(Interesting… it’s been a good 2 years since a post has been written here…? Cool. )

It takes something big to compel me to put my thoughts down on… ‘paper’. A professional experience today has both made my blood boil and my heart sing. And that’s just the summary of it. Wait til’ you read the whole story. Would love to know what you think.

I’ve had the great pleasure and special honour to be called upon to help in the preparation of a boy, 10 years old and a wonderful violinist, for his school competition today. But the preparation began this past weekend, when I was invited to listen to his final lesson in school with the amazing Prof. Kayaleh, my teacher. I picked up on the technical and musical concentrations they were most interested in working on, and internalised them as I worked through the piece in my head, not knowing that, the Monday and Tuesday after, I’d be called upon to check on these details in the holding room of the school where the competition took place. This was at the German School of Geneva, or the Deutsche Schule Genf. We fine-tuned everything practically to perfection, with the full participation of the boy, until I had to stop him to rest before playing.

And then came the pianist.

He was of such calibre that no child should be punished by playing with him. Let alone for a performance. Let alone to be paid 100chf for time with him to ‘rehearse’, but where someone needed to beat time for him, not to explain a sophisticated concept, but to show him how much he was changing the tempo halfway down the page. After much coaxing, and hopeful insistence, we parted ways yesterday with the impression that we might have done some damage control.

The next day - this morning:

We arrive especially early for our young violinist to warm up. I lead a few deep-breathing and stretching exercises to wake the shoulders up, and we proceed to start with some long scales. Intonation is wonderful, everything is in control. We start warming up the programme, going back to fine-tuning some finishes to each of the works, until the boy begins to relax, even smile with his sound. Beautiful, I think to myself, we are in control of the music, come what may.

We go downstairs to see what’s happening, if we should be ready, and we see the pianist. We greet him, and ask him if he would come and prepare some notes with us. Very well, he comes, but only to talk. Even the tapping of his foot is out of time. I ask him if he would perhaps sit at the piano, and he waves it off with one hand. No need. Very well. We go down again, this time to play, and the lady in charge of organising this musical get-together makes a big show of talking about their campuses all over the world. Wonderful. We discover that our pianist is in the jury- good for him. One girl plays, with him at the piano, then another, then it’s our turn. I approach to tune the little violin while ignoring someone’s audible scoff, or gasp, or whatever that was. I hand the violin to our violinist, and the performance we’d worked so much on begins. The boy starts at an easy tempo, all good. The pianist is more or less catching the notes. Great. Then comes the Vivaldi, and we know that the Italians of this musical period were extremely elevated in their writing - nothing is left to banality, and everything is curated with the utmost complexity - not a sight-reading piece. The pianist, hands shaking more and more, falters, and tries to catch himself, then falters again. And again. At a certain point, he stops playing. He waves a self-dignified hand in the air to the young musician, and says, let’s start again. Fine. It can happen. The second time around, he slows and slows the piece down (despite the fact that, after yesterday’s very trying rehearsal, we’d decided to choose a more realistic tempo for the pianist), and the violinist finds himself adapting to his arrhythmic efforts. It was painful to watch, let alone listen to. The boy, undisturbed, forges on. The notes are right, the bow is under control, the final notes are prepared for the dramatic finish, but the music has left by now. Strangled, by incompetence. The jury, in private, later points out the lack of nuance in the performance. I suggest that it was unreasonable to have asked for better, given the pianist we had had.

Exhausted, I would have stayed, happily, for a post-event chat with the organisers, but to be completely frank, I could not bear staying in that building more than necessary. Luckily, the young violinist and his mother were both ready to go home as well, so we left.

What to understand of this?

I have my opinions, of course, about the value of sincere work, properly developed….

and just as I was finishing these lines, at 15h45, I receive a call from the mother of the violinist:

1) this pianist-jurer told him to tell his professor that he needs to play on time. If I were there to hear this insult, I might have allowed myself to let on that he perhaps should stop playing the piano in public.

2) the kid has won the first prize. Not to say that we should think we are invincible, but to think that this experience is challenging him in every way, and that he has been rewarded by his hard work, he deserves the prize. He is going to Copenhagen next month to play in the German School’s ‘International’ leg of the competition, and they want me to come with.

A happy ending to the story after all, with a villain still roaming somewhere out there. I guess that’s how life is. What’s important is that we know what we’re dealing with, and we focus our energy on only what’s worth our limited time on this earth.

Not to be dramatic, but, I cried on the phone.

What an adventure.

Covid getting you down, and life’s on hold?

Yeah.

And knowing you’re not alone helps, but only so much.

Because, suddenly, from the perfect freedom of enjoying the company of people who bring us joy, travelling to places we want to discover, sharing food with people we love… life in 2020 has become a little bit of a horror story, a charade of fear, doubt, and more fear. We take things with as much philosophy as we could possibly muster, as plans are frozen in mid-speech. Out there, jobs and lives are being snatched away. What little certainty of anything… well. It’s enough that we still have anything at all, and we are grateful.

But - and I have to constantly remind myself - why give space to loneliness, when the choice is, in fact, ours? I have the right to refuse such a weakness, and I must. WE MUST.

It’s true, the wonderful magic that happens when we find ourselves in the good company of other people isn’t to recreate at home, alone, but we forget that we have resources at our disposal. Beautifully rich human resources. Between the genius of the internet and the genius of our human intelligence, anything is possible! What better occasion than now, while the world holds its breath to see what will become of our lives in the long run, to get to know OURSELVES better? Sounds like work, and it is. And, I’m not simply talking about just noticing all the internal talk that we often fall into, the guilt, shame, perhaps boosted by some dose of unhealthy comparison with other people, and all that ‘‘good stuff’’. I’m talking about SLAYING THESE UGLY DEMONS, and having a constant practice at it. I’m talking about taking the violin in hand, bow in the other (hopefully in the left, then right, in chronological order), and putting our daily worries aside, and enjoying the peace of mind that CONCENTRATING FULLY ON ONE THING AT A TIME truly gives us. BECAUSE, WORKING ON EXTERNAL SHORTCOMINGS GIVES US THE ABILITY TO FINALLY FACE OUR INTERNAL ONES. It is big, and it is scary, but this, I have found, is a real gift in these strange times. Something that I have not found anywhere else. And the wonderful advantage? We treat our minds and bodies to a veritable sound bath that, on some physical level, is way superior to simply turning on some music and listening to it. If there are any psychologists out there reading this, I wouldn’t mind your two cents’!

Because, otherwise, what fills the empty, unaccounted spaces in your day when you’re not busy with work, or school? The passive, eye-straining, neck-stiffening, empty consumption of photos and videos from wherever, and whenever? How much more of that are you going to tolerate? Is this really sustainable for you, your life? As a no-longer compulsive scroller myself, I can only say that it’s a relief to be rid of that. And the brain-space that comes with reconnecting myself with the intended purpose of my day and attention span is simply… priceless! Not to say I have to shy away from social media - not at all! The little time I do wander over these social platforms, I thoroughly enjoy it! So, safe to say, WIN-WIN.

And, now that we’re here, why not start with the basics?

How about just taking a deep breath, looking out the window, and thanking life for being the big, beautiful challenge that it is, and then taking stock of what we DO have to be grateful for?

Thanking you for letting me accompany you on your journey,

XO

Cheryl

A special collection of VSG’s very own in-house repertoire.

Click on the titles to access the music in pdf form.

enjoy.

Silent Night Arrangement for 2 Violins

LISTEN HERE: THE DRESDEN CHOIR

Fisher’s Hornpipe

LISTEN HERE: ON THE BANJO

Once Upon a December

for 2 Violins

LISTEN HERE: A CLIP FROM THE ORIGINAL
LISTEN HERE: OUR ARRANGEMENT

Austrian Imperial Hymn
For 3 violins

LISTEN HERE: ORIGINAL KREISLER WORK FOR VIOLIN SOLO

LOTR Theme of Rohan

LISTEN HERE

Ave Maria
by Franz Schubert

LISTEN HERE

Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, 2nd Movement, Arrangement for two violins

LISTEN HERE

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Simple Melody)

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (& variation)

LISTEN HERE: MOZART'S COMPOSITION WITH 12 VARIATIONS

Does working on scales seem like walking an imaginary tightrope, with no real idea of how things are supposed to be going?

Here’s a genius way to turn that around!

… you can thank me later :)

I’ve taken a cue from the singers in the world and their pianists, and it seems wonderful since both singers and string players have very similar troubles with correcting intonation, the reason being that we don’t necessarily understand what to compare our intonation with, since we’re most often working on our violin technique alone! Now, to be fair, if you’re already taking lessons with me, you’ll have been introduced to my system of not only checking the important structural notes with open-strings for intonation, but also the tricky in-between notes that don’t seem to have anything to lean on. The operative word here is: seem. And all that is a fantastic way to tune not only our fingers, but our ears too, since we’re obviously not robots, and even our senses need a good fine-tuning every now and then.

This, here, is something else entirely. It is meant to develop the courage to start and finish a scale without the usual dilly-dallying that often comes with beginner’s insecurity. And all that is completely normal! This, I think, we can consider to be Step 2: playing through the entire one-octave scale, with increasing confidence, and the thrill of being accompanied by a (ok, it’s a robot) … ‘pianist’, and getting it all right!!! And the best part? You get to set the playback speed and practise it as many times as you’d like, in the privacy of your own time. And then all that’s left is to show of the fruits of your labour and to get a standing ovation from me the next time we meet.

Sound good?

I’m excited!!!!

So, go ahead and look for the scale, or even better, the scales you’re working on, set a comfortable speed, and give it a go! It’s going to be so much fun :)

Scales for singing and practising (1st step sing with the solfege names; 2nd step play on ). Sequence as follows: 00:02 - G (Sol) Major / Minor 00:33 - A (La...

As usual, piano chords for crystal-clear piano sounds :) Sequence as follows: 00:00 - F Major 00:17 - F Minor 00:33 - Bb Major 00:49 - Bb Minor 01:05 - Eb Ma...

Scales… no, not the little shiny bits on the skin of a fish 🐟, but the groupings of individual sounds in chronological order, in order to satisfy a taste, a mood, a colour…. basically, the sound of musical piece that gives it its feel. Alternatively, we could think of it as a musical ‘ladder’, one that we can climb up and down on, and every musical ladder has its own unique set of notes! This one element combines with others such as rhythm, form, and texture to support and develop the same musical piece’s identity. And in music, form is function, and vice versa. More on that in the coming discussions 😎

“Did you know? The English word for scale comes from the Italian word ‘scale’ (ska-leh), which means, quite literally, stairs! When I was doing my Masters in Italy, I used to find scales such a chore that when I did eventually get around to practising them, I made a point of announcing it to my professor, and his response, each time, would be - ‘You did some stairs at home? - followed by a guffaw. What a character. ”

So, WHY do we even bother with scales? Have you ever learnt a piece without first working on its underlying scales? What did you experience? Confusion, frustration, maybe even a sense of defeat?

I’ve been there, my Friends, and done that.

And I can tell you that stopping every bar and trying to figure out the individual notes is a complete waste of time. That said, it’s a different story if you’re stopping to get familiar with the notes, in the case of learning to read. In that case, I would highly recommend first naming the notes, putting in a fingering that makes sense, and plucking the notes out first, before dealing with the bow. That was a great tip, right there! 🧐

Learning and practising scales, before tackling a piece, even if it isn’t the first time you’ve had a go at it, does two important things:

1) It warms up our theoretical knowledge of each family member in the scale, re-acquainting us each time with the notes on our violin, and this is especially important at the beginning where everything is so fresh and new that they don’t easily stick around in our memory, and

2) It warms up our practical knowledge of how to move our fingers. This seems like a no-brainer, but believe me, your fingers are going to thank you for the purely technical warm-up before moving on to the musical material. If you are already taking lessons with me, you’ll know that checking the intonation of our individual notes is also a vital part in tuning our ears as well as our fingers, and that’s how our scales get better and better, with a little good old conscious practising!!!

And this is plenty enough reason to take some time with stretching out our hands and ears to the scale (or indeed scales!) we need. It’s a little bit of Musical Math, as I like to call it, that takes a little wrapping our heads around the first couple of times, and every other time after that is just revisiting what we’ve already learned! Easy!

So, what do we need to know to construct a scale?

1) A scale is named after its ‘home-note’, its center of gravity. 🏘️

The freedom we admire in music is often inspired by nature! All we need is to wonder at the rich diversity of everything, and enjoy the great exploration.

So an E (Mi) Major or Minor scale always finds itself gravitating to the E (Mi) note, the F (Fa) to the F (Fa), and so on. Much like how you would imagine opening the front door to a little child inside, and telling her, ‘go ahead honey, have fun!’ What’s the child going to do? Peak out a little, see a few grasses waving around in the wind, maybe spot a furry cat stalking something in the distance, and off she goes! She goes and investigates what the cat’s really up to, and one curiosity leads to another, until the sun begins to set and the little kid’s mom comes out saying it’s time to get inside and wash her hands for dinner. That’s what the ‘Home-note’ is to the little path charted by all the notes in the scale (the little girl’s footprints in the ground, if we may). This central note is also called the Root, or the Tonic. More on that later. So far, so good!

2) The ‘mood/colour/taste’ of scale can be Major, or Minor. Plainly put, Happy or Sad. 🌞⛈️

Much of the best music is a combination of many shades of emotions, just like this gorgeous snapshot of the sky…

As you might imagine, this is a very simplistic explanation for all the colours of the rainbow that we find in all music, but this is all that we really need to know in learning the shapes and dimensions in our left hand. Or, as my maestro likes to call it, the geography and geology of the terrain. Isn’t that just so poetic? I’ll admit, I thought he was a little crazy at first, but the more I made friends with my scales and arpeggios (uh-oh, another theory lesson coming up!😂) and the amazing brush - strokes of auditory colour that they give us with just a little elbow grease, I came to the same understanding - that the humble violin fingerboard, with its distance of what, 40 centimetres? I’m obviously guessing here, but the point is that the terrain of the violin fingerboard really does encompass every imaginable type of terrestrial surface. Don’t believe me? Pull out your scales, take a deep, calming breath, and give it a try!

3) everything in music comes down to the combinations of half-tones and whole tones. 🎶

If you’ve had any sort of music lesson, you’ll remember having learned pretty early on the difference between the half-tone (created by the half-step), and the whole-tone, or full-tone (which we make by taking a whole-step). On the piano, this means moving sideways to the neighbouring white or black key, whichever we find there, and counting either one small step (half-step), or coupling two small steps in a row to give us the whole-step. On the violin, on the other hand, the same principle applies, but instead of counting out pre-measured distances of the keys on the keyboard, we count out pre-measured distances by feeling the spaces underneath our fingertips. A half-step between one finger and another, on the same string, gives us two fingers sitting side-by-side, like two good friends, while the whole-step gives us a space between these fingertips. More on that at your violin lesson. 🎻

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So now that you know these guiding principles, let’s jump right into scale-construction! This covers the theoretical bit of playing scales, and is by itself no mean feat, so you can pat yourself on the back after understanding it! And it really is very simple…

Major scales all follow the same layout of half- and full-tones. If we gave an identifying number to each note in any given scale in chronological order, the spaces would look like this, with neighbouring notes underlined to highlight their closeness:

1 2 34 5 6 78.

For the sake of singing, we also call these notes by their solfège names:

Do - Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La - Si - Do.*

“* For the sake of clarity, we like to use the Fixed-Do system. This simply means that, although it is possible to sing every available scale with this order of note names, such that we are singing E, Bb and F# Majors all starting with do-re-mi-etc, it is rarely used in the real musical world, and each scale starts on its own proper note-name, such that E Major starts with Mi, Bb Major starts with Bb, and so on. This makes for some very interesting solfège practice early on in your training, but you’ll see that you quickly get used to it :)”

In a minor scale, and we’re going to be focusing on the harmonic minor** for the sake of the violin, the half-step relationships change, such that the 3rd and 6th notes (or degrees) go lower by a half-step to create a tighter space with their lower counterparts (or downstairs - neighbours 💒), while the 7th note/degree remains as close as possible to the 8th, now giving us a grand total of 3 half-steps, and even a very special interval between the 6th and 7th called the augmented 2nd. Here’s how things play out:

“** The Harmonic Minor is one of 3 minor configurations, as one may call the specific order of whole/half-steps, and happens to be the one that we prefer to focus on as violinists, because of its symmetry, and the existence of the augmented 2nd interval, which prepares our hand for eventual appearances in the music that we choose to play!”

1 23 4 56 (big gap) 78

In keeping with the Do scale that we’ve just started to get acquainted with, here’s what the note names now become:

Do - Re - Mib - Fa - Sol - Lab - Si - Do

What’s that strange italicised b that we see next to the Mi and La, you might ask, and that’s a fabulous question. These alterations, or accidentals, as they’re technically called, alter the nature of the note. As a general rule, and you may have learned this already, since note-reading precedes this section on scale-construction, all notes that exist can be altered a half-step up or down, to give the sharp (#) or flat (b) version of that same note. Now, if you have perfect hearing and think that a C# (Do#) sounds exactly like a Db (Reb) on the piano, you’re absolutely right, since they share the same key on the piano! How does this interest us at all, since they’re audibly interchangeable? Another great question. Here’s how knowing which note it really is affects us as violinists -

1. fingering

2. intonation.

Regarding fingering:

Not always, but most of the time, we keep the same fingers for the same notes in any given position on the fingerboard. Playing all the notes in our neutral first position on the A string, for example, we have the notes A, B, C#, D, E.

So,

0 - space - 1 - space - 2 - 3 - space - 4.

If we somehow needed to play altered versions of the same notes, say: A, Bb, C, D#, E, we would keep the same fingers for the B and D, and simply move them in the direction that they are needed - B down, and D up, like this -

0 - low 1 - space - low 2 - big space - high 3 - 4

Here, we have another appearance of the Augmented 2nd interval, represented by the ‘big space’. If we happened to play the C# as a Db, with a 3rd finger for example, not only would it be out of tune, we’d also quickly run out of fingers even before we got to the last note. But if we kept each finger to its own note, we’d easily avoid that problem (and any undesirable noises associated with sliding the finger up and down the string and trying to ‘wing’ it).

Regarding intonation:

You may have heard me talk about this before in class, and this is an important factor for us violinists, since we don’t have our notes conveniently pre-tuned for us, the way a pianist would. Going back to the same example, a C# most certainly does not equal a Db, simply because the sharp and flat have completely different functions, something we can consider to be the intention of the musical line. Sharps go up, and flats go down, period. What this means is that, when a sharp exists at all, it gravitates towards the next upper note, and the opposite is true to the flat (whereas it gravitates towards the next lower note).

Simply put, not being imprisoned by a pre-tuned set of notes such as on a keyboard, we have the liberty of playing the C# sharper, and the Db flatter. This results in having, in actual fact, a higher pitch with the C# (gravitating up to D), than the Db (gravitating down to the C). Fascinating, isn’t it? When would you have ever thought that a D could be lower than a C? Here’s your answer, and it’s something only string players and singers can do. 😎

So you’ve made it this far,

and if I were there with you, I’d give you a hearty pat on the back, cos’ this stuff can seem a little dense, at times! But you’ve done a FANTASTIC job of keeping up with all the twists and turns in the narrative of learning how to construct a scale, so all that’s left to do is to try it out in ernest! Pick a finger, on any string, and chart out your mystery scale by following the skeleton of your desired Major or Minor pattern, and voilà, I think all that we need to do now is to find a piece that you like, and take it all the way!!!

Confident that your scales are going well now? Here’s also another great practising resource I’ve composed and recorded just for you HERE to learn your scales with ever-growing confidence, and to have fun with it too! No spoilers now, go over to that other post called Chords to Accompany Our Scales in the articles section of the website (Thinking Out Loud), and HAVE FUN!

BRAVO for your efforts!!!

Keep up the great work, and remember, always be curious!!! See you next time at our next lesson, or write me an email if you have any questions at all :) And of course,

HAPPY PRACTISING!!!!

X.O. Cheryl

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Here’s someone else’s funny (and frankly, slightly confusing) attempt at explaining scales. Obviously, take it with a pinch of salt, since the guy in the video is obviously talking to a specific audience with a specific order of learned information. That said, have fun trying to catch everything he’s saying, and we can talk about the details in person with your questions!

Scales are one of the most important concepts for most serious musicians, but what are they, and how do you use them? On this month's Building Blocks, we div...

In order to indicate the intended musical context of a composition with a universally recognisable vocabulary, composers all around the world (and from the ages past!) enjoy the use of certain expressions in one of the 3 main European languages: Italian, German, and French. Let’s start here with the most used terms in Italian, which makes up probably about 90% of all musical composer-musician dialogue! Enjoy discovering, and try them out at the tip of your tongue, too! It’s fun!

Accelerando - Accelerating

Adagio - Slow / at an easy pace

Affettuoso - Affectionately

Agitato - Agitatedly

Al / Alla - In the style of

Allargando - Broadening (Literally, large-ning)

Allegro / Allegretto - Happy (fast) / Moderately happy (moderately fast)

Andante / Andantino - At a walking pace / Somewhat at a walking pace (this can mean either slightly faster or slightly slower. The final decision of an exact speed needs to be decided by the context.)

Animato - Animatedly

Appassionato - Passionately

Arco - Change to playing with bow (after pizzicato/plucked section)

Arioso - Like an aria (very fluid, as if singing a love song)

Assai - Very

Attacca - ‘Attack’: Go the next section, without stopping (instead of leaving a pause before beginning). Composers sometimes use this to keep the transition between movements as seamless as possible.

Ben (+adjective) - Very (+adjective)

Brio - Vigour / vibrancy. Usually: Con (with) brio.

Cantabile / Cantando - Singing

Capriccioso - Funny, mischievous

Con / Col / Colla (+ verb/noun) - With the (+ verb/noun).

For example: Col legno (with the wood of the bow), con calma (calmly).

Comodo / Comodamente - Comfortably

Con (+ adjectvive / noun) - With (+ Adjective/noun). For example: con brio.

Crescendo - Gaining in volume (dynamics). Also written as cresc. in short form.

Da capo - From the top (literally, ‘from the head’). This appears after a section of repetition and the composer wants us to start again from the material at the top of the page.

Dal Segno- From the Sign (this can take many forms, but is usually represented by a highly stylised S-Shape).

Deciso - Decisively

Decrescendo / Diminuendo - Opposite of Crescendo. Waning in volume (dynamics). Literally, ‘diminishing’.

Delicato - Delicately

Dolce - Sweetly

Doloroso - Painfully

Energico - Energetically

Espressivo - Expressively

Facile - Easily

Fine - The end

Forte / Fortissimo - Strong dynamics (loud) / Very strong (very loud).

Forza - Force. For example, con forza (forcefully).

Fretta - Rushing

Fuoco - Fire. For example, con fuoco (With fire).

Furioso - Furiously

Giocoso - Playfully

Gioioso - Joyfully/ joyously

Grandioso - Grandly

Grave - Gravely. Darkly.

Grazioso - Gracefully

Impetuoso - Impetuously. Impatiently.

Lacrimoso - Tearfuly. Mournfully.

Largo / Larghetto - Broadly/ Somewhat broadly.

Legato- Smoothly. No audible break between notes.

Leggero / Leggiero - Lightly

Lento - Slowly

Liberamente - Freely

Maestoso - Majestically

Marcato - Marked (articulation on every note).

Meno (+Adjective/dynamic) - Less. For example, Meno mosso (less movement), meno forte (less loud).

Mezzoforte (MF) / Mezzopiano (MP) - Moderately loud (less than forte) / Moderately soft (more than piano)

Misterioso - Mysteriously

Moderato - Moderately paced

Molto - Very. Quite.

Morendo - Waning. Dying.

Mosso - Active, moving. Pushing. For example: più mosso (more active), meno mosso (less active).

Moto - Movement. (Con moto means with movement)

Nobile - Noble/nobly.

Non - Not. For example, allegro ma non troppo (quick but not too much).

Ostinato - Obstinately. To be played with very regular tempo and rhythm.

Parlando - As if talking (about an event, or to someone).

Pausa - Pause

Perdendosi - Losing oneself

Pesante - Heavily

Piangendo - Crying

Piano / Pianissimo - Gently, softly (also written as p) / Very gently, very softly (pp)

Piu’ - More

Pizzicato (Pizz.) - Played by plucking the string (instead of bowing)

Poco / Pochissimo - Little / Very Little.

Precipitando - Falling, stumbling, running into a higher pace. The effect is acceleration and loss of control.

Presto - At a quick pace

Prima / Primo - The first. For example, tempo primo (first indicated tempo).

Quasi - Almost. For example, quasi niente (almost nothing).

Rallentando - Slowing down

Rigoroso - Rigorously. Energetically.

Rinforzando - Reinforcing (gaining) in energy and speed

Risoluto - Resolute (very steady speed)

Ritardando - Slowing down

Ritenuto - Holding back

Ritmico - Rhythmically

Rubato - Taking time. Literally, ‘stealing’ time.

Scherzo / Scherzando - A joke / jokingly

Seconda / Secondo - The second. For example violino secondo (second violin/s).

Semplice - Simply

Sempre - Always

Senza - Without. For example, senza vibrato (without vibrato).

Segue - As before. Literally, ‘to follow’.

Sforzando - Usually written as sfz. Accented / strongly reinforced articulation.

Simile - Similar. (Like segue, but less commonly used.)

Slancio - Onward precipitation by force of inertia. Like accelerando, but less common.

Smorzando - Dampening/ refraining in general energy (speed, sound).

Sonoro - Resonant, with rich tone.

Sopra - Above

Sospirando - Sighingly (to imitate a singer’s voice - from a death scene, for example).

Sostenuto - Sustained sound and articulation

Spirito - Spirit, life, energy. Usually, con spirito.

Spiritoso - Mischievously

Staccato - Clearly detached notes. Opposite of legato.

Stringendo - Clearly detached notes. Opposite of legato.

Subito - Suddenly. For example, subito forte (sub. f), subito piano (sub. p).

Tacet - (Latin) Silence. For example, when a soloist is playing and the orchestra stays silent.

Tempo - Speed

Tenero - Tenderly

Tenuto - Same as Ritenuto - held. May be an instruction for either articulation or speed, or both.

Tranquillo - Tranquil. Calm.

Triste - Sad

Troppo - Too much. Usually seen in the combination: , ma non troppo (_, but not too much).

Tutti - Everyone (this follows a solo section where the accompaniment / orchestra stays silent - Tacet).

Veloce - Quick

Vigoroso - Vigorous

Vivace / Vivo - Vivacious / Lively. (Also, very fast.)

Voce - Voice

With various students I’ve tried different methods over the years to make the reading of the dots and lines on the page as accessible as possible. The verdict? All it takes is some good old mathematical logic, and a little intellectual ‘elbow grease’ to get into the grind of things, and surely enough, things start to make sense the moment we start stringing up all this information together, in the form of a simple piece! let’s start with some self-discovery to help illustrate what we’re really dealing with :)

STEP 1:

A little self-awareness experiment.

Take a look at your hands. Give every single finger a wiggle, up-down and left-right, trying your best to move that single finger and nothing else. What do you notice? Which two neighbouring fingers seem to always be affecting the other?

Maybe you’ve got it right, so here’s the answer! The middle and ring fingers, being the two center fingers, have a shared nerve which makes them naturally bound to the other’s movements. This poses a unique challenge to all instrument-playing musicians, but not to worry! We have plenty of ways to develop finger independence in our learning process! Also, if you happen to have all the other fingers wiggle in unison with whichever single finger you were trying to control individually, fret not! Me too, if I’m being honest :)))

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So, the whole point of this little experiment was to illustrate why we place our fingers the way we do on the violin, and at VSG, this is what we call the ‘neutral’ or ‘normal’ first position. It looks a little something like this:

notice the natural spaces between each of the fingers?

Whilst the middle two fingers touch, the first two fingers and the last two fingers don’t! This gives us the natural configuration of the first-position hand: denoted by numbers per finger, starting with 1 for the index finger: 1__23__4 😜

And voilà, we’ve just discovered the most important basis for finding our notes on the violin! CONGRATS FOR MAKING IT UNTIL HERE!!!

Step 2:

Understand that every finger-space represents the ‘home’ of a note.

just imagine…

each note living in its very own home, and a whole long staircase to join them all up. And, much like real houses, not all notes occupy the same amount of space - something that we measure in ‘steps’. Lucky for us, the combinations all start from half- or whole-steps. As soon as we learn to recognise this, learning to read and to understand the relationships between notes becomes easy… all we need to do is to count the number of half- or whole- steps!

Step 3:

Understand how all of this fits into musical notation

Broadly speaking, the notes that we play are easily recognised in the form of the piano keyboard. You might be thinking, ‘but I’m here for the violin! What does that have to do with the piano?’, and to that, I’ll say, give it a minute! The convenience that the presentation of the piano keyboard offers us is the simple spelling-out of all the half- and whole-steps we’d ever need to understand the way music is written on paper, and it helps that everything is laid out, well, in black and white! Let us consider the piano keyboard at the bottom of this following diagram:

Let’s first ignore all the indications coloured in red for now. Looking at the arrangement of the black and white keys of the piano keyboard, we quickly observe the emergence of a recurring pattern - 2 black keys to each other (I like to think of them as two little front teeth), followed by 3 black keys, and so on! Where we have no black keys separating the white keys on the keyboard, the distance between these two next-door white-key neighbours is considered a half-step. On the violin, we create this next-door relationship by having two fingertips line up next to each other, touching, on the fingerboard. Easy enough, so far!

Now, what’s important to note is that any single sideways movement on the piano keyboard, stepwise, is similarly counted as a half-step. This includes a white key going to a black key, and vice versa. But the music that we play isn’t only composed of single sideways steps! In order to quickly and efficiently create the other sort of standard measurement that we briefly mentioned before, all we need is to separate the two interested fingers at their base (in the palm) and create just enough breathing space to introduce a small window between the two fingertips, thereby creating a full step! Now, this all sounds very simple, in theory, but as our current VSG-ers can attest, being able to successfully and reliably pull up a full step between two fingers takes a lot of method, and practice! But that’s of course what I’m here for, to make your life easier by accompanying your violin-playing adventure with constant guidance and heartfelt encouragement! But, you get the point :)

Now, there’s obviously a lot more that goes into actually being able to read the music in front of you, and to understand what you’re seeing. But for now, I think this is more than enough information to start, but if you want to know more, why not get in touch with me, Cheryl, and see how I can help you along your very own violin-learning journey, in as logical and enjoyable a way as possible, all while living the beautifully diverse life you already have?

Write in to violinstudiogeneva@gmail.com and be sure to add our address to your contacts page, in order to be sure you get our response (and not have it lost in spam, for example… sounds funny enough, but it’s happened before).

But above all, ENJOY your time here with us, and HAPPY PRACTISING!!!

X.O.

Progressing in our violin-learning journey, we often find ourselves needing a little more in the way of supporting materials, be they exercise books, étude anthologies, or just some good new strings to give our instruments a new ‘breath’. Here’s a slowly growing list of merchants I’ve had positive experiences with over the years, and in this very special part of the world where not all mega-online-retailers manage to ship things to :) ENJOY!

1) For books / music scores: SHEET MUSIC PLUS

This is a US-based sheet music source for the serious learner. They stock all kinds of method books and prints of the most-used classics such as collections of the Bach Solo Violin Partitas, Beethoven Piano Sonatas, etc. A fantastic resource offering great prices, and even with low-cost shipping (considering that much of their printed material comes from the US! I don’t remember which postage company they use, but what I do remember is always getting a knock on the door and having everything I order from them hand-delivered, with SMS-updates and all… even during COVID times, so this is certainly a service we can all appreciate! Just remember to wash your hands after you’ve removed and discarded the packaging :)

The link HERE will bring you to a credit-based referral system where a small amount of what you spend ends up in my account too, without affecting your final payment in any way, so that I can continue looking for amazing violin projects for all of you!!

Build your musical library over the years and enjoy the fruits of your labour!

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2) For violin accessories: THOMANN and GEAR 4 MUSIC

These are two German- and UK-based online shops that offer a huge (and I mean, HUGE!) selection of all things you could possibly think of needing for your violin.. and perhaps even your violin itself! Although I really do not recommend buying a stringed instrument as sensitive as the violin from an online source without being able to try several variants of the same model and then being able to choose your favourite, I do appreciate the choices of accessories these two websites offer in the way of cleaning cloths, case/instrument humidifiers, and all that find stuff. Heck, you might even find an electrical adaptor for your Italian pizza oven!! Just saying :) They each have a slightly different selection of specific models of everything, so give them both a look! Thomann and Gear 4 Music links here :)

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3) For Strings, and quickly: Violin-shop.ch

A ‘local’ Lucerne-based business, they offer local shipping charges and timings (YAY!) and strings and accessories at reasonable prices. Who knew?! I stumbled upon their online shop looking for a very specific Corelli E-string upon recommendation by someone else, and my first searches led me only to faraway shops based in other continents, and the necessity for bulk-orders and exaggerated shipping prices. And then I found this little corner, which not only had the strings, but also allowed me to order just a few to try them out before developing a taste for them :) But nevermind my Corelli adventure, here’s a direct link to the strings we have always loved - the Dominant strings for G, D and A. A word to the wise - whenever possible, spend a little more on the Silver-mounted G and D strings… your violin will thank you later. Also, as a general rule, we steer clear of the Dominant E strings, so enter the Corelli E strings (Crystal was good for a while, but I highly recommend using the Alliance model now, for its sweet richness).

Aaaand that’s it for now! Hope you find this list of shops helpful for the next time you need a learning / accessory upgrade, and leave a comment here to help others hear about your own experiences, too!

In the meantime, stay safe everyone, and HAPPY PRACTISING!!!!

X.O.

As we’re increasingly feeling the weight of halting our engagement in activities outside of the home in an effort to curb the rampant spread of the Coronavirus, here’s a crazy list of programmes to follow from home, thanks to the magic of streaming, live or on-demand. And, as art isn’t just entertainment (or, certainly not the art we’re involved in), take a look, pick a few to try out, and who knows, you might even discover something you didn’t know about this vast internal world we call ‘the arts’!

Here’s just to name a few -

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From Russia

Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre:

• Revel in the genius of Russian artistic excellence, with

• 6 of its most popular productions made available to us, dubbed ‘the Golden Collection’ will be available on its Youtube channel - Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker. Honestly, I haven’t found them, but to be fair, I only gave it about 2 minutes while I got distracted by clicking on other videos… (for example… La fille du pharaon looks AMAZING! I’d love to watch its entirety some day.)

• The Theatre also be showing us some the Bolshoi’s most popular productions: The Tsar’s Bride (oops, they did it two days ago now), Marco Spada (a première: April 4), Boris Godunov (April 7) and The Nutcracker (April 10). These upcoming performances will go live at 7pm Moscow time and will be available online for 24 hours.

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From Europe:

The Vienna State Opera announces on its website that:

• ‘‘starting Sunday, 15 March 2020, Wiener Staatsoper will broadcast recordings of previous opera and ballet performances daily via its streaming platform www.staatsoperlive.com – worldwide and [several] free of charge’’. After a quick registration on its sleek livestream page, a detailed calendar is immediately available, elaborating the available programmes until the end of June. The programmed streaming for the month of April comprise of past productions of some of the great classics - L’Elisir d’amour, Le Nozze di Figaro, Cinderella , La Bohème, Elektra, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ariodante, Parsifal, etc.

• Paid viewing is also possible for certain productions, with prices start from 14 Euro per event, or 16.90 Euro per monthly subscription, if I’ve understood correctly… considering that entrance to an actual opera production in Geneva would easily cost double for audience members without a student discount, I’d say it’s a steal. Plus, you can cuddle up in your PJ’s with a glass of wine in hand and enjoy the production from home… what more could you want?

• NB: televised programmes remain available only for 24 hours, so take a look to see if something catches your eye, before it’s taken down!

Bavarian State Opera in Munich states:

• ‘After the cancellation of all performances at the Bayerische Staatsoper from March 11 to April 19, we provide individual performances as live streams on www.staatsoper.tv and as video-on-demand.

• Programme includes: Parsifal, Lucia di Lammermoor, Il Trovatore, etc as well as its weekly ‘Monday Concert’ series… and can be streamed directly from their website without account registration

Opera Europa, the professional association of opera companies and festivals in Europe, is happy to participate!

• The first thing I clicked on at the production viewing platform, OperaVision, turned out to be Alceste from the legendary Teatro La Fenice in Venice!!! I might have passed by this historical opera house on my one trip there, but never entered. It airs this evening, and I might tune in just to see how the theatre looks like from the inside. And then, perhaps, allow myself to be transported by composer Gluck’s mastery of melody. Next up, Guillaume Tell on the 7th of April.

The Paris Opera, according to Vogue Magazine,

• ‘will be putting its most beautiful shows from its archives online free of charge. From Don Giovanni to Swan Lake and The Tales of Hoffmann, there are many great classics to see or rediscover from home’ 

• Next up on their programme: The Barber of Seville, for the entire week April 6-12.

• More information on their website here

The Finnish National Opera and Ballet:

• invites us to their online platform, Stage24, to browse their rich programme offering. Did you know, for example, that the Little Mermaid has been staged as a ballet production? (Worth noting, though, that it’s also narrated in Finnish, no subtitles, but it doesn’t really matter, given it’s a ballet!)

From the UK

The Royal Opera House announces that

• raising its virtual curtains to the ‘culturally curious’ with weekly opera and ballet productions every Friday

• These include: Acis and Galatea (April 3), Cosi’ fan’ tutte (April 10), etc.

Opera North

• has made the entire Wagner Ring Cycle (cue Norse mythology + Lord of the Rings) available to us mortal beings!!! Many things to criticise about aesthetic choices, but, can we just stop and admire the fact that someone actually offered it up for free viewing? Respect.

… And here’s a little palate-cleanser for anyone wanting a little change from this immense list:

National Theater Live

• is offering live-captured plays including Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Treasure Island, Jane Eyre. Beginning on April 2, audiences can watch a number of NT Live’s live-captured productions for free via the National Theatre’s YouTube channel. Every Thursday at 7pm UK time, a production filmed in front of an audience in the theatre will be streamed and made available for a week.

There’s so much to discover that there’s no time to complain of boredom being stuck at home!

Happy viewing, STAY SAFE, and don’t forget that we WILL get out of this eventually, so keep working your violin, and we’ll catch up in person, hopefully soon!

XO. Cheryl.

do what you love.. and preferably with people (or animals) you love!!!

So,

I was looking around for at-home workout tips the other day, and I stumbled upon this article on mental well-being by the UK’s NHS (National Health Service) and the 5 pointers they offered in their article made me think that the violin is a one-stop cure for mental well-being! Ok, maybe it’s a bit of stretch to make a bold statement like that in public (although I actually felt my head nodding in agreement as I scrolled down the article), so we’ll just say that the violin is a magical instrument with musical properties. Or, did I mean to say, a musical instrument with magical properties? Same thing, but someone had to say it. 😍

Here were the 5 tips they highlighted, and here’s my own thought process about it that kept my head nodding like a bobble-head character…

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1) Connecting with other people (brings us happiness)

Whether we’re talking about going for lessons, or coming to our music+food bi-monthly class meetings, or simply looking for a tip online (by the way, be careful about what you copy from Youtube - always check with your teacher about what you’ve found!!!)… the natural presence of physical human contact, and the dynamism of communication between people at any music-motivated meeting is simply undeniable. It’s been said before but bears repeating: making music is a community endeavour - it always has been and always will be like this, and we’re al very grateful for it!

2) Being physically active (brings us happiness)

Uhm.. yeah! On the violin (or any other instrument for that matter), there are a lot of muscles pumping in unison, in a very specific order and quantity. Don’t get me wrong though, playing the violin DOES NOT REPLACE EXERCISE (ergo my original intention of getting online for workout tips for the home, now that it’s getting cold outside), although it does keep your body constantly active. Mentally, too. So, don’t go abandoning your habitual workouts just yet, but keep in mind that working on upgrading your violin-playing skills beats mindless scrolling on your phone EVERY-SINGLE-TIME !

3) Learning new skills (brings us happiness)

Enough said. Moving on.

4) Giving to others (brings us happiness)

Play for someone, or join us in our intimate bi-monthly class reunions, or, even better, now that Christmas is on its way, brush off the cobwebs between your fingers (haha, JUST KIDDING!!!) and sign up for a Christmas-carol group and offer to keep their rhythm and intonation in check! Just remember to first work a lot on scales, with some serious counting and bowing patterns, and varying metronome speeds, before committing to a task like that!!! 😜😜😜

5) Paying attention to the present moment with mindfulness (brings us happiness)

Between you and me, I think we can agree there’s plenty of that involved in playing the violin. The sheer mental concentration required to perfect that one specific muscle control at last week’s lesson probably didn’t even give us the satisfaction of a decent outcome. But we keep at it because the reward is too great to renounce… No further explanation required here!

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SO interesting, isn’t it? That’s of course not to say that we should all pick up the violin ONLY as an escape from sad days, although feeling better at the end of a tough day as a result of shutting out the noise in order to focus on a specific finger drill on the violin certainly can be a happy consequence too, but I prefer to take this article on mental wellness as a surprising reminder how multi-faceted this gorgeous, complex instrument really is. The surprises never end, I promise, and I’ve heard the same expressions of awe and disbelief from some of the wisest people I know, so we’re certainly in good company. And amazingly, despite all of our cultural and personal differences, the one common denominator for all of us is that, between our heads, our hands and our violin, we’ve got a fully-equipped laboratory for the search of all things good and whole. And, looking ahead to the coming winter months… I’m going to say it already - HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

Until we meet next, keep warm, safe, and well, everyone…

and of course…

HAPPY PRACTISING!!!!

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Had a full day at school or work and now you’ve come home with an exhausted body and tired mind, but still want to practise a little on the violin so that you keep progressing? Renouncing on practicing altogether seems at first to be the first choice, but it quickly turns out that NOT practising for more than 3 days can easily give way into a whole myriad of troubles with catching up, personal frustration, and very simply, just more fatigue in general. Indeed, not having a regular practice schedule quickly reveals itself as a short-term non-solution with real, very annoying, long-term consequences, as those of us who have gone more than 3 days away from the violin can testify.

What to do?

Follow these steps outlined here can help you quickly get back on track, and soon be playing your favourite pieces to your heart’s content!

1) If starting exhausted, the very first thing to do is to acknowledge that you are, in fact, exhausted. Denial will not be a friend here. But practising tired has a very therapeutic effect, if done right! Before starting, take a good stretch on your back, arm and neck muscles, and breathe a heavy and happy sigh of relief that this is your time now, for you! And then, perhaps, make yourself a strong cup of tea (with honey?), and know that this is the time to go into relaxed focus. (We learn much better and efficiently in this state, whereas anxiety will trigger the brain’s inclination towards CANCELLING the whole experience, and that’s definitely NOT what we want to happen with our hard-earned practice progress!!!)

2) Now that you’re ready, pick 1 or 2 purely mechanical things to work on / learn (technique and scales are our best tools here), and set the bar at a manageable level. Next, without compromising on the highest quality of concentration and of sound production, do 3 repetitions of this small technique and pause to re-evaluate. Figure out what needs to change in order to get those repetitions perfect each time, with no hurry but with a quiet certainty. When the technique is stable, there are a couple of things we can do to master it: Adding the number of repetitions when 3 is easy; raising the speed up a notch for precision and strength; switching up bowing combinations…. every item on this list makes the technical work seem so much more challenging, and the moment you master one and feel the exhilaration rushing through you, congratulate yourself, because you have just entered the positive cycle of self-motivation!!!

3) Picking 1 or 2 small sections of a musical piece (we don’t call them songs anymore) you are working on, perhaps a 4-bar phrase or 2-bar transitional passage, work in the same way! Choosing a speed, or tempo, that is comfortable but not TOO comfortable, work on small sections first by dealing with the mechanical aspects, and then the musical aspects (like vibrato, for example). Work for real stability: after having ‘nailed it’, and celebrated a little maybe because it was the first time you managed to play through the passage without hesitating, repeat as necessary in order to make it ‘your own’: so that you would be able to pick up the violin and play it anywhere, without needing to squint at the fingerings on the page. In a sense, it’s learning the music by heart, but it’s much more than just memorising the movements - it truly is LEARNING the music! When we KNOW the music, we can switch our brains off (from fear, doubt and anxiety) a little a finally enjoy ourselves in the process of playing it for others!!

So that’s how it goes!

When you’ve practiced effectively, you feel stronger at the end of each session, and much happier inside, because our instinct for productivity has been satisfied, and there’s no better feeling in the world!

Next practice session, it’s wash, rinse, repeat, but only after checking very quickly that the items from the last practice session are holding their shape! Remember, it should be a quick check, not a repetition of the last session, since, we want to move on! This makes the quality of each practice session so much more valuable, and practising becomes a little more demanding, but so much more satisfying!!!

and, after having all this information, know also that …

you’re not alone!

If you’re a member of our current class, let the Practice Logs help you along!

Or, let the community help you (cue Facebook), reach out to the other learners around you, and don’t be afraid to learn through your mistakes! That’s how we all grow.

GOOD LUCK, AND HAPPY PRACTISING!!!

X.O.

Travelling all the time without too much time to stop and regroup?

We’ve all been there, what with easy travel options and the need to get away from city life… but the violin experience doesn’t have to stop when you leave your town of residence!

Violin progress seems to come to such a standstill for every one of us every time we take a break from lessons. And since lesson time is so precious, we do almost nothing else than to focus almost exclusively on how to make our fingers and arms function better on the fingerboard and bow… that there’s barely any time at all to talk about everything else outside of the violin lesson - and that’s where the real experience starts!

So then, it follows quite logically that when we don’t have time with the violin, we are presented with a special opportunity to work on the other aspects of our musical literacy and culture - things like note-identification and understanding the anatomy of scales (so that we’re not drawing a mental blank when we are on the violin, and can in fact focus on where our fingers, and not why they go where they go)!

And we like these special opportunities on the bus/train/plane! Considering that a concerto usually lasts anywhere between 25 minutes to an hour (I might be wrong, so please correct me), instead of playing Candy Crush for hours on end and then hating yourself (we’ve all been there) for having literally gotten nowhere with our time, how about discovering a little Beethoven, or Bach, or Tchaikovsky? The added advantage to this is that, with our headphones on, we hear so much more than what a crappy laptop/phone speaker could ever offer. Double-win!

So, instead of rambling on about the benefits of learning on the go…. here are some truly awesome resources I personally love that can help grow our musical awareness, in an inspiring and very enjoyable way!

1) Youtube Inspiration from the Masters of the violin

Go to the section ‘Our Idols’ on the homepage of the VSG website. There’s a reason this section is named like this. Pick a musician, or a composer, or an instrument, and start exploring! You never know what you’ll find if you don’t start looking! So go ahead, and enjoy the legacy these great humans have left for us.

2) Work on your Music Theory!

A fantastic online resource can be found here: https://www.musictheory.net/lessons. They even have a mobile app that costs very little, but I’ve been told it’s only available right now on Apple phones. Boo. But the good news is, with a computer and an internet connection, you can learn just about anything from note-identification to Roman numeral musical analysis! I only wish I had this when I was a young’un. Never too late, though!!!

3) Listen to Podcasts to see what other musicians are up to

Nathan Cole and his wife Akiko Tarumoto have a funny, honest, and very self-effacing sense of humour in their podcast Stand Partners for Life. As important members of the LA Philharmonic Orchestra, they know what they’re talking about when it comes to conductors, orchestra etichette, and growing up in very different environments as young musicians. Of the several channels that are available around the internet, this is the one I most highly recommended.

https://www.natesviolin.com/the-stand-partners-for-life-podcast/

. . .

So that’s it for now!

Find the thing or the people that inspire you most, and, who knows, you just might be well on your way to building your very own personal, robust, very lively, musical culture! No more stunned silences when the conversation leaves the world of finance and politics… you’re going to have so much to contribute (and educate the others around you about), now!

ENJOY, BE INSPIRED, AND HAPPY PRACTISING!!!

Picking up an instrument for the first time and expecting to be able to play it in a short amount of time is no joke, especially when it’s your VERY FIRST playing experience! Follow these 3 pointers and you’ll be off on a better start than before you chanced upon this information!

1) Be prepared to accept that playing is an ACTIVE experience!

Most first-timers (adult students, I’m looking directly at you!) associate PLAYING (active) with their past experiences of LISTENING (passive), which are two distinctly different activities. Sure, we do need to listen intently (but actively!) while playing, especially in a group, but you’ll soon learn that, with the instrument in hand, your attention needs to become laser-focused!

2) Muscles take some time to learn even the simplest movements!
It may not seem obvious, but our bodies are made of living organic material (as opposed to steel machine parts)… haha! What I mean by this is that we often build up a mental ideal that’s so far removed from reality that the only thing left after is guaranteed disappointment.

Especially when dealing with your first instrument experience ever, let go of your crazy expectations, find out first what your arms and body want to do naturally, and then course-correct from there. Relax, be curious, and you’ll find that with much less stress, you’ll quickly be on your way to one of the most exciting personal discoveries you could imagine!

3) Our bodies need some preparation

As an extension to the previous point, our bodies aren’t made to function like machines. Instead, what we DO have is supple tissue, ready to be shaped by whatever tasks we decide to pick up, on a regular basis! That said, before the shaping begins, we want to make sure we start with minimal tensions, accumulated stress, etc, as far as we can manage. In practical terms, this means that if we’re coming from a long day of work and we’re setting up for our lesson on a Friday evening (some of you may be laughing right now!), take the luxury of a stretch, a yawn, anything to get the oxygen circulating again in your knees, back, and shoulders! Your body’s going to thank you for this, and believe it or not, so will your sound! Do the right thing, stand up now from your desk, and swing your arms around a little!

(If nobody’s looking, GO CRAZY and turn it into a full-blown dance party!)

Stay healthy, keep your bodies happy, and talk soon!
X.O.

Learning to play the violin as an adult is a daunting task - if you do it alone! But, just because we're no longer attending compulsory formal education doesn't mean we stop growing as a human being. And what's interesting is that, whether we already read music (because we were among the lucky few who had the chance for music education as a child) or not (perhaps because LIFE IS LIFE), we tend to understand the process of going through life in terms of emotional content.

I'm not talking about swinging between ups and downs, although that does tend to happen in extreme situations! I'm talking about the colourful imagery that springs to mind when certain labels are called up. Think: blue sky, sour lemon…. And it's not just a question of colour! We naturally swim in an ocean of shape, texture, taste….. And honestly, right now, all I'm dreaming of now is an ice-cold strawberry milkshake… (my tummy's beginning to stir… help!!!)

Imagine being a trained musician (even an amateur one, but trained!), who hears the word Russia and all you can think about is Tchaikovsky's immensely lush, generous, and so very rousing harmonies; try to imagine having the depth to appreciate the rigours of Bach's mathematical genius for structure, but also the amazement at the poetry so tightly ensconced in his apparent 'severity'… imagine being a little rascal hopping among the wildflowers among the bees, being yelled at by your mother to come inside before you get in trouble… you would have embodied the spirit of the eternally youthful Mozart from the time he wrote Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). So you see, learning to understand this other dimension in life.. Is really not far away from what we already know.

But learning to listen, and learning to play the music we love, are two very different endeavours.

The violin, for all its incredible Baroque beauty, can be a devilish instrument of torture, if not handled properly. The set-up of the left arm below and around it, the pursuit of true finger dexterity, and then learning to use this powerhouse which is our bow arm… is something that needs some significant expert guidance. Especially if you're not the kind of person who actively goes looking for physical injury.

And because LIFE IS LIFE, yours truly has had the unique opportunity of having developed, and then overcome, an almost crippling bout of tendinitis in the left side of my body. It's a work in progress to keep it completely at bay, but such a revealing schooling on how to use the body gently but effectively! Especially since, in this hyper-connected world, we tend to spend more time at the computer than not, and it's pretty obvious by now that this is the hell we have chosen in order to get ahead in life. If you're already thinking of learning to play the violin, or to continue your journey without forgetting the wellness of your physical body, why not try it out with someone who's already made the mistakes we all make, and streamline the learning process in order to enjoy life to the fullest?

Don't be fooled, the violin is not an easy instrument to learn to play, and convincingly. I could name some very famous people who didn't even get to the 'convincing' part, but let's keep that conversation behind closed doors, shall we? So if you're in it to fill in another line in your CV, and, I kid you not, I have met people like this and wonder why they didn't just boast about their symbolic 'gym membership' instead, I'd invite you to just stick to the 'gym membership'.

But if you're in it for the sounds and the fluidity in breathing and body movements, and the excitement of surmounting ever-bigger personal challenges, you're exactly where you need to be! Get in touch with me and let my eye for detail nudge you through your own learning process, and meet some amazing people on the go.

Let me and your extended circle of 'classmates' accompany your journey based on your personal schedule, specific interests… Hell, we even had a song from Maroon 5 in one of our first classes! I mean, since LIFE IS LIFE, everyone is so uniquely different. Let the violin speak for you, and you will thank yourself later for having taken this opportunity to give it a go.

Much love.