Violin Mastery - FRANZ KNEISEL - Part 6
THE GENERAL FAULT
“My experience has shown me that the fundamental fault of most pupils is that they do not know how to hold either the bow or the violin. Here in America the violin student as a rule begins serious technical study too late, contrary to the European practice. It is a great handicap to begin really serious work at seventeen or eighteen, when the flexible bones of childhood have hardened, and have not the pliability needed for violin gymnastics. It is a case of not bending the twig as you want the tree to grow in time. And those who study professionally are often more interested in making money as soon as possible than in bending all their energies on reaching the higher levels of their art. Many a promising talent never develops because its possessor at seventeen or eighteen is eager to earn money as an orchestra or ‘job’ player, instead of sacrificing a few years more and becoming a true artist. I’ve seen it happen time and again: a young fellow really endowed who thinks he can play for a living and find time to study and practice ‘after hours.’ And he never does!
“But to return to the general fault of the violin student. There is a certain angle at which the bow should cross the strings in order to produce those vibrations which give the roundest, fullest, most perfect tone [he took his own beautiful instrument out of its case to illustrate the point], and the violin must be so held that the bow moves straight across the strings in this manner. A deviation from the correct attack produces a scratchy tone. And it is just in the one fundamental thing: the holding of the violin in exactly the same position when it is taken up by the player, never varying by so much as half-an-inch, and the correct attack by the bow, in which the majority of pupils are deficient. If the violin is not held at the proper angle, for instance, it is just as though a piano were to stand on a sloping floor. Too many students play ‘with the violin’ on the bow, instead of holding the violin steady, and letting the bow play.
“And in beginning to study, this apparently simple, yet fundamentally important, principle is often overlooked or neglected. Joachim, when he studied as a ten-year-old boy under Hellmesberger in Vienna, once played a part in a concerto by Maurer, for four violins and piano. His teacher was displeased: ‘You’ll never be a fiddler!’ he told him, ‘you use your bow too stiffly!’ But the boy’s father took him to Böhm, and he remained with this teacher for three years, until his fundamental fault was completely overcome. And if Joachim had not given his concentrated attention to his bowing while there was still time, he would never have been the great artist he later became.
Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919
