lwl
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Posts posted by lwl
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Why not?
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Ahem.
Would anyone care to share specifics?
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Raw strength doesn't matter much -- you don't want to mash the finger down, you want to stop the string with the minimum amount of pressure required to hold it down, usually. (There are times when for color reasons you will want "glue-like" fingers, but even so, the amount of strength needed to hold a string down is miniscule.)
The speed at which fingers are placed on the strings and snap off the strings controls the degree of articulation that you hear -- the little "pop". You will normally develop significant strength in the fingers when you do the exercises that build speed, but it's the speed that does it.
The amount of meat on the fingertips does indeed make a difference in the tone quality. You can experiment with this yourself by placing the finger more vertical on the fingertip vs. placing it at the pad. The broader, warmer tone of an Elman, Oistrakh, or Perlman is in part due to their thick, meaty fingers. Thick pads are an advantage for a violinist.
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staylor,
Soloists generally start performing with orchestra when quite young. Usually, they win competitions that entitles them to perform as part of the prize. Eventually, such competitions may lead to local conductors inviting them to play with an orchestra as part of their regular season of concerts. In this way, they get plugged into the network. As they grow older, conductors may invite them to return, as well as "spread the word". An influential teacher helps as well -- for instance, it is well known that conductors go to Dorothy DeLay to ask for which of her students might be suitable for an engagement. Such careers get built quite slowly, and rather unreliably. Even those who win major international competitions might not end up with more than a handful of engagements in subsequent years.
I think there's a lot of (as you put it) "great talent which missed the public stage" out there -- if you ever attend a recital of a local "no-name" professional player, you may be startled indeed to find that their playing is easily a match for any number of major well-known soloists that you might have heard. There are vastly more incredibly accomplished players than there are opportunities to go around. (Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the sharp rise of the quality of orchestra players in the last century, which is very audible if you listen to historical recordings.)
The appropriate contacts network for this kind of thing requires access to the ear of conductors. Money can also help -- there are major but cash-strapped orchestras that hire themselves out for private recordings.
The above is a divergence into talking about professional soloists, for whom getting invitations is really career-crucial.
Adult amateurs who want to perform with orchestras are mostly out of luck -- there are occasional opportunities but certainly not many of them. I'm deeply grateful that I had this one, personally.
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rainyann is correct -- each year, the community orchestra that I play with holds a concerto competition for its members, and the winner gets to play the work with the orchestra during its next season.
Solo-with-orchestra opportunities for adult amateurs are virtually non-existent. Very few community orchestras have such competitions for their members; sometimes the concertmaster gets to do a concerto, but often this is part of the bribe package to get a concertmaster who is a full-time professional player.
Even professional players for whom solo playing is not a sizable portion of their career find such opportunities are rare -- and usually obtained through contacts. (Some sizable number of professional players have never performed a work with orchestra, and I suspect that a sizable percentage of those who have, did so in college or earlier.)
Orchestras, when engaging a soloist from the "general public", generally try to give the concerto opportunities to up-and-coming youngsters, to give them a chance to get some very valuable experience under their belt. This is, I think, as it should be.
For amateurs who just want to perform by themselves or with a pianist for fun, opportunities to do so abound -- starting with local nursing homes, who almost always welcome music.
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Still Obligatos. They sound closest to gut.
I don't personally find the Eudoxas to sound particularly like Obligatos, but this is perhaps I've never strung both up sequentially; the last time I used Eudoxas, I was a child.
I think the Obligatos are still a pale echo of the Olives, but they come closest to that sound.
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Actually, I don't find "amateur" to be a perjorative term at all.
Also, realistically, amateurs are held to a different standard and have different opportunities than full or part-time professional players. This is, I think, as it should be.
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If I recall correctly, it was written for/dedicated to Sarasate. (The first concerto was dedicated to Joachim. The second and third concertos were dedicated to Sarasate.)
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Good teachers teach you the skills need to practice efficiently and well. Regardless of where you are in your technical and musical development, this is a crucial skillset that, once learned, will greatly speed your progress in general.
The first part of this is learning to listen critically to yourself. This is the trick of taking note of what you've done, what your mental state was when you did it, and what happened physically -- and keeping the mind alert like this when you're playing, analyzing and filing information away. (But you also need to trick of turning that *off* when you're performing.)
The second part is analyzing why things went wrong. It helps to develop a catalog of why things go wrong -- that lets you run through a bit of a mental checklist. Teachers can help you through this by letting you know what they look for, and how they analyze the things you do well and poorly -- and getting you to do the same.
The third part is effectively, efficiently, and permanently correcting errors. There are a whole host of tricks for practicing certain types of things, which a teacher can pass along to you.
Of course, you need to personally develop the self-discipline to not let yourself play things wrong -- and especially not do so often enough that it becomes a habit.
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I'm still waiting for HKV (or someone else with the same beliefs) to post a clear explanation of the technical approach necessary...
You'll see Hahn, Oliveira, near the bridge, but not so close that there's a scratch at close range.
[This message has been edited by lwl (edited 10-01-2001).]
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveLaBonne:(Why did that %#$@* Mascagni have to write so many passages in six flats?
)
I remember my first encounter with music written in a continuous stream of a key signatures with a lot of accidentals when I concertmastered a production of Oklahoma! when I was fourteen or so. Keys friendly to singers are sadly not to violinists!
Most memorable performance for me: Playing Mahler's first symphony in the great hall of Vienna's Musikverein. I still remember the last chord ringing and ringing and ringing in that gold-leafed space. I've never been in another hall that came close to it acoustically.
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By the way, in case people weren't aware of its existence: There is a Yahoo! Group called BAVS (Beginning Adult Violinists) that's very active. You can read/reply to it via email or via the Web interface.
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Totally different sound.
Eudoxas have a warm, smooth, silken sound. Complexity is good, but last I tried these, I felt they were slower to respond than Dominants.
Olives have superb brilliance and complexity, excellent power, projection, and resonance, and very good sensitivity.
The closest sound I've heard to gut from a synthetic is Obligatos.
I find the constant retuning needed while gut stabilizes drives me nuts.
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A set of gut strings isn't cheap, either. If you still have your old tailpiece, it shouldn't be all that much trouble/expense to get someone to swap it back out for you.
Wound gut comes with a knotted end; I believe unwound gut requires you to knot it at the end yourself. Either way, I'm not sure if you can physically get that to stay with fine tuners. It's entirely possible fine tuners might damage the strings, too.
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"Brilliant concert pieces" are things like Saint-Saens' Havanaise, Sarasate works, Wieniawski short works, etc.
If you want to take the cheap way out: Waxman's Carmen Fantasie was composed in 1946, but from the standpoint of tonality pretty much belongs solidly in the nineteenth century, and it is an extremely effective showpiece for the violin (more so than Sarasate's, in terms of technical demands).
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Kolneder's "Amadeus Book of the Violin" lists repertoire by date. There's a section on twentieth-century works that breaks the major works down by category (solo violin, violin and piano, violin and orchestra, etc.) The dates of the compositions are given.
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Arcus has been making their bows lighter and lighter -- the original Sonata and Concerto bows were 53g and 52g, respectively.
I have a fine old French pernambucco bow that weighs 56g, which I use for day-to-day play. People notice it's light, but it doesn't feel especially weird. I can use a regular-weight bow just fine and have it feel comfortable; even the only slightly lighter Arcus Sonata feels "too light" to me, though.
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I find that I'm pretty sensitive to the shape my equipment is in. By the time six months pass, I can tell that I'm having to rosin more, and I'm not keen on the sound produced. Also, I usually find that no matter what I do, dirt and oil tend to accumulate at the very frog, and no amount of rosin will make that last inch or two of bow usable, and I don't find that acceptable.
Your threshold of irritation may vary.
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Even wound gut has a distinctly different sound than the best synthetics.
If Pirastro ever comes up with a synthetic string that sounds like their Olives and has the stability of a synthetic-core string, they'll have it made.
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staylor,
Easier said than done. How many amateurs do you know who frequently get invitations to perform concertos with orchestra?
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Perhaps it has to do with the start of World War II, and consequently the change in world events that also altered the course of musical history.
I assume that you are not looking for a concerto, but rather, a short work or a sonata.
Hindemith's violin/piano sonata dates to 1939. Copland's violin/piano sonata dates to 1942. There's a very good Isaac Stern recording of both, coupled with Bloch's Baal Shem.
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I started taking lessons again about a year and a half ago. I've found it extremely beneficial and entirely worth the expense.
First off, the prospect of having to face a teacher weekly ensures that I use my practice time wisely -- and that I do indeed make myself practice every day. This is not so much fear, as knowing I have to do this to get my money's worth.
Second, it keeps me honest -- I know I will not be able to get away with sloppy playing, and it prevents me from succumbing to the temptation of blazing through stuff.
Third, it is extremely efficient. I have someone to ask if I have questions, and problems are headed off at the pass. While I can usually solve problems on my own, the few times I can't, my teacher has always had a handy suggestion that's probably saved me hours of struggling.
My teacher also encourages me to take periodic coaching from other teachers, as well, so I get other perspectives -- she doesn't have ego issues with it. This, too, has been really helpful.
I have a lesson once a week, early in the morning before I go to work. It's usually an hour and a half long, but theoretically I'm scheduled (and pay for) an hour. (Thus far I have failed to get my teacher to accept more money.)
In general, the goals are mine. My teacher helps me figure out how best to accomplish them. She makes repertoire suggestions, but ultimately I decide what it is I want to play -- but that works for me because my teacher believes I have the technique to play anything I want to. She picks the etudes, and some of the technical exercises; the rest of the exercises are part of a childhood routine that I still like.
There's a lot more back-and-forth conversation than there was in my childhood -- my teacher expects me to have an opinion and to express it.
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Interesting how the garb of male soloists is getting simpler, and the garb of female soloists is getting more elaborate...
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Remember lots of the Galamian students were "touched" by Pardee or DeLay and others -- they were his assistants, responsible for preparing students technically.
Favorite Violin Concerto
in The Fingerboard
Posted
Which do you play the best? Which do you have the most affinity for? Which would you most enjoy putting a lot of practice time into?
It's not an issue of what the listener would like. The competition judges have probably heard all three works so many times that their ears bleed when they hear more students play them.