Strings International Summer Music Camp Newsletter

Editorial by: Larry Fisher , Violinist, Professor
Emeritus, University of Alberta

Hi Strings Students,

Kim asked me to jot a few words to you for this issue's "Kim's Corner." I agreed, because I know Kim pretty well; I'm her dad. From this point in time - October of 2006 - it seems a bit like forever and a half since she was a pudgy three-year-old and had just tucked a violin under her little chin for the first time. By now I know that when she asks for something, she means it.

So - here with a few tips about some of the principles that I've found through my 60 years of teaching and performing that go to form a violinist (or violist, or cellist or bassist). Some of these principles have helped Kim to get where she is now. I think all of them are worth your serious consideration. Here's a sample:

1. Learn how to practice: Understand that there's a critical difference between simply playing through a piece of music and actually practicing it. Practicing entails selecting troublesome material, isolating it, and slugging away at it, slowly, carefully, with merciless attention to details, until the material is easy for you, (and it will get easy, with the right kind of work). The rest of the process is integrating the newly conquered stuff into the texture of the entire piece. Do that by starting with the new material, playing through it, and adding connecting tissue on the other side. And, lots of repetition!

2. Perform in public often: Slugging away in your practice room is absolutely necessary to the improvement of your playing, but almost equally important is playing when you're under the gun of an audience. We lose a large portion of our practice room competence when we step on the stage. We are saying, in effect, "I'm good enough that you, the audience, should spend your time (money?) listening to me." And the little green devil of doubt that lurks in the dark corners of our mind responds, "Are you really such a hot shot, or are you going to turn into a fumbling idiot when you start to play?" Repeated forays on stage help conquer this troublesome demon.

3. Listen to lots of excellent string playing: Hearing the dramatic, exciting, heart-felt, technically excellent playing of artists can inspire us, teach us, give us laudable goals to shoot at. In addition, if you're truly captivated by your craft you should want to know what the best exponents of your art are doing, and you should enjoy hearing them. Listening to the best can help raise our own playing immeasurably.

Good luck with your study!