Violin Alchemist

Getting Organized

2011-04-07T20:41:22Z

With sticky notes all over the place and now a big picture of body technique in my head, I'm starting to get organized. I'm not sure yet what the final format will be, but I'm very excited. Stay tuned for changes in the summer!

Short Breathing Warmup

2010-09-20T18:58:40Z

Using your breath is, I think, the fastest and most effective way to start aligning your body and developing body awareness. See the "breathing" archive for ideas. Some students who are really twisted up need the 6 Steps to Perfect Posture. Some don't. After the body is mostly aligned, though, everyone can warm up quickly just by gently reminding the body what to do. Here's the abbreviated warmup that I do with my students now that their bodies are alive and aligned:

sniff quickly and deeply into your chest, sending your chest up in the air (same as step 1 in 6 step warmup).
let your breath huff out.
Hairball (step 3) to force all of your air out.
open your mouth and let the air rush into your body without you making an effort; the vacuum just fills you up with air.
easy breath out.
get "thinner": suck your stomach back towards your spine. Your chest should not rise.
get "taller": breathe in as you suck your stomach up towards your chest, letting your torso stretch upward as you breathe in.
holding your breath, shrug your shoulders up and set your heels down into the floor, stretching your middle from both ends. Arch back a bit to stretch your stomach even more.
bend at the hips, continuing to set your heels down, stretching your back. Feel your head and neck getting longer, your head stretching taller away from your body.
let your breath out as your let your shoulders fall back down.
"hairball": expel all of your breath.
vacuum your breath back in by opening your mouth.
exhale, tossing your violin into position.

This whole operation usually takes a minute or less.

Drop the Hanky, Pick Up the Hanky

2010-08-31T19:17:45Z

I either teach this during the Minuets in Book 1 or during Hunters' Chorus in Book 2, depending on the student. Both of these pieces benefit from loose right hand knuckle movement, and the ability to "catch" the bow in your hand after taking a short up bow. Here's how to practice:

take a handkerchief, rag, or some piece of cloth in your hand. Hold it lightly with all fingers and thumb.
fling the hanky from your hand, straightening all fingers and thumb.
pick up the hanky, curving all fingers and thumb.
practice the same motions (straightening and curving fingers/thumb) without the hanky.
practice the same motions while holding your bow in the air or while resting it on the strings of the violin.

To use in Minuets or Hunters' Chorus to catch the bow in the hand after a short up bow:

prepare for the up bow by making sure the elbow is relaxed and "dangly". Place the bow on the string somewhere in the lower half. Near the balance point is a good place, but experiment!
nudge the bow by dipping the elbow in towards your body.
as the bow moves, "pick up the hanky" with your fingers so that the bow ends up just barely off the string.
experiment: as you nudge the elbow more quickly, you can "toss" the bow up with the elbow, and "catch" it with your hanky fingers.

These are some places in Minuet 1 and Hunters' Chorus; in Minuets, you can try this any time you have 2 up bows next to each other.

The Magic Forehead, Reprise

2010-08-31T19:03:58Z

Looking at my original entry for the Magic Forehead, I realize that I teach it with a few more steps now. Here they are:

Sniff and Toss.
Close your eyes.
Count to 5. With each count, relax the right side of the back of your neck, down to your shoulder, even more.
Breathe in and out a few times to make sure your shelf is still floating.

Open the back of your jaw a little, leaving your mouth closed. Feel your neck relax in that area.
Feel like someone is suspending you from the point on your head where your hair makes a swirl (the back top of head). That will relax your neck even more.
Now let your eyeballs roll left, as if they're looking out of the corner of your left eye. Eyes are still closed.
Let your eyes slide down your nose, like they're closing even more, until your forehead relaxes.

Using the Magic Forehead once you have achieved it:

Keeping your forehead relaxed, let your eyes swing up so that they're "looking" at the end of your fingerboard where your left hand would be.
Swing your left hand up to that place.
Play a passage with your new forehead feeling, calmly being able to "see" in your mind how each finger looks as it goes down on the fingerboard. Enjoy that new relaxed, aware feeling!

For fast finger work, you will need an additional exercise, which I will post shortly.

Building Back Muscles

2010-08-18T01:59:27Z

The secret to effortless vibrato, shifting, high position work, and a lot of other things is using your back to lift your arms. If you're playing the viola, and especially if you are slight of build, please do this exercise to avoid injury. As usual, do fewer repetitions than your limit. You want it to not feel like work, so that you'll be likely to do it the next day. However, you have to do at least 1! :-) I'll post a video of this as soon as I get a chance.

Stand without holding your instrument or bow, in good posture. Arms at your sides.
Let your shoulders rotate back and let your shoulder blades sink down in back, causing your arms to lift in front of you, sticking straight out in front.
Feel your shoulder blades slightly move towards each other as you swing your arms out to the sides, palms down.
Flip palms up
Stretch your hands away from you as much as possible and feel the muscles under your arms and around your shoulder blades as you press your arms upwards, ending with them straight up in the air over your head, palms facing towards each other.
Again, stretch your hands as high as you can as you "dive" back, returning your arms to the side, palms up. As your arms get closer to horizontal, feel your shoulder blades sinking down into their "slots".
Flip palms down
Slowly swing arms to front
Return arms to your sides.

Try doing this while continuously moving your knees, to keep your neck relaxed. The most important parts of this exercise are using your back and underarms to raise your arms above your head, and letting the shoulder blades sink as your arms come back down.

Core Strength, Part III: Your Abs Move Your Legs

2010-08-10T13:39:48Z

One more post on core strength before continuing with upper body tuning. Learning to move this way will allow you to relax your neck more and relax your lower back. (Incidentally, it's also crucial to know how to do this if you're a tango dancer who wants to do amazing boleos). Lie on the floor, knees bent, and find your abs. Then:

Leave one leg bent and straighten the other so it is resting completely on the floor.
Slightly suck your lower abs (just above your pelvis) down towards the floor, feeling your pelvis tip slightly down into the floor.
As your abs contract, your leg is lifted up in the air.
Slowly release your abs and let your leg return to the floor.
Remind yourself to relax the rest of your body.
Do this as many times as you can, but a few times less than your limit, so it doesn't feel like "work". You want to be interested in doing it again tomorrow.
Switch legs and repeat.

Refinements of this:

Stretch the straight leg as far away from you as you can
Make sure your neck is relaxed (easier to do if your butt is also relaxed).
Use a leg weight (don't do this at first. Concentrate on relaxed, smooth motion without a weight. You may never want to use a leg weight.)

If you feel like you are using your quadriceps a lot, refocus on contracting your abs, letting your pelvis tilt, and using that motion to "magically" lift your leg into the air.

Core Strength, Part II: Your Abs Move You

2010-08-02T13:22:50Z

Playing the violin (and to an even greater extent, the viola) is so much easier when your abdominals are in charge of holding you up. You can train your abs in a ridiculously short time if you build the habit of doing it every day. Here is my strategy for doing this: Begin by tuning into your abs. Then:

remain on the floor, knees bent.
lace your hands behind your neck/head for support.
suck your abs towards the floor. Picture yourself as a hinge...as your abs contract, they cause your upper body to come off of the floor. Do not try to touch your knees, sit all the way up, etc. Only let your upper body lift if you feel that the abs are doing all of the work.
leave your legs as loose as you can. Concentrate all of your mental energy on your abs.
leave your arms as loose as you can.
leave everything else as loose as you can!

To build the habit of doing these every day, do this exercise until it feels like you're working at it. This is your current limit. Now make the number of repetitions something less than that. The idea is to do a number of repetitions that doesn't feel like work, so that you will be more likely to do it the next day. I've stabilized at about 60 reps every morning, which is plenty for me to maintain the tone that I need. Some mornings I'm just too tired, so I'll do 30, do something else, then do another 30. You will find the routine that works for you, but always do less than your limit.

Core Strength, Part I: Tune In

2010-08-02T13:05:52Z

Part of being able to play freely is developing your "inner suspension system." This happens when muscles are activated and balancing each other, giving you a sensation of floating inside your suspended body instead of laboring to hold yourself in a position. Over the next few posts, I'm going to write about how I help violinists, violists, and dancers train their bodies to be suspended so that more energy is available for tiny motor movements (such as in fingers!) Abdominal muscles (also often referred to as your "core") are the place to start. But don't lie down on the floor yet to do 100 crunches. The most important thing is to do the abdominal exercises efficiently, using only the muscles you need while leaving the others relaxed. To tune into your abdominals before starting to work on them, here is a simple, effective exercise.

lie on your back, with knees bent.
expel all air from yourself in a big exhalation.
suck your stomach towards the floor, carving a hollow into your stomach.
keep sucking in, and now also try sucking your stomach towards your ribs, continuing to create that concavity.
when you need to breathe, let the air in and release your muscles.

Do this entire exercise 3 times. Then you can go on to Part II.

Attitude and Awareness

2010-08-01T23:06:18Z

I really enjoyed reading The Talent Code, recommended by the parent of one of my violin students. The book is full of wonderful stuff, but the one that sticks with me is a very simple graph of music students, the amount they practice, and their level of skill. The book notes that, yes, more practice does equal more skill, but the biggest key to building more skill is the belief that you will be a musician for life. That is, kids who begin an instrument with the idea that they will play this instrument forever do better than kids who think they'll play for a few years, and they in turn do better than kids who are just trying it out with no real expectation of commitment. Wow. There is also an excellent section on practicing at Meadowmount and somewhere in there the comment is made that being a musician is an "honest profession". You put in the time to learn something, and you either know it or you don't. This is different than when I was growing up...I thought that some people were just better at the violin, had some mysterious skill that I did not have. Of course, it's true that everyone has different skills they're better at, but it wasn't until I trained myself to play violin all over again that I realized that skill is really built by dedication, careful practice and awareness. Yes, you train your muscles, you improve your posture, balance, and coordination. But the quickest way to do all of these things is to train your awareness of what your body is doing, starting with the big muscles and slowly becoming aware of the tiny motions you're making. The moment you can develop enough awareness, you can start to become your own teacher, to notice things you're doing as you practice and ask questions of your violin teacher when you're at your lesson. And finally, you're able to teach yourself. This is what I want for all of my students. I'm thinking about and working on more exercises, and will get going soon with some fresh posts. I'm also thinking about ways to tie everything together, a "road map" for learning the violin. Exciting!

Underhand Up Bows

2009-05-01T21:11:17Z

Nate asks how to cure a jiggly bow in the upper half. Every time I see a jiggly bow, I also see a tight right shoulder. I want the right shoulder totally relaxed. Usually you see the jiggle happen during a down bow, but the cure is to start by relaxing the up bow. On the up bow, the elbow (dangling) will dip in towards your waist at the beginning of the stroke. You will feel like your arm is traveling underhand, like throwing a ball underhand. Here's the quickest way I've found to achieve this:

"deflate" yourself (hairball)
now that you've created a vacuum, open your mouth and let the air rush into you, inflating your whole chest. It should feel effortless. From now on, you never have to breathe in again! Just deflate yourself and create a vacuum, and the inhalation will happen easily.
now imagine that your knees are in charge of opening your mouth to let the air in: exhale and straighten your knees, then unlock your knees just the tiniest bit and use that to "pop" the air into yourself.
loosen your arms and let them swing back when you exhale, and then let them follow the knee movement as air rushes into you. They will swing slightly forward.

Here is your new way to do up bows:

set the bow at the tip.
let your arm weight settle into the bow.
pop your knees and let the right hand/arm follow the knees' movement, pushing the bow up. You should strive for the feeling that the knees are doing all of the work and the arm is just going along for the ride.

Your shoulder should feel totally relaxed if you are bowing like this. If you leave your arm weight in the bow and leave the shoulder that relaxed, you will be able to play a full down bow without jiggling in the upper half. This post makes me think about arm weight, another potentially tricky thing to master! More on that later.

Four Steps to a Beautiful Bow Arm

2009-04-08T00:23:49Z

This is an exercise adapted from Kato Havas's book "A New Approach to Violin Playing". I was looking for a way to explain that kind of bow technique to kids who have never played the violin, and explain it in an efficient way that's fun to practice.

Bow Hold and Pinky Pushups

2008-09-17T01:22:44Z

A relaxed bow hold is important, but true relaxation can only come after you have developed the muscles in the right hand. Below is how I ask my students to form their bow holds, and an exercise that they can do while sitting (for example, when they're watching TV and a commercial comes on). Eventually this will have pictures, when I can get one of my friends to stand over my shoulder with a camera... Setting up the Bow Hold

clip your fingernails!
sit on the floor with your legs crossed under you.
if you hold your right hand in front of your face loosely with your thumbnail pointing towards you, the top corner of your thumb is what will be touching the stick (wood part) of the bow.
OK, hold the bow in your left hand, tip pointing left. Move your left arm so that it crosses your body, bringing the bow out to the right of you. You'll see why in a few steps.
with your right hand knuckles up, fingers pointing away from you, bend your thumb slightly and put the thumb corner between the stick and the hair of the bow, so that the tip of the thumb just touches the black plastic/ebony. The thumb should not go inside the U-shaped hole in the black plastic/ebony.
drop the 2nd and 3rd (ring) fingers onto the stick so that the 2nd finger is over the thumb. The fingers are pretty straight and are touching the stick in the middle section of the finger. Your hand will look like a shadow puppet animal.
let those fingers (the animal's "nose"), curve now, so that they bend down and touch the black part of the bow.
to the right of the 2nd and 3rd fingers, you will see that your bow [probably] is not perfectly round, but has distinct faces. Put your pinky next to your other fingers, on the face that is in back of the top face (the "back shelf"). You should have plenty of room to do this, because your bow is all the way to the right, leaving you more space to place the pinky.
let your 1st (pointer) finger go wherever it wants for now, and maybe forever!
now gently move your left arm left so that your bow hand is resting on your right knee. You'll see that it will make your pinky curve more on the bow.
relax everything in your right arm.
lift your hand slightly off your knee and feel the balance in your right hand between the thumb and the pinky. Can you balance the bow between them? Both thumb and pinky remain curved.
with right hand back down on your knee and right arm/shoulder relaxed, press down with the pinky as if you're typing on a computer keyboard. The tip of the bow will rise. This is a "pinky pushup". Do several of these until your hand needs a rest or you lose the bow.

The "Sofa Butt"

2008-09-17T01:02:05Z

The Sofa Butt is useful for anyone who is a perennial sloucher. The ultimate goal is to have a chest/torso that is lifted and supported by the abs, and to have a relaxed back. This gives you plenty of mobility in the shoulder blades for high position work and is necessary for effortless fluidity in the bow arm. Here's how to do it: First, feel what the Sofa Butt is:

stand comfortably with feet apart
pretend there is a sofa right behind your knees and you're about to let your butt go backwards to sit on it.
feel your lower back relax just as you begin to do it? It doesn't take much motion at all. That's the Sofa Butt.

Once you've felt the Sofa Butt, combine it with an elevated torso. Here are two ways: ]]>

get Thinner and Taller, but don't bounce your knees afterwards.

instead, put on the Sofa Butt

make sure you let your breath out and in, in your new posture.

Way 2: use the "That Makes Me Want to Throw Up"

take an easy breath in.
breathe out.
feel just a little nauseated, like you might just throw up. Feel your diaphragm go up and in? Hold it there.
put on the Sofa Butt.

Graceful Double Stops

2008-05-25T02:49:50Z

The accuracy and tone of double stops always improve for me when I concentrate on beautiful motion between each double stop. The technique for doing this involves using the current fingers to bounce you to the next fingers. It's essentially the same technique as I use for finger preparation when shifting. If you can successfully do it with one finger when you're shifting, try using that same finger resiliency when playing double stops. You will immediately notice a huge difference.

Elegant Shifting, Part 3: Finger Preparation

2008-05-25T02:38:10Z

Once you're relaxed and you're allowing the arm to take your hand back and forth between positions, it's time to refine the shift by adding more grace in your finger movement. Picture this: You are standing with your feet together. You are about to take a step to the left. Do your legs stay totally straight before you take the step and while you are stepping? Of course not! Before you step left, your knees bend just a little, and you can even push off to the left a little, using your right leg as a little springboard to get you to the left with less effort. The same thing happens with your fingers. Set yourself up on a finger. This finger will be the springboard that gets you to your next position, wherever it is on the violin. Just before the shift, let the finger bend a little bit, just like your knee would, preparing for the shift. Then, bounce off the finger to start your shift, and let your arm carry your hand the rest of the way. Your shifts, when done with this technique, will suddenly be more graceful, fluid, take less effort, and will land with greater accuracy. Sometimes it's helpful to picture your fingers as legs, especially after practicing with your legs first, pushing off one foot to get to the next foot.