Week 1

Liesbeth Meijnckens Then for the day two exercise, good work! The crescendo (especially on the downbows) really helped find that stickiness in the fingers as you go to the tip -- perhaps because the crescendo forced more awareness and speed into the moment you need to open your elbow. Try and feel that same feeling in the first etude, even tho there isn't a large swell 😃 

One thing to note, I hear that you are not using a metronome in this etude! It took me a long time to understand why to use a metronome during these exercises, but if you think about it -- using a metronome forces us to face things that feel uncomfortable in our playing. 

In your recorded day 2 etudes, I can hear you "falling" forward where you physically are struggling in the bow. This "falling" forward ends up hiding what we are working to correct from ourselves in practice! Since these etudes are super short and sweet, I would definitely encourage you to really challenge yourself to work diligently with a metronome. Take notice of when things feel hard, and give a little extra attention to those moments -- our job as analysts is to listen to the discomfort so to grow our weaknesses. I feel like, especially on the upbow strokes, you will find the etudes significantly more challenging. 

Give this a try for me and let me know how different if feels! 

Anneli Ahlers Amazing! Thanks so much for the context -- there are so many similar things about violin and viola for sure, but super helpful to know that you are using things to familiarize yourself more with the viola. Giving your videos a listen now! 

Anneli Ahlers -- awesome Anneli! Your students are lucky to have you, and amazing that you are taking the time to explore viola to bring your knowledge back to them. Super admirable! I just finished watching all three exercises in a row as I wanted to get a feel for the scope of your open string playing.

Day one was excellent, I appreciated your even tone and you have a strong right hand with flexibility in the wrist 🔥 My main comment on day one was that the string weights felt unfamiliar, especially at the frog of the bow. However, this is of course expected as you are trying out a new instrument! 

My main comments come about in the Day two video! Here is where I start to notice some violin tendencies. Watch your day two video again and notice now how on the C and G string your shoulder is high and your elbow is stays in a straight line with your wrist. This is not a "right or wrong" situation, as there are many variables to the sound we want ... but I generally try and have the baseline sound  C/G string sound more weighted which can come from dropping the elbow below the wrist. Experiment with this, the more it is dropped the more weight you have. However this skill comes with a sacrifice of agility so it is not an all the time thing! 

Since you are very familiar with violin, I would recommend practicing "hanging" a bit on the bow. The viola can hold a lot more weight, especially on the C and G string than you expect. Before you practice the Day 2 etude next, try this first ---start at the frog, place your bow on the string and let yourself completely sink into the string, I like to wiggle a bit and exhale to really feel that my weight is dropped. Then do this in the Lower Middle / Upper middle/ Upper Half/ and at the Tip (even tho there isn't a lot of flexibility there). The goal for this is to start familiarizing your body to a nice, basic, weighed sound. Then immediately follow this with the Day Two Etude, and really let yourself feel the pliability of the string in the crescendo. The crescendo is there to force us to first feel the horizontal plane of the bow, and then the vertical depth the viola has to offer! 

As for Day three, great again. My comments sort of feed off the day two etude! Violinists often don't have to think as 3 dimensionally as violists do -- of course there is an element of carving the string and drawing different colors in doing so, but as violists the majority of our training is about producing sound because we have more depth to work with. PLUS this depth is what makes viola challenging, unreliable, and difficult to navigate since there are more loud variables. You are already doing it well, but I'd like to challenge you to to think of each quarter note (especially on the lower strings) as if it has a 'U' shape to it. 

We don't want this exercise to be about opening and closing the bow arm, more like a suzuki style stroke -- but instead about exploring the depth and use of gravity into the string. If this doesn't make sense, give me a message and I'll record a quick video! 

As one final note, as a string quartet player I'm constantly thinking about the differences and similarities between myself and my fabulous colleagues. One thing that I think really sets a violist apart is their ability to balance slow bow speed (especially at the start of notes!) with great weight in the string. There is an element of velcro to our playing that we rarely pull out of. See if you can use the Day 2 Etude to also explore your bow speed slower by about 10-30%

Thanks for posting and happy happy practice! Come to the Friday zoom meeting and we can chat more about all this 😃 

Anneli Ahlers Lovely!!! Significantly improved on the Day 3 Etude -- from watching this video, this feels much more weighted in the vertical plane then before. That downwards weight + the slower bow speed has added some lovely viola texture to your sound! Does this feel super different for you? 

One note, on the A string I saw you being a great study and trying to drop your arm weight ... but you might not need it here at the frog! Just use your best judgment and know that it is just another variable to add to your tonal tool box 📦 👌 

I listen for ... haha what I call "garbage" in the sound (this is a fiddle term for the extra stuff like cracks and bow drags etc) ... if you are hearing that "garbage" on the A string know to lighten up just a little bit! 

Anneli Ahlers  Thanks for sharing your Day 4 Etude & Day 5 Etude! I have these two lumped together as they are exploring the same concept in different parts of the bow. Plus, they are surprisingly challenging 😂 Great work and thanks for diving into the "modern" notation with such heart! 

A few comments that apply to both your videos! 

1) The "ghost" tone portion of this exercise largely challenges our fluidity moving between the horizontal plane (which you do excellently) and the vertical plane we are discovering together for a deeper tone. Notice right away as you start the Day 5 exercise, the way you pull the bow on the "Ghost" tone and on the "Real" tone are in the horizontal plane. Give it a try where the "Ghost" tone lives in the horizontal world, and then your "Real" tone slips back into that "U" shaped viola tone you found in your Day 3 exercise! 

2) On the "Crunch" variation your "U" shapes are much more present in both the "Crunch" tone and the "Real" tone. Excellent! When you are feeling brave, see if you can make even more of a crunch while still exiting the note into a nice "U" shaped sound. I like to go so far as playing subharmonics sometimes ... which are created from a wild amount of weight balanced with slow bow. I can demo later today! 

3) From my original video, we introduced the idea of "Re-pull", which is a huge topic of conversation in the viola playing lineage of Karen Tuttle! I define re-pull as a moment when we rebalance gravity through a reenergizing of the bow. These exercises force re-pull to happen, so you are already doing it! 

However one thing to continue to work on ... doing "Re-pull" on an upbow (maybe it should be called "Re-push" haha) is a lot more work! Give a listen to the great example you gave yourself in this recent Day 3 exercise and see if you find the balance between arm weight, a melted shoulder and scapula, the muscles that live under your collar bone, and your fingers to create the same feeling as you move upbow from frog to tip.

Maurizio Good evening Maurizio -- thanks for your very kind message and lovely to hear from you! I'm so happy to hear it has been a fun exploration process for you and thanks so much for sharing your Etude 1, 2, and 3 videos! 

Just finished listening to all three videos, and I'm impressed by your right hand bow hold! You seem to have a good deal of control and can easily maneuver from the frog to the tip. I have just a few thoughts overall about your three etudes to continue guiding your process of growth! 

1) Because you have such a great connection between your right hand and the heel of your bow, there is an ease you have playing at the tip. However in all three etudes I noticed a tendency to "kick" or "whip" the end of the bow off the string. This can become a non-musical habit. Instead of the "whip" (which is shooting the bow with speed and weight), I would recommend making your normal string release a soft decay of the sound! In doing this, we create the options for a very tasteful release that will be used often in classical era works. 

2) On your Day 2 Etude, generally you were getting a good sound! However, keep your eye on the amount of bow speed you use. This did improve throughout the etude, but the tendency was to use too much bow-speed, leaving not very much room to "carve" the string after the crescendo. See if you can slow the bow down by adding a bit extra gravity. You might crack a bit at first trying to negotiate the new weight, but your body will get used to it eventually! 

3) Another thing I noticed throughout all three views -- I see your bow coming in and out of the string. If you watch back the Day 1 Etude without sound, watch for how it looks as if you are bouncing up and down. I love that you are exploring gravity and trying to feel the "bounce" of the bow throughout, however now that you have that skill down, see if you can let the bow rest on the string fully so that we don't see (and ultimately hear) the the bow moving up and down on the vertical plane. Let me know if that makes sense! 

4) Final thought for you -- it is hard to tell from the video, but I noticed in the Day 3 Etude that there was room to explore deeper into the bow on the quarter notes. As one simple thing to check, I am curious if your bow could be tightened just a little bit more! Of course we don't want it too tight, but it should be tight enough that you feel resistance when you are in the middle and upper half.... especially since you have a great grip on the bow. This will give you a bit more vertical plane to work with as you explore! Be sure to really feel your arm and shoulder sinking in to the bow in the upper half, and try not to "muscle" the sound with the bow grip, but instead from dropping your body weight into it! 

Give these things a try and let me know if you have any follow up questions!