Picking Up the Pace

I have been working on audition excerpts for a community orchestra for the last couple of months. All but one (let’s not dwell on that one!) fall under my fingers somewhat decently now, and I’ve got an approximation of the dynamics and articulation. Much of my recent effort has focused on playing the stuff faster.

I’m reminded that there’s a lot more to speeding something up than just starting with a lower number on the metronome and plowing upward through muscle memory and brute force. Here are some things I am working on that set the conditions to play faster:

• In a couple of passages with lots of string crossings, I have to make sure my right elbow is high enough to let my lower arm do the work of moving the bow from one string to the next. Moving my whole arm slows things down. 
• Elsewhere in the bow arm, I have to work on keeping my upper arm still. Again, moving my whole arm slows things down. I finally have a mirror in my practice space, so that’s a constant reality check.
• Yet elsewhere in the bow arm: How many times have I written “Less bow” in my music? In learning new music, I just have to be more conscious of passages that will need to speed up a lot and use less bow from the start. 
• In shifting, I have to keep my fingers (and thumb) light. This has been a recurring theme in my return to the violin for a number of reasons, but I have a particularly hard time with left-hand tension in passages that call for me to squeeze and press with my bow hand. My left hand wants to squeeze in misguided sympathy. 

Ms. L. has had me try things like playing the rhythm of a particular passage on one note at the target tempo—that is, not worry about left hand for the moment, but let the bow arm get a feel for the target tempo. “Let your bow lead the way and let your fingers catch up,” she suggested. “Even if the notes sound mushy for now, keep at it. Your fingers will catch up.”

Those sorts of tactics seem more important for me than anything I do with the metronome. In any case, I am pretty sick of the sound of my metronome right now. The other day it fell off the stand and the lid to the battery compartment popped off and the battery sprang out. I looked at it lying on the floor in pieces and had about as much desire to pick it up and put it back together as if it had been road kill.