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.