lwl
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Posts posted by lwl
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I would disagree that close to the bridge with a lot of pressure is the only way to get a lot of sound.
I would point to two examples to the contrary, both players with gigantic tones: Hilary Hahn (trained in the Franco-Belgian tradition) and Elmar Oliveira (trained in the Russian tradition).
(But I do agree with the point that their dynamic level is consistently high, even in theoretically-soft sections -- they are putting out an amount of volume that you would consider to be quite loud if you heard them in a small room, for instance.)
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Can we PLEASE not turn this into another Old Is Better Than New argument?
Let's talk specifics. What alternatives -- *specific techniques* -- exist to pull sound out of an instrument without resorting to placing the bow right up next to the bridge, causing that up-close scratch? What makes the sound of an instrument carry, sounding clear and resonant yet soft, in piano sections? (I suppose the discussion of projection in general is interesting as well, though the original thrust of the question was specific to 'how do you *sound* soft without *being* soft?')
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Infeld Reds sound awful on my violin (my teacher's reaction to hearing them for the first time was, "Get rid of them!"). Clearly your mileage may vary regardless of the string.
I've found with Evah Pirazzis that as long as my intonation is pure, one string in the upper positions sounds like the next -- for example, if I play up in the fifth-plus position on the A string, the notes ring just as brilliant and true as they do on the E; there's no audible sonic difference that a good tape recorder will pick up, though there's a difference (albeit not a huge one) under my ear. This essentially robs the instrument of tone color possibilities, which I don't like, despite the otherwise good sound of the Evahs (though the Larsens ring more and put out more raw power, still).
My latest set of Larsens is fading in power, but I'll probably stick it out for another two or three weeks before giving up and changing to something else -- I have a free set of Violinos that I need to try out. But I suspect I'm going to settle on Obligatos again -- I think I prefer sweet and complex to power. (I don't have the patience to grapple with the tuning issues with Olives, or I'd really, really prefer to stick with gut.)
If you like the sound of the Helicores, you might really like the sound of Larsens -- they have everything I like about steel but without the loss in complexity.
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At an hour a day of playing, you can probably do with a rehair every six months.
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First thing that comes to mind is the third movement of Mahler 1 -- the central melody (between all of the doomful Frere Jacques stuff) is just gorgeous.
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Perlman himself seems to have thought of himself as more a DeLay student than a Galamian one. It's probably most accurate to characterize him as having been strongly influenced by both.
Mintz, I thought, is thirty-something -- though I may just remember him most clearly as a fellow in his late twenties when I first heard his recordings over a decade ago.
So the birthdate you have for him may well be right, though I find it mildly surprising.Lin is about forty. Perlman is fifty-five now, I believe. (Thus my recollection jives with yours.)
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is also about forty. I believe Robert McDuffie is around that age, as well. I believe Mark Kaplan is fifty-ish, making him the next DeLay student I can think of off the top of my head who is younger than Perlman but older than Lin's generation. But there were certainly others in the intervening time. Perhaps Toscha will think of more violinists.
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When I was a high schooler, a lot of the high-school-age students of the Vamoses that I knew (all superb players, many of whom now perform professionally) took very small doses of Valium prior to auditions and performances. (The first time I saw this, I was sharing the back of a van with a bunch of them on the way to IMEA District auditions, and I was rather shocked.) Theoretically, they'd gotten used to taking small doses in the past, so gotten somewhat desensitized to the drug -- sufficiently so that their playing skills weren't much hampered when they took it under before entering performance conditions. (I don't know why they didn't just take beta blockers -- I didn't know about the existence of those at the time, but I can't believe that my friends' teachers did not.)
I don't think I'd ever dare to do what they did. Ditto alcohol, or any other sedative or barbiturate. Way too much of a risk of slowing your reactions.
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Mintz is much, much younger than Perlman and Lin.
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Alexander Sitkovetsky has a debut CD out called "Sascha". I was not blown away by it, but it's certainly fine playing.
The liner notes say that he's part of "the" Sitkovetsky family, but I'm wondering exactly what relationship he has.
Julian Sitkovetsky married the pianist Bella Davidovich. I believe they only had one child, Dmitri. Checking Dmitri's bio, it says that he is married to an American woman and has only one child, a daughter. Alexander's mother is Olga Sitkovetsky. Any idea where they fit into the family tree?
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I think realistically, we are all nervous when we perform.
At the very least, we are somewhat keyed up -- and arguably we *should* be; adrenaline is part and parcel of the performance experience, and it is part of the "charge" of live performance. (This is why people who take beta blockers sometimes complain that it makes them feel detached from the performance, I suspect.) The problem is merely getting the *right* level of adrenaline -- enough for the charge, not enough to have physically negative impacts.
Interestingly, bow tremors don't seem to be audible at concert-hall volumes -- I suspect the way the sound goes out and bounces around smooths out any roughness (the same way it smooths out a Galamian-style scratch). Tremors in vibrato amplify though, given the way they change the characteristics of the sound way.
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Oh yeah. Son file' gets MUCH easier with a good bow.
I can do around twenty seconds on my old bow -- still a high-quality modern bow. I can do more than double that on my current bow (old, French). Put a really superb bow into my hands and I can do over a minute.
The reason for this -- I think -- is that the bow's draw is absolutely smooth. It doesn't tremble, you don't have to unconsciously compensate for minute unevenness of the stick, and the very even-feeling weight distribution means that you just gradually move your muscle in an absolutely natural, smooth way. Plus, the wood vibrations help sustain the sound.
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Articulation and clarity and purity of sound only go so far -- at some point in time you do have to generate some pattern of sound that will carry, whether it's raw decibels or getting the instrument to ring sufficiently that the vibrations carry to the back of the hall.
Certainly there have been plenty of players who were able to get huge sounds without scratching, though. (Elmar Oliveira, for instance, produces an enormous sound, as does Hilary Hahn.)
I don't care for the Galamian sound -- and I certainly wish that record producers would stop miking it closely, because that's exactly how that sound *isn't* meant to be heard.
I do think there's only so far a player can drop their volume and still be audible against an orchestra in a modern concert hall -- watch a soloist play with orchestra and you'll see that their bow rarely goes past the midpoint between bridge and fingerboard, and will usually be as close to the bridge as they dare (sufficiently good instruments often let you play practically next to the bridge without scratching).
(That particular discussion is worth a thread unto itself: how do you respect a marking of "piano" without actually allowing the volume to diminish significantly?)
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What's the venue, and how formal is the attire of the orchestra and audience, normally?
I've seen men in black turtlenecks and black slacks, with or without a black jacket.
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Okay, a slightly different approach to this question:
Let's assume my hands are going to shake -- it's a physiological reaction that is unlikely to be controlled by anything short of a beta blocker, in all likelihood.
Given that they're going to shake, what should be done to compensate? I doubt I'm the only one who experiences this kind of problem under stress, and older players might experience tremors in general.
i.e.: What can be done technically to avoid movements that would set off tremors, or reduce their effects tonally, etc.?
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Would you be willing to email me the mp3s?
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Has Szeryng's recording ever been released on CD? And if so, on what label?
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Online CD/LP store with an interesting concept -- they convert LPs onto CD, and send you both the original LP and your CD of it.
Some of you collector types might be interested in that...
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Another thing to note: The tastes of players change over time.
There was a article in Strings magazine, I believe, which noted that bows like those by Sartory have gone up massively in price as the demand for the maker has increased -- they suit the rougher styles of today's players, sustaining heavy attacks and the like. It used to be that bows by makers like Thomassin were more popular, but the playing trend has reversed the price trend, so Thomassin bows are now priced significantly below those of Sartory.
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More thoughts:
I would counter the argument that reading is a drag for young students by saying that reading is *liberation*. Reading means that you're not dependent upon your parents to read you a book, or, in the case of music, to tell you what notes to play (or to use your ear to pick out notes from something you've heard recorded). Young children can and do enjoy playing in ensembles. The Suzuki programs I was in had children as young as five in string orchestras (playing music at about the level of public-school junior-high orchestras).
I would also note that, while it is true that many children who study the violin as children via the Suzuki method do not go on to play the violin as adults, the same is true of those who studied the violin by conventional means. Even students who are highly, highly accomplished -- good enough to get into Juilliard -- but who decide to pursue other careers, often quit playing. It is much more than a matter of when one begins, or what method one begins by, or how accomplished one eventually becomes.
What percentage of violinists, trained in the US, who have won major orchestral positions or achieved major solo careers in the last twenty years, started via the Suzuki Method? It's huge, I believe.
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Once you know a work well enough to play it up to tempo -- and sometimes even before then, if you're occasionally doing a work not-quite-there-yet up to tempo -- part of your practice time should be "performing time". During "performing time", you play things through, not stopping even if you make a mistake, concentrating on good continuity and musical flow. Note where things break down technically, but don't let yourself stop for them. Force yourself to recover from mistakes *without breaking the pulse*. If you get a chance to play with piano accompaniment, that's even better -- if you fumble a few notes, you want to be back together with the piano, in time, as quickly as possible. Someone who knows the piece will hear the fumble, but hopefully nobody else will. Try not to waste mental time berating yourself for the mistake (I find this incredibly hard to do, but of course, if you get carried away thinking about what you just screwed up, your concentration lapse will cause yet more mistakes).
The other thing is: If you expect to perform something and you think there's a high probability that you'll screw it up, practice recovering from that particular thing. Know what's happening in the accompaniment, if relevant. Make sure you have a secure place where you 'know where you are' on the next immediate beat so that you can plow on in time if you're unlucky enough to screw up in performance.
Recovery from mistakes is an important skill, not just for solo playing, but for ensemble playing -- so playing in an orchestra or chamber group will probably help significantly in forcing you to learn to move right along even if you have to fake some notes. Try not to let the screw-up show in your expression, either!
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Sort of. I would say that there's a price range that goes up to about $500 and another price range that goes up to about $1500, but there's plenty of overlap, especially once you factor in composite bows, as well as country of nationality -- there are some rather nice Chinese bows available for less than $500, for instance, that compete reasonably with bows double that price.
For a couple of hundred dollars, you can get something entirely functional, honestly.
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Playing the violin IS my stress reduction.
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I think that starting two years earlier -- at age five rather than seven -- was certainly good for me. By age 7, I was playing in a youth orchestra. By age 9, I was its concertmaster. I think I needed those four years to get to that point in my playing, though -- I don't think that my progress would have been measurably faster had I started later. In other words, four years was four years -- whether it was age 5 to 9, or 7 to 11.
I would agree that there are definitely some children who start young and make almost no progress early on -- takes them a few years to get through Suzuki Book 1, for instance. Other kids move right along. I suspect the key is concentration -- some children just aren't able to concentrate on a task 'til they're older, while others can manage just fine when they're younger.
I would also assert that the more you can get done while the child is in grade-school -- before peer pressure makes it uncool to be a classical musician, and serious commitment to another hobby (like athletics) takes place -- the better off the child's playing skills will be in the long run.
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When I am nervous, my hands shake -- violin or not. If I'm stressed out, my hands will tremble very slightly if I try to hold them straight, horizontal, palms down.
One of the most frustrating things I've encountered in the last month is finding that when I am even a little physiologically worked up -- even if my state of mind is calm and controlled -- my vibrato becomes nearly uncontrollable. Whether I just allow the vibrato to 'occur', or I deliberately produce it, the result is very fast and uneven -- it is an uncontrolled tremor primarily produced by the wrist. (Even if I try an arm vibrato, the fact the wrist must be kept loose allows the tremor to begin.) The tremor can be stopped deliberately with the same mental/physical action that stops a normal controlled vibrato. This obviously has a tremendous impact upon tone quality, as it prevents normal control of colouring the sound with an appropriate width and speed of vibrato. (And though I don't vibrate that much, it's still a critically important expressive device!)
I can control the bow tremors by deliberately using more bow and more speed -- basically creating as fluid of a motion as possible and using the big muscles rather than the small ones. Tone-affecting but less noticeable and much easier to get under control.
Anyone experience this kind of problem? Any solutions?
So the birthdate you have for him may well be right, though I find it mildly surprising.
pianissimo and projection
in The Fingerboard
Posted
If you are playing "softly" in a concerto context, you are relying primarily on ring and not on raw volume, for projection. (Being careful to articulate with the left hand will lend clarity and make the notes "pop out" a bit more, too.)
In some cases, you are also relying on the *illusion* of softness rather than any actual drop in volume.
HKV's point about the orchestra producing tone correctly is very crucial one -- particularly since most of the readers of this board, if they play concertos, will end up doing so with youth orchestras, college orchestras, and community orchestras. Also, I think it's easier to play really softly on a good instrument and still get a good tone, than it is on a poor instrument. The good instrument rings; the poor instrument chokes up and makes it hard to draw a continuous sound at low volume levels. Anyone who ends up playing a solo with youth orchestra has a lot of poor instruments to contend with.
Going back to technical specifics:
Reducing or eliminating the vibrato will contribute to the illusion of softness.
Moving the sounding point towards the fingerboard but not reducing weight or speed of the bow will reduce volume slightly, but more importantly, cause a color change that sounds "softer".
Playing games with dynamics -- your contrasts need to be much sharper.
There's got to be much more...