Modern violin-playing

Chapter I The Three Links

THE object of this book is to help violin-players. To help them, that is to say, by offering them something that is quite new in the violin-world—an accurate study of the physical laws that govern violin-playing, and clear instructions for acquiring a sound violin-technique.

The process of learning to play the violin has no direct connection with the art of music. It depends for its success solely on the proper understanding and application of the laws of anatomical action. And these, again, are merely specialized examples of the more general laws of mechanics.

Till the violinist has mastered these laws and has learned to regard his violin as a machine, he should keep all his ideas on the expressive side of music under lock and key. Emotion, when pitted against. the eternal laws of the universe, has a poor chance of success; and even when working in harmony with them, it only rately manages to expressitself. This is a hard row to hoe; but assuredly the only one worth the hoeing. And if some bitterness and impatience tend to rise in the student’s mind, he should ask himself how he would like to take a railway-journey over the bridges of an emotional engineer, whose sympathetic soul was ignorant of the stresses and strains of his instrument ==steel.

“But,” the student may ask “‘surely all violinists do not need to go through this stern mechanical training? Surely some are born with the divine gift of violin-playing? And if some, why not I ?”’

Well, the strict and truthful answer to this query is that, first of all, nobody is born with a divine gift of violin-playing any more than he is born with a divine gift of walking, or of talking the language of his own parents. He has to learn all three.

I

About once in a hundred thousand times it happens that a player hits on the correct mechanical procedure by accident, just as about once in a hundred thousand times an engineer might guess the tensions of his steel bridge correctly. The engineer can only repeat his success by the miracle of a second lucky guess. In that respect the violinist has the advantage over him. When once he has hit on the right method, he recognizes its value by its artistic results. He tests it; and finds that, with him, it always works. That gives him the one thing for which he is searching—personal security on his instrument. The physical ‘‘why and wherefore’ of the matter never crosses his mind.

But observe the vast difference between the two cases from the teacher’s point of view! No one, out of a lunatic asylum, would appoint the guessing engineer to a university chair of engineering. The violinist, on the other hand, though he is certain to have all the artist’s distaste for definition and all the artist’s confusion as between means and sensation, is immediately labelled ‘ genius.”’

Now, so long as he remains in the genius-business, there is not one word to be said against him. But as soon as that cap is stuck on his head, he becomes a potent money-drawing attraction as a teacher. And there the trouble begins.

He collects a great many expensive pupils, who come to learn ‘‘the mysteries of his art.” In the class-room they all stand round him, open-mouthed with the words “‘ How is it done?’”’ And he has not the remotest idea of any satisfactory answer to these terribly searching words. He may ‘“‘show them how,” of course. He may play the actual passage under discussion. If it “comes off”’ the first time, all he can answer to their question is, “Like that.” If it doesn’t come off the first or second time, he has to try again, blaming his bow or perhaps the weather for his earlier failures. And even if he plays the passage finally—nay, even if he plays it finally with the most perfect and consummate art—his pupils have learned nothing technically. After the exhibition, one can only say that he differs from them in that he can play the passage sometimes, and they can not.

When this position is established as between teacher and pupil, the former’s friends have to re-establish the balance with a good deal of clever window-dressing, all designed to cover up deficiencies in the stock-room behind. Out comes all the old rubbish and hocus-pocus about ‘‘ genius’’ and ‘‘ the divine mystery of the violin ’’ and ‘‘ the Godgiven faculty of expression’’—all the old skimble-skamble stuff that

THE THREE LINKS 2 has done so much harm to the simple honest dignity of the violin for the past three hundred years.

It is easy to see the result of this system of “‘teaching.’’ One has only to go through one’s list of fiddle-playing friends to find a dozen victims. They are all men whose student-days have been devoted solely to imitating the personal peculiarities of their masters. The mechanical laws under which they have to work have never been explained tothem. Nor have they ever been taught that the application of these laws must differ as between man and man, because no two arms and hands are exactly the same. Technique has always been held up to them as an artistic mystery, to be solved by guess-work and trick-work and “hard practice.”

The consequence is that, when they cease paying for this mystical instruction and begin their careers as players, they are soon startled by the sound of a cog-and-ratchet working in their musical mechanisms. They get so far, and there they stick. Nothing helps them. They may increase their daily allowance of practising to an amount that would be almost criminal in any other profession. But it takes them nowhere. And the bedrock reason at the bottom of all this sea of difficulties is that they are attempting to substitute knack and guess-work for a knowledge of mechanics and their application through the human anatomy.

The last two paragraphs have been written in no spirit of carping criticism and certainly in no spirit of levity, but with a profound consciousness of the actual state of affairs in the violin-world of to-day. It is only during our own generaticn that the reproach has been lifted from the piano-world, and the technique of that instrument placed upon a solid scientific basis. No less is due to the older and more beautiful instrument, the violin. And it is earnestly hoped that this book may help many errant members of the string-brotherhood, whose wheels have stopped on strange unfriendly roads, by directing their attention back to the first principles of mechanism and of safe artistic travel.

So far for the living teacher and his pupil. There is, however, another large body of teaching-doctrine lying entombed in the various Violin Schools and Violin Methods that have already been published. A few of these are important works, written by the great players of the past. The great majority are timid recapitulations and adaptations of these few works. They have no importance at all.

But even in the best-known and most commonly used Violin Schools the instructions are, in the main, false and misleading. This is a hard but true statement. And the ease with which its truth can be proved is an astonishing commentary on the readiness of the human mind to accept as proved that which requires some mental effort to disprove.

The authors of these recognized Violin Schools were undoubtedly great as players. But it does not follow that they were great, or even competent, as educators. Their impulse—the artistic impulse—was — always to attach more importance to the end than to the means. This involved the ignoring of the one great factor in violin-playing, the mechanism of the human hand. And that factor, once ignored, left the art of violin-playing an intangible thing, scarcely capable of adequate treatment. Let us add that the writers of these books were all busy practical men, and that they certainly had neither the leisure nor the training to analyze sensation, or to define its physiological origin.

The Violin Schools which they strung together are primarily coilections of musical matter arranged in order of increasing complexity and difficulty. The literary text, containing the instructions, is an afterthought, a mere record of the most Coes methods of dealing with the musical text.

These Violin Schools produced no fine players. The fine dnasent produced themselves after a certain point. And as soon as they had sensed and put into practice the right method, they followed the example of their masters, and promptly consigned it to the limbo of incommunicable sensation.

Against these few fine players let us set the hundreds whose existence we have already hinted at, the hundreds who never get anywhere; but grind their very souls out, doomed to struggle along eternally in the dark. It is poor consolation to them to ascribe their failure to stupidity. And still poorer is the consolation if we tell them that success in playing is a “divine gift.”” That sort of thing is all very well when used by the local vicar who is introducing the soloist at a Penny Reading. On the lips-of a serious violin-teacher it is—or rather, it should be—unpardonable.

In this connection we must not forget that, since the days when these Violin Schools were written, a considerable change has come over the material with which the violinist has to work, and also over his aims as an artist.

_ The finger-board was originally a good deal shorter; and very thick strings were usually fitted to the violin. For, though the player of Stradivarius’s time was seldom required to go beyond the third posi-

THE THREE LINKS 5 tion, sonority was his ideal in tone-production. Opera was not yet in its heyday, and the influence of the church was still felt in the sombre tones of the string-family. However, with the ever-pressing demand for increased agility in the passage-work, the finger-board was lengthened. And the thick strings gave place to a thinner sort, which spoke more easily in the rapid passages, and could be held down with much less - effort on the part of the player.

Unfortunately, the old disciplinary rules for the conduct of the left-hand were not changed at the sametime. And we have gone on accepting them to the present day as a sort of gospel, without recognizing

_the fact that they are only an atavistic survival of primitive artistic conditions,. and are actually detrimental in the twentieth century. For instance, the old saw “Let the fingers of the left-hand descend like little hammers”’ is still quoted, with its authoritative ring, by violin teachers. Yetitis quite certain that any player who follows this advice is ruining his chance of success.

Perhaps the most telling example of the difference between ancient and modern is to be found in the study and use of the vibrato. Inthe days before it was commonly employed the florid finger-technique was far less developed than it is now. The position of the left-hand, the function of its thumb, and the finger-action itself were all calculated without any reference to the means of expression in the left-hand.

But nowadays the vibrato must be available everywhere and at every time. It is the one condition superimposed on the florid finger-technique, and therefore the one element in violin-playing which must be studied and understood before an adequate technique can be developed.

Let us take a glance backwards.

Leopold Mozart protests vigorously in his Violin School against the frequent use of the vibrato. Spohr doesthesame. Mozart’s directions for attaining it read as follows:

“The fingers of the left hand should make a slight, slow movement, not sidewise, but forward and backward, alternately toward the bridge and scroll of the violin.”

Here is Spohr’s description of the vibrato:

“Tt consists of a slight wavering of the tone alternately above and below the correct pitch, and it is produced by a shaking movement of the left hand toward the bridge.”

The only comment necessary on the above two statements is the third statement that it is a positive scientific fact that the vibrato isa movement of the nand away trom the bridge. This we shall see and understand later.

It is only forty years since Courvoisier, after decrying the use of the vibrato altogether, summed up the position (in his Violin Technique) as follows:

“The whole real power of expression Jies rather in the stroke of the bow; primarily in an intelligent accentuation producing rhythmic clarity, and then particularly in the increase and decrease of tone-power.”’

Finally, one may add that the late Dr. Joseph Joachim, in describing Molique’s playing, used to assert that it was without any vibrato. whatever. Ope he considered him ‘‘a most distinguished musician.’

These two points—the modern alterations in the violin itself and the modern use of the vibrato—will give the reader a broad hint that an unprejudiced examination of violin-technique is an actual necessity. To arrive at the essential factors in the problem, one may appear at first to be rather destructive than constructive. But the chief aim of this book, as was said at the beginning of the chapter, is to help violinstudents, that is to say, all who study the violin, whether as soloists, as teachers, or as pupils. And the best means to attain that happy end is to remove from one’s mind all the flim-flam as to the ‘mystery’? of the instrument. There is nothing occult about the violin. Its acoustic and physical properties are, as far as they concern the player, simple and easily ascertained. The general laws of mechanics are equally well-known. And it only remains to join these two links by the third and more delicate link, the action of the player’s body.

Chapter II The Left-hand: Theory

THERE are two ways of playing the violin—a right way, that conforms to mechanical laws; and a wrong way, that does not. These laws, of course, govern all our bodily actions. And we may be quite sure that, if we can not easily perform or repeat some simple action, we are either defying the laws or ignoring them. Weare, in fact, trying to do the thing in the wrong way.

Now, the actions which are used in violin-playing are all very simple. But they are not what are called ‘hereditary movements.”’ They are new to us, and they can not be learned without mental analysis of their nature. In addition, the violinist has to combine and recombine many such movements with great rapidity, clearness, and directness of purpose. Therein lies his chief difficulty.

It must be confessed, then, that violin-playing is a complicated feat; so complicated, indeed, that it is useless to waste years of blind experimental work in the hope of solving its problems. Unless we first thoroughly understand its nature and the conditions of its success, we are merely “ beating the air.”

It follows that the first thing to do in this chapter is to lay down general principles. And this treatment of the subject is the more necessary because no two pairs of hands have exactly the same measurements; nor can they be fitted into the same positions. Violin-success by that road is a forlorn hope. When once the general principles are grasped, the hand, in complying with them, will find its own positions. These physical adaptations will be dealt with in the next chapter. Meanwhile, we shall devote this one to a consideration of the right way to play the violin, and to an explanation of the reasons why this way is right and all others wrong.

There are three essentials in violin-playing, so far as the left-hand in the first position is concerned:

1. A telling vibrato, which will not hamper the finger-action.

2. Comfort, ease, and security.

3. Independence, accuracy, and speed of finger-action.

The vibrato, as we have already said, is technically a device superimposed upon the florid running-technique. It is therefore useless to attempt to found a running-technique until we are clear as to the action by which the vibrato is produced. And that, again, can not be studied till we understand the nature and purpose of the vibrato.

Let us, then, devote a few pages to this examination. Let us try to ascertain the constitution and the esthetic aim of the vibrato.

Spohr, as we have seen, calls it a wavering of the tone alternately above and below the correct pitch.

The word “‘wavering, ’” however, does not at all describe the vibrato which is most commonly heard. It is rather a violent excitement, whose principal effect is to make the timbre of the instrument more penetrating, while obscuring the beauty of the individual notes of a passage. Alsthetically it is unpleasant to the last degree.

Besides this vibrato, there is another kind that is heard only a little less frequently—a sort of slow rocking sound, which adds nothing whatever to the musical effect, which is not particularly expressive, and which, repeated over and over again, eventually maddens the listener by its futility.

Let us say at once that the sole object of the vibrato is to enhance the beauty of an already existent sound. Incidentally it draws attention to the notes on which it is used. It gives them, at the discretion of the player, an added emotional thrill; and so contrasts them with the notes which have no vibrato. But the moment the vibrato obscures the true sound of any given note, it becomes an ugly nuisance. Furthermore, the true vibrato—that is t6 say, the beautiful vibrato— must never give the impression that the pitch is being shifted, either up or down. It must lend a ringing sound to the note on which it is used. And this ringing sound can only be appreciated as a continual return to true pitch. In other words, the ear receives the repeated impression of the correct-pitch-note; and so telegraphs to the mind the impression of that note plus the emotional thrill of the vibrato.

Animportant question immediately arises. If this constant return to true pitch is a necessity to the ear, where is the return to be made from, above or below? Is the ear to be disturbed by a continual sharpening or flattening of the pitch?

The answer to this question governs, and is fundamental to, the whole theory of the vibrato. Differences of pitch always exist to the ear as from below upwards, and never as from above downwards. Diatonic and chromatic differences in pitch are always so judged. And the smaller differences, commonly known as “‘ being out of tune,” come under the same general law.

For instance, if a singer is singing too flat, we instinctively place ourselves, not on the higher level of correct pitch, but on the singer’s lower and incorrect level. We mentally wish him to go up, while we accompany him on his journey, so to speak. We can not ask him to come up, because we do not project our minds as being already at the higher level. ‘Similarly, if the singer is singing too sharp, we naturally take the converse position. We assume that we are below him, and mentally wish him to come down, not to go down, to our own level.

Now, the result of this habit of mind is very obvious. If we have the choice of two vibratos—the true note plus a continual sharpening, and the true note plus a continual flattening—it is plain that the sharpened vibrato will leave an impression of uncertainty on our minds, for the simple reason that, looking upwards, we shall be inclined to regard the slightly sharpened note as a new and disturbing true-pitchnote. On the other hand, the flattened vibrato leaves our minds quite free from any uncertainty as to pitch. We naturally judge it from below; and we look upwards without effort, recognizing the continual iterations of the upper portion of the vibrato as the correct-pitch-notes.

Here we have the true and beautiful violin-vibrato. And from these subtle, but quite indisputable, premises we draw the conclusion that the vibrato is a rapid alternation of correct and flattened pitch. | eR SN KS

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

This vibrato is illustrated in Fig. 1, while Fig. 2 shows the line of the unlovely variety.

There has been much discussion as to how the vibrato should be produced, and a great deal of dismal rubbish has been written on the subject. The main bone of contention is whether it should be made by means of a swing from the wrist or from the elbow. Against the latter method it has been urged that it leads to cramp. But this is not so. The hand is moved by muscles in the forearm: the forearm by muscles in the upper-arm. Can anyone be so foolish as to assert that the

X muscles of the upper-arm are liable to cramp, while those of the forearm are not? Ifthe cramp exists, it can not be because of any inherent tendency thereto in the muscles of the upper-arm.

Fig. 3

It has sometimes been claimed that the larger muscles of the body are intended to make only wide movements, and that therefore the hand-vibrato must be better than the arm-vibrato.

Now, it is true that the muscles which move the limbs are of larger size than those, for instance, which are used to move the fingers laterally. It is also true that the extra length and power of these large muscles are specially fitted to move long limbs over a long, and therefore normally slow, course. But it does not follow that they are therefore incapable of developing high speed in the limb moved. Quite apart from this, the actual speed in inches per second which the forearm attains when performing the vibrato is ‘no greater than the ordinary speed of that limb. We must not be deceived by the fact that, in the vibrato, we are dealing with to-and-fro movements; and we must remember their exceeding shortness.

In a word, a muscle may be specially adapted to produce wide movements in a limb. But that is no reason physiologically why it should not also produce small movements.

The illustration (Fig. 3) will make the difference between the wrist-swing and the elbow-swing plain at a glance. The shorter diagram, of course, represents the wrist-swing, the longer, the elbow-swing. And the point to notice is that, though the two swinging-distances are the same when measured horizontally, the curve above is much more rounded in the wrist-swing than in the elbow-swing.

Fig. 4

In other words, if the hand is swung to-and-fro from the wrist, the arc described by the knuckles is far less flat than it would be if the hand were swung from the elbow. The consequence is that while one finger is producing the vibrato, the others are being alternately raised and lowered rapidly, in vertical relation to the finger-board.

But worse remains behind. While the fourth-finger-side of the hand is lowest, the first-finger-side is highest, and vice versa. This immediately confuses the mind as to the striking distance between finger and string. And the result is that, as soon as the passage-work becomes at all complex, the player is hampered in what should be the free application of the vibrato.

It may be answered that the arc over which the knuckles are swung is so short that there can be no appreciable difference between the two methods. But, observe! The strings are not stopped with the knuckles, but with the finger-tips. And these are some two or three inches from the knuckles, and at right-angles to the plane of the hand.

Fig. 4 shows us exactly what happens. There are two solid black fingers, of which one lies on the string and the other is free. Both are in the backward position. Then there are the two corresponding dotted fingers, one on the string and the other free, both in the forward position. Note the small movement of the knuckle and the complete change of position of the dotted free-finger in relation to the dotted string-finger and the solid free-finger. And then remember that, for the greater part of the time, there are three free-fingers, each one of which will momentarily be assuming a different position relative to the string-finger. If this should appear puzzling at first sight, consider that the tip of the string-finger is held in practically the same place, both vertically and longitudinally; that there is constant change of relative position as between it and the body of the hand; but none as between the free-fingers and the knuckles.

Now, the distance from elbow to knuckle is four times the distance from wrist to knuckle. It is therefore obvious that, by swinging the hand from the elbow, this vertical movement of the knuckles and the free-fingers is reduced by one-fourth. In fact, it becomes a negligible quantity.

Thus we see that the elbow-swing gives us a more precise and better controlled finger-action, as well as the power to start and to stop the vibrato without fear of upsetting the other fingers. This point alone should be enough to decide our choice as between it and the wrist-swing. But there are still other arguments in its favour.

If the vibrating hand is swung from the wrist, there is no possible way of ensuring that it will swing to-and-fro twice in succession over an arc of precisely the same length. There is nothing but the will of the player to decide just how far forward or backward it shall move. The result is that the pitch of the note is often raised above truth, and

‘the wave of vibration is of uneven length. This gives a jerky sound, which is liable to get worse as the playing continues. For the forearm-muscles are bound to tire, burdened as they are with the task of equalizing the swing-length.

These difficulties disappear when the hand is swung from the elbow. }

For the thumb then acts automatically to limit the length of the swing.

It is matter of common observation that players who use the wrist-vibrato frequently grip the violin tightly with the jaw, in order to free the hand for swinging. The results are dire. In the human body there is a natural tendency to equalize things between the two sides, either by a similarity of muscular contraction, or by a balanced distribution of weights. So that when the left collar-bone is held continuously raised, it is not long before the right collar-bone also raises itseli—the very worst thing that could happen for the bow-arm. Even were the left shoulder alone held raised, the effort would be distressing. When both are lifted, it is utterly impossible for the player to maintain calm control over himself and his instrument.

Furthermore, when the violinist grips the instrument tightly with } the jaw, he also contracts his throat, particularly at crucial moments in the music. This interferes with proper breathing. It also puts an added strain on the heart, which is still further intensified by the pressure on the jugular vein, caused by the raising of the left shoulder and the pressure of the violin against the neck.

The total result of,all these mistakes on the player is a desperate state of fright. Nine times out of ten this can be explained by the physical factors which we have just described. But memory alone can engineer a collapse—the subconscious memory of past struggles and pounding arteries.

Let it therefore be said again, explicitly, once forall. Anatomically and mechanically the proper method of producing the vibrato is by See the forearm and hand from the elbow.

We can now turn to the florid left-hand technique, with the purpose of examining and defining its mechanism. In the course of this examination it will become abundantly clear that correct left-hand technique renders the performance of the wrist-vibrato absolutely impossible, and that those who advocate this vibrato—or, indeed, any but the arm-vibrato—are advocating a technique that is contrary to mechanical law.

In order to clear the ground for this study of the florid left-hand technique, it is necessary to draw the reader’s attention to two facts,

« See page 34 for some remarks on neuritis, or, as it should be called ninety-nine times out of a hundred, vocational cramp.

neither of which, perhaps, he has hitherto considered in relation to violin-playing. 1. When an object in motion is suddenly arrested, its energy will expend itself either by transformation into heat, or (if the disposition

B

Fig. 6 Fig. 7 of weight is favourable) in a continuance of the motion round the point of arrest.

This can be illustrated familiarly by the action of a hammer. If one strikes a violent blow with it upon an anvil, one experiences a stinging smack in the palm of the hand. The downward motion of the hammer comes to.a sudden stop when it strikes the anvil. But the energy seeks and finds an outlet in the upward motion of the handle, pivoting round the hammer-head at its point of contact with the anvil.

2. The pivotal point from which a blow is to be delivered, or from which pressure is to be exerted, must (if it is to be effective) be in the same plane as the surface on which the blow is to be struck.

This, again, may be illustrated by the action of pounding a table. To do so effectively, one instinctively places one’s elbow (the pivotal point) in the same plane as the surface of the table. Otherwise the knuckles would be grazed. If one wishes to pat a friend on the back, one takes exactly the same instinctive precautions—only it is with the wrist as the pivotal point this time.

Let us emphasize this matter of the pivot by means of three very simple diagrams, Figs. 5, 6, 7.

Travelling clockwise round the circle in Fig. 5, one proceeds from left to right along the semicircle A C; and from right to left along the semicircle C A. Along the semicircle D B one ascends; along the semicircle B D one descends.