Yehudi Menuhin's playing, I watched a small clip where he was demonstrating how hard we squeeze strings and that slows us down, causes mental & physical fatigue. He took a piece of paper, regular writing paper, torn into strips and put them under the strings on the finger board. He squeezed like he even sees pros do, then gradually loosened up. The string indented the paper, and the mark became fainter as he played, decreasing pressure until he was getting a beautiful sound but not putting any mark or crease in the paper! Amazing. I'm adding this here because I found I can control the bow better if I'm not trying to strangulate my fiddle.
Thank you for the helpful advice.. there is so much to learn in the violin.. after getting a better violin recently I found that certain notes don't sound as clear if im not at the right contact point.. perhaps my older student violin was more 'forgiving', but this has certainly made me more conscious of my bowing ..
That's wonderful. I think that means your ear is progressing as well! I think better violins have much better resonance when you do everything right, so it makes it more obvious when you do something wrong!
Thank you! - and then there is the bow itself... Couldn't believe the range of prices, bounciness, weight distribution, quality....How much of a difference do you think it makes?!
I loved all that you shared! Thank you. I am one of your students on line and am looking for the D major scale that has notes all the way to the high A on the E string. Do you have a link? I need to practice. My tone on A is not what I like. It is really hard to manage.
I have been playing a long time and still struggle to get a good tone. you mention the correlation between bow weight and contact point. By weight do you mean pressure? Am I right in thinking that bowing nearer the finger board needs more weight and near the bridge needs less? Or is it the other way around? Thank you for all you are doing for us learners.
It's actually the other way around, closer to the bridge requires more weight to get a good tone and the fingerboard requires less. Some people do use the terms weight and pressure interchangeably. I think there is a difference. Weight is the relaxed weight of your entire arm and shoulder, transferred through your fingers to the bow. Pressure is basically a motion from the wrist forward (like pressing a button). Weight is controllable and pressure is not as controllable. I talk about it in a lot of my videos and my online studio. This video discusses the topic as well: th-cam.com/video/Cy3Qb14bx3Y/w-d-xo.html
Great video. One thing I am beginning to understand (thanks to Meadowlark: Sign up!) in playing the violin is that one has to "have a plan for every single note." I suppose it applies to every instrument, but with the violin there is so much to consider! Your discussion of phrasing reminds me of Bernstein talking about rhythm. th-cam.com/video/P7EhqJ4T98o/w-d-xo.html
Thanks so much Joe! If I have remotely in some small way reminded someone of something Berstein said, then I feel like I've accomplished something!🤣Of course Lenny explains rhythm and phrasing with much more finesse!
I have to confess that whilst I love Yehudi Menuhin for everything he stood for, I never liked his playing when he became older as an adult. His bowing arm went WRONG. His wrist and arm are not properly coordinated and his movements are horribly out of control. I am sure he was the greatest player when he was young. I empathise that while it seems like sacrilege to criticise the maestro, I do not disrespect him as the pedagogue and marvellous character he became and one of the most important champions for the violin in history. Cheers
The brain fundamental works by finding (by learning or discovering) ways to meet goals, not by following instructions. The book "The inner game of tennis" explains this well, and no doubt "The inner game of music" does too. My suspicion is that Yehudi used his brain correctly as a child, but not as an adult. A lot of violin ability exists in the cerebellum. The cerebellum has more neurons than all the rest of the brain, and hence enables us to do incredible things. However, it has NO self awareness (read) capability, so an expert violinist cannot explain exactly how they do what they do. If they try to explain how they do something, they will necessarily make up something that's not actually true. Maybe Yehudi was under pressure to do something that cannot be done? Laura does it correctly in this video. She says, "Know that bow speed, bow weight, and contact point are important factors. Know too that they need to change in the course of a note and a phrase. Now go away and do lots of experimentation to master these things so that you can find ways to use them to create a wonderful sound". That's perfect. She doesn't overstep the mark and try to tell us things she cannot know. If we keep pushing her for rules of when to do what, she eventually won't be able to do that. If instead she plays us a lovely note that uses the things she describes, and then leaves us to discover how to achieve that (maybe with her to help us evaluate our attempts) then that would work fine (even if some students want a more prescriptive approach). I learned this in a lesson from an exceptionally good concert pianist, and it agrees with my studies of the human brain. I've seen Yehudi teach and I think he got all this wrong, and I think maybe his own playing became impaired as a result. All this is just a hypothesis at the moment, in case it helps. I've not seen much of his teaching yet.
Yehudi Menuhin's playing, I watched a small clip where he was demonstrating how hard we squeeze strings and that slows us down, causes mental & physical fatigue. He took a piece of paper, regular writing paper, torn into strips and put them under the strings on the finger board. He squeezed like he even sees pros do, then gradually loosened up. The string indented the paper, and the mark became fainter as he played, decreasing pressure until he was getting a beautiful sound but not putting any mark or crease in the paper! Amazing. I'm adding this here because I found I can control the bow better if I'm not trying to strangulate my fiddle.
Excellent. Thanks for sharing this.
Thank you for the helpful advice.. there is so much to learn in the violin.. after getting a better violin recently I found that certain notes don't sound as clear if im not at the right contact point.. perhaps my older student violin was more 'forgiving', but this has certainly made me more conscious of my bowing ..
That's wonderful. I think that means your ear is progressing as well! I think better violins have much better resonance when you do everything right, so it makes it more obvious when you do something wrong!
fantastic explanation
so glad this popped up in my recommendations! Excellent tips
Thank you so much!
Thank you! - and then there is the bow itself... Couldn't believe the range of prices, bounciness, weight distribution, quality....How much of a difference do you think it makes?!
Great point! It does make a big difference as well!
Thanks again for so much excellent information, so valuable.
You're very welcome! Hope it helps!
Excellent explanation of Dynamics and Phrasing.
Thanks so much for this! I'm just getting started and appreciate knowing these tips.
You're welcome! Glad you're getting started!
Thank you! I am working on a Phantom of the Opera piece and the Titanic Theme song. This will help me.
Excellent video!!
Thank you!
I loved all that you shared! Thank you. I am one of your students on line and am looking for the D major scale that has notes all the way to the high A on the E string. Do you have a link? I need to practice. My tone on A is not what I like. It is really hard to manage.
I have been playing a long time and still struggle to get a good tone. you mention the correlation between bow weight and contact point. By weight do you mean pressure? Am I right in thinking that bowing nearer the finger board needs more weight and near the bridge needs less? Or is it the other way around? Thank you for all you are doing for us learners.
It's actually the other way around, closer to the bridge requires more weight to get a good tone and the fingerboard requires less. Some people do use the terms weight and pressure interchangeably. I think there is a difference. Weight is the relaxed weight of your entire arm and shoulder, transferred through your fingers to the bow. Pressure is basically a motion from the wrist forward (like pressing a button). Weight is controllable and pressure is not as controllable. I talk about it in a lot of my videos and my online studio. This video discusses the topic as well: th-cam.com/video/Cy3Qb14bx3Y/w-d-xo.html
@@MeadowlarkViolin Thank you for taking the time to reply.
Great video. One thing I am beginning to understand (thanks to Meadowlark: Sign up!) in playing the violin is that one has to "have a plan for every single note." I suppose it applies to every instrument, but with the violin there is so much to consider! Your discussion of phrasing reminds me of Bernstein talking about rhythm. th-cam.com/video/P7EhqJ4T98o/w-d-xo.html
Thanks so much Joe! If I have remotely in some small way reminded someone of something Berstein said, then I feel like I've accomplished something!🤣Of course Lenny explains rhythm and phrasing with much more finesse!
I too find that having a plan for each individual note is essential to producing a good sound.
I have to confess that whilst I love Yehudi Menuhin for everything he stood for, I never liked his playing when he became older as an adult. His bowing arm went WRONG. His wrist and arm are not properly coordinated and his movements are horribly out of control. I am sure he was the greatest player when he was young. I empathise that while it seems like sacrilege to criticise the maestro, I do not disrespect him as the pedagogue and marvellous character he became and one of the most important champions for the violin in history. Cheers
The brain fundamental works by finding (by learning or discovering) ways to meet goals, not by following instructions. The book "The inner game of tennis" explains this well, and no doubt "The inner game of music" does too. My suspicion is that Yehudi used his brain correctly as a child, but not as an adult.
A lot of violin ability exists in the cerebellum. The cerebellum has more neurons than all the rest of the brain, and hence enables us to do incredible things. However, it has NO self awareness (read) capability, so an expert violinist cannot explain exactly how they do what they do. If they try to explain how they do something, they will necessarily make up something that's not actually true. Maybe Yehudi was under pressure to do something that cannot be done?
Laura does it correctly in this video. She says, "Know that bow speed, bow weight, and contact point are important factors. Know too that they need to change in the course of a note and a phrase. Now go away and do lots of experimentation to master these things so that you can find ways to use them to create a wonderful sound".
That's perfect. She doesn't overstep the mark and try to tell us things she cannot know.
If we keep pushing her for rules of when to do what, she eventually won't be able to do that. If instead she plays us a lovely note that uses the things she describes, and then leaves us to discover how to achieve that (maybe with her to help us evaluate our attempts) then that would work fine (even if some students want a more prescriptive approach).
I learned this in a lesson from an exceptionally good concert pianist, and it agrees with my studies of the human brain.
I've seen Yehudi teach and I think he got all this wrong, and I think maybe his own playing became impaired as a result.
All this is just a hypothesis at the moment, in case it helps. I've not seen much of his teaching yet.
Very helpful video. Sometimes my tone is so screechy that I think I have kittens stuck inside the violin...
🤣🤣🤣I've been there too!
in other words: practice
Exactly! 🤣