Teacher Appreciation: Dr. E

I'm late to the teacher appreciation party, but I'd like to reminisce about the first teacher I took private lessons with, Dr. E. 

Although I started playing violin in fifth grade through the string program in my public school district, I didn't take private lessons until high school. My high school orchestra conductor, Ms. Y., recommended private lessons after I (unexpectedly) auditioned into third chair in the first violin section as a sophomore. She recommended Dr. E., a retired professor of music at the local university.

A steady stream of young string players flowed in and out of Dr. E.'s home studio--a spare bedroom of about 10 feet by 12 feet crammed with an upright piano, file cabinets, bookshelves, and multiple instruments. Dr. E. was a cellist--a fan of Lynn Harrell--and he had huge hands. When he played a violin, his left hand flopped all around the neck and his right hand sprawled all around the bow. He rarely mentioned his performance career, but he had played in the symphony orchestra of a Rust Belt city in the 1930s under a famously demanding European-born conductor. 

If he had a thick skin from this experience, he didn't show it, and certainly didn't force his students to cultivate one. When Dr. E. first heard me play, he told my mom, "She's a diamond in the rough." That meant a lot to me. He dealt with the rough in a calm, grandfatherly way--and introduced me to Kreutzer. This was the first time I'd played Kreutzer or even heard of the exercises. I was too unfamiliar with violin repertoire to have opinions about what I wanted to work on. So it was entirely Dr. E.'s doing that in my senior year of high school, whether I "deserved" to play it or not*, I was working on Mozart's G major violin concerto. So fun, so motivating.

Dr. E. had also founded a chamber orchestra for adult amateur musicians, and this orchestra rehearsed each Sunday afternoon in his living room. To round out various sections and (presumably) to give his students some chamber orchestra experience, he also invited some of us to play in the orchestra. As a sixteen-year-old, I felt thrown into adulthood when called upon to make small talk with a sixty-something stand partner. Even the break at the halfway point of each rehearsal felt like a challenge. The adult members took turns bringing snacks such as cake made from scratch, and Dr. E.'s wife served the cake on lovely glass plates along with coffee and punch in china cups. I was always nervous about the balancing act of handling the cake and punch in Dr. E.'s and his wife's pristinely clean, white-carpeted living room.

Once when I was in college, I was home over a break and running errands around town with my dad when we ran into Dr. E. He seemed delighted to see me and asked, "Are you still playing?" Before I could answer, he took up my left hand, ran his thumb over my fingertips, and announced, "I can feel your callouses!" 

A few years ago, long before I thought seriously of returning to the violin, I heard Lynn Harrell play with the local symphony. I thought of Dr. E., of course. I'm glad to have those callouses back.


* My college violin teacher, Dr. O., sort of turned up her nose when I started lessons with her as a freshman and she found out I was working on this concerto. She seemed to view it as a case of pearls before swine, musically speaking. I didn't disagree with that assessment, but also didn't let it dent my enjoyment of playing the concerto. In any case, she did work with me to finish it! 

Video via YouTube and TheDonguriHotel. See also the second and third movements.

Rehearsal Impressions

Some impressions from the rehearsal I sat in on:

• Sight-reading for two hours is tiring. I am not very good at sight-reading, and I certainly had a few instances of overlooking key changes and that kind of thing. (Actual train of thought at one point: "Wow, it sure is different playing second violin instead of first. Everything sounds different than I expect it to. Oh, oops, we have four flats now instead of two sharps. There's the issue.") Fast runs with lots of accidentals got fakity-fake-fake-faked, but I was generally able to jump back in at the starts of measures for at least a fraction of a beat. My rate of bowing in the right direction was slightly better than chance. At least I only got totally lost (as in not knowing what measure we were in) twice.
• Orchestra etiquette/procedures come right back even if you haven't played in an orchestra for, oh, about two weeks short of 20 years. It was second nature to arrive about 15 minutes before the start of the rehearsal, put my case where no one would trip over it, keep an eye out for the tuning protocol, play the bottom part of the divisi parts and turn the pages while sitting on the inside of the stand, keep an eye on the section leaders for where I should be in the bow, and change bows at a different moment than my stand partner on long notes. Being a guest, I did not put any markings in the music. Hopefully I also managed to watch the conductor as needed, though based on a few of his comments, he would have welcomed more attentiveness from everyone.
• My stand partner and everyone who talked to me could not have been more welcoming. It really seemed like a nice group of people. Actually, my stand partner was awesome. She was very helpful about quietly pointing tricky stuff out before we got started on a piece: cuts, which repeats to take and which not to, parts that were solo, etc. The one time she noticed me get lost, she managed to point out where we were and help me jump back in. At the break and at the end of the rehearsal, she insisted, "You're doing great!" The conductor, despite one or two moments of (I'm paraphrasing), "Seriously, people, pay attention," seemed patient, knowledgeable, witty, easy to follow, and very efficient in his use of rehearsal time. It doesn't get any better than that.

The bottom line is that this orchestra seems like it could be a really good fit. The next step is for me to "stay in touch" and check in about sitting in on the first rehearsal in September! At the same time, I am still keeping communication open with the other orchestra (which I've also heard back from in the meantime) in case something falls through or in case they are an even better fit. Fingers crossed for a good musical fit, social fit, and schedule fit.

Spiccato: Actually Not Horrible

That is a pretty remarkable headline given my previous difficulties with spiccato. But I've had to deal with it again because a few weeks ago, in the very first conversation I had with Ms. L. about finding a community orchestra, she commented that my prep for auditions would have to include working on my spiccato. 

Every time I focus on spiccato I feel as though I am learning it for the first time. On top of that, I have to psych myself up to practice it, knowing that it typically feels like an exercise in futility, and knowing on top of *that* that tension and overthinking are a recipe for spiccato failure. I always have to start on open strings and bounce, bounce, bounce until I get some approximation of an even, controllable stroke. Getting from that to a two-octave, easy scale with, say, two bounces per note is a long and sometimes discouraging journey. But anyway, doing a two-octave, easy scale (enough to cover all the strings) was Ms. L.'s recommendation for how to practice spiccato. 

So three weeks or so ago, I followed through and made that part of my practice routine. I worked my way from four bounces per note to two, and it went reasonably well in my lesson. (Frankly, I think Ms. L. was surprised that I actually practiced it.) The next step she suggested was practicing spiccato with Kreutzer #2. Again, I followed through and did it--just the first two lines or so. That went reasonably well, too, and I am continuing with Kreutzer this week. I am cautiously feeling like my spiccato this time around is not horrible. 

What's the difference? I think it's my bow hold. A year or so ago, Ms. L. started having me adjust my bow hold. When I'm doing it right, the difference is huge, but I still have trouble maintaining it consistently on my own. But now I find myself slipping into it more easily--recognizing the feel of it rather than consciously examining all the angles and curves happening from each finger to the rotation of my forearm. What really feels different is the sense of balanced pressure and counter-pressure among my fingers. This pressure and counter-pressure creates the interdependence among my fingers that the bow hand is supposed to have. I've read about that--the idea that each finger plays a role in controlling the bow--but never really felt I was accomplishing that until recently. 

Anyway, when my bow hand is in order, spiccato works better. I hesitate to say that I have truly turned a corner with spiccato, but I am becoming less apprehensive about it.

Sitting In!

I finally heard back from an orchestra, and I'm sitting in on a rehearsal next week! I'm sitting in on a rehearsal next week! Woo hoo! Sitting in! Happy, happy, happy!!! (Possible audition to follow--not quite so fun, but there you go.) Anyway: Sitting in! Happy!