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Elke Meier

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So today for the first time I dared to venture away again from Sevcik and the early Suzuki 1 pieces (Perpetual motion was my perpetual companion the last couple of weeks...) and I decided to visit "Deeply grow the roots" again.

In the video there are clips from four different angles:

1st time through: from the back and the side. The one from the back shows the position of the thumb rather high up the neck. My teacher had said that this would help to compensate for the lack of rotation in the arm combined with a short fourth finger. With the higher thumb I would be able to reach the fourth finger more easily. That is true, and yet, I am not really comfortable yet with the high thumb. It still throws my intonation and more often than not the high thumb slides down again. In the one from the side the different angle of the arm clearly shows. At least if you compare it with the second half of the Musette practice, which I had posted half a year ago.

2nd time through: The first half is the recording from a bit more than a year ago, the second half is from this afternoon, both from the front. I had hoped that the difference in arm position would clearly show in the two recordings. Well, to be honest: to me it does not look that much different, even though it feels so completely different.

General observations:

It is much easier with this new hand frame to change from the A to the E-string. That often took some contortion of the hand in the old hand frame, all of a sudden that is not difficult any more.
Recording from the back was enlightening! Even though it feels very good to play without the shoulder rest I noticed when I put the violin in place that I slightly raised the shoulder - so something to watch out for more consciously!

Please ignore the bad tone. I still cannot think one bit about bowing, otherwise my hand jumps back to the old and ingrained pattern. And when I concentrate on the left hand, the right hand still wants to mirror it. So I lightly place the fingers - and the bow grazes the string... Also, the arm levels are a bit of a mess, I sometimes play the body of the violin instead of the E-string... :) - but all that will get back into focus once the left hand position has become automatized. I just didn't want to wait longer but wanted to share with you my excitement about playing something different from Sevcik again :)

Elke Meier
16 Responses
Posted: February 3, 2016
Last Comment: February 5, 2016

Replies

Elke Meier
Posted: February 4, 2016

Thank you so much, Beth, for your kind and strong warning :). I tried to do another recording - to check again, but I did not watch the light and it got too dark for a decent video. But it is good to know what to watch out for.

As for the bow hand, I think I know what happened there and how I lost the original contact point. Some months ago I changed the position of the violin more to the side so as to be able to reach the G-string. At that time I could not reach the tip of the bow any more. And to make sure I could get at least a bit more toward the tip I shifted the hand - and got very much used to this kind of feel. This also seems to be the reason for the observation Dianne made. When I change the contact point again, the pinky position also changes.

After my violin lesson, when I changed the position of the violin back to "normal", it seemed to me as if I had lost some bow stability. The bow often did not feel secure any more. Maybe this was the reason! By now the old bow hold feels strange... I guess I will do a lot of open string exercises to get the old one to feel normal and right again...

The thumb really is a problem. The higher thumb was to compensate for my lack of ability to rotate the wrist. But I don't want to compromise my next vibrato trial before I even start! My teacher's great concern was looseness of the arm, to have it hang and swing freely. All this time I felt that having the thumb forward really helps in having a stable hand frame and a relaxed arm - I don't need to shift the hand slightly up to reach a fourth finger. But something did not feel right. The arm was relaxed, but I did not have the feeling that the hand was relaxed! Or the thumb pad! At least once I started playing. Then the thumb would get rather tired. I had already thought that in my next lesson I would really have to talk to her again about this thumb business. How exactly had she wanted this? What I did did just not feel quite right. After your input I thought again that her main concern was not my thumb, but a loose and "swingable" arm. So I needed to get an "environment" where I could concentrate on this. I put a tape on the neck around the position of a low second finger and took this as the place for the thumb instead of a high second finger. It was interesting: the thumb stayed in place and I could concentrate on the loose arm only. I will see how far back I can move the tape and still keep a relaxed arm, able to reach with the fourth finger. But I guess it is back to scales, Sevcik, and Suzuki 1. - It WAS a nice excursion though the last couple of days to play something more musical for a change again :)

Elke Meier
Posted: February 3, 2016

Some more comments:

Katja and Nick - I did not plan to have a "high thumb" like Rustam. When I talked about a "high thumb" I meant higher up on the neck, like across a high second finger. I used to have it more across the first finger. But your comments triggered a thought. It is too late to practice tonight, but I will try tomorrow to place it in the same spot, but not as high up over the edge of the fingerboard. Maybe that is what makes it feel not quite right/comfortable.

And a note to the fingertips/-pads: I so much enjoy playing more on the pads. The thing is that I press down much less than before. So I always feel the string vibrate under my finger - which makes for a very different tone, not just a different feel. And I notice right away when I fall back into the old habit, because then the string is pressed down with the fingertip with a lot of energy - no more vibration. There is one problem though: I feel that I need to work specifically again on plopping down and releasing the fingers with speed. I am quite happy with the amount of pressure I use, but I think with less pressure there is great danger of stopping the string with leisure - and that just does not sound nice.

Dianne - actually, I had not noticed that my pinky was not perched exactly on top of the bow. I certainly did not place it where it is to follow some advanced technique :). It will be interesting to feel the difference between what is now and when it is really placed on the top.

Diane and Madonna - yes, my tone is just terrible: unpredictable, sometimes too soft, sometimes too heavy :). When I play the Suzuki tunes or the simple Sevcik exercises then I have been able to start also to pay attention to the bow. But with this piece I was totally absorbed with my left hand and had no capacity free to think about the bow. In a way I was encouraged when I saw the recording: I was surprised and happy to see how straight the bow was most of the time. Because that means that bowing straight is getting to be a habit, something that I don't have to concentrate on any more. Now that is a wonderful discovery. But bow pressure, that is a completely different story...

Nick - don't be deceived: I really do have a short pinky! It was the first thing my violin teacher friend in the south of Germany mentioned when she wanted to check my posture and violin hold just after I had started to play. It barely reaches the end knuckle of the third finger. And to make matters worse, it is curved a bit... But it seems with this changed hand position I am starting to get more consistent intonation on the fourth finger, because I don't have to stretch with such vigor any more.

Mary - I thought that was a very interesting observation, that last year's video was more mechanical. I agree! At least I had a similar impression when I looked at it again now, after a year... Even though the tone is so bad, I still liked it a lot better than last year's - just wouldn't have been able to name it like you did. And yet, I distinctly remember that when I recorded it a year ago I felt that this was the most musical I could possibly put into this melody :). Sometimes I feel I have not made much progress during this second year of playing. At least the progress in the first year was so much more visible. But I guess being able to play this in such a way that the best I could do a year ago seems "mechanical" in comparison is indeed an indication of progress :)