambitious form of exercise into my routine again: lifting weights.

Whenever I (re)started strength training in the past, I found that I lost a clothing size or two (and did not bulk up by any means). Here is more info on the benefits of strength training, particularly for women:

• From the Mayo Clinic
• From the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• From The New York Times

Reading this stuff is very motivating for me. If I succeed in this, I will try not to be too smug about it!

Small Observations

• Working towards a realistic tempo. A couple of days ago as I ventured more deeply into the third movement of the Bach, I spent a healthy chunk of my one-hour practice session on a passage that, at tempo, would fly by in about 18 seconds (as in 2:00-2:18 here). It's daunting to know that I am so far away from playing this movement presentably. And this passage is just one example of how far away I am!
• Fingernails. Upon taking up violin again last October after 15+ years of not playing, I had to re-adjust to a lot of things. However, I did not have to re-adjust to keeping my fingernails short. A few times in my non-violin years I tried to let them grow so as to shape them, polish them, and otherwise prettify them. Forget it! When they get to be about 2 mm long, I feel an urgent need to cut them. Oddly enough, though, it's nice to feel now that I am keeping them short for a reason.
• Ms. L. She cracks me up sometimes. She is supportive, but she always makes her point. I just never know if she will do so straightforwardly, with amusing understatement, or amusing overstatement. I am collecting quotations that could constitute a post of their own at some point. Sometimes I need to speak more straightforwardly, so that is another thing that I could learn from her.
• Shifting, Thought #1. Shifting confidently and accurately feels like zipping a zipper. It’s like moving on an inevitable track, with an unmistakable starting and stopping place. 
• Shifting, Thought #2. Shifting just a tad inaccurately and fixing it ASAP feels like a catcher framing a pitch.* I seem to remember a famous violinist with a famous quotation about this--something to the effect that he doesn't play with perfect intonation, but can generally adjust before anyone notices. 
• Double stops plus vibrato. Third finger on A, fourth finger on E. Possible? Possible for me? 

* Not that I was ever a catcher. 

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