from Janet Farrar-Royce
These questions were submitted by Janet Farrar-Royce, who is compiling a comprehensive article on violin techniques versus fiddling for American String Teacher Magazine. If you have more interesting input about these issues, please contact her. Janet's website has a wealth of informative ideas and information on these same topics, and an email address.
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What do you teach your students about holding their violin? Do you have any special technique that you use to teach your students how to hold their instrument?
This isn't usually a question that I deal with because I don't take beginning students, but sometimes I have tried to relax overly stiff players by asking them to sit and let their left forearm lie along their left leg. Obviously this is not so useful for position work, but I would only do this when the student is so stiff that positions are not even an issue. Overall, I feel that the classical technique is the most effective; many great fiddlers hold the violin "correctly", so why not any fiddler? I am a firm believer in a well-fitted shoulder rest, to free up the body to move while holding the fiddle securely (not "tightly").
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What do you teach your students about left hand technique and finger action? Do you have any special techniques that you recommend to improve left hand agility, strength and/or intonation accuracy?
I generally stress relaxation, getting the left elbow around enough so that the 4th finger can fall without extra movement, and keep away from a pronated wrist position. Bluegrass, Texas, and many other fiddle styles require position work, so you need a reliable, flexible left hand posiition. For intonation work, I encourage students to do scales and scale exercises in diatonically occurrng arpeggios, BY EAR, starting in major scales up the neck in half-position increments. If there are obvious consistent intonation problems, I start with an all-fingers down position on the neck, in which all fingers are positioned on an in-tune note. Then I ask students to simply maintain that position without moving or playing, and get them to gradually relax their arm & hand, muscle by muscle, like a visualization exercise. This is held until tension starts to return, hand & arm is shaken out, and repeated.
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What do you teach your students about the use of vibrato in fiddling music (you may want to focus in on one or two particular genres of fiddling)? In what ways do you use vibrato? What do you think needs to be avoided in fiddle vibrato? What technique(s) do you use to teach your students how to play or improve their vibrato and use of it?
Vibrato is starting to be an area of special interest to me because it appears to communicate so much about the player's emotional state. Much vibrato signals some sort of diconnect within the player's emotional process.
Generally, in vernacular music styles, vibrato is used as a relaxation of the note-feeling, rather than an intensification, as in romantic Italian operatic (bel canto)music. Exceptions include certain American Gospel styles and Swing "panic" vibrato, but this holds true generally all over the world.
Fiddle style vibrato almost never needs to be an arm vibrato, and is always somwhat slower than bel canto style. Fiddle vibrato may be wide, hower, as in Texas waltz playing.Vibrato usually is brought in after a note is begun rather than sustained throughout the note, and is never used on any kind of running notes.
I personally cut out all vibrato at the beginning of my career with the DGQ for about a year, and a natural vibrato gradually grew back in, something like my adult teeth. I just try to encourage students to vibrate slowly and not too widely, with the wrist, and to think about what it means when they do. Vibrato is like acting; if the audience notices you're doing it, then it's wrong.
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Bow hand position is connected to bow control. What kind of bowholds do you think work in fiddling? Are there any issues you think need to be addressed? Any ideas or techniques to be avoided? How do you teach your students to play and/or improve their bow hand position?
I am convinced that there are many good ways to hold a bow. One only needs to observe Mark O'Connor, Natalie MacMaster, Martin Hayes or Bruce Molsky to understand this; each player has a radically different bow grip yet each is a tremendously lyrical and compelling player.
However, the standard grip enables one to do the most amount of different things, and is the one I recommend and teach.
A major factor is relaxation; fiddlers are not required to project with the same kind of sustained force as a concert violinist, and must sustain a perfect groove over long periods of time. This requires continual relaxation with mcrobursts of pressure.
I try to encourage the index finger to cross the bow between the 1st and 2nd knuckle, because this way the wrist can bend in a more natural way and fast running 16th notes can be executed more smoothly. A "german" style grip (bow crosses between 2nd and 3rd index knuckle) tends to require too much arm for the many off-the-cuff fast runs necessary for fiddle playing. The little finger must be free to float or brace when necessary, and the index must be able to exert sudden force for celtic-style ornamentation. This should actually come from a slight wrist rotation causing a leveraged pinching motion with the thumb and index.
That said, players such as Bruce Molsky use an unorthodox "vulture" grip with fingers straight and bow way out from the hand, and manage uncanny rhythmic effects which are compelling to the point of delirium. If it works, don't try to fix it. Reccommend an lternate, but don't screw up what's working.
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What do you see as important issues in the use of the bow in fiddling? How do you teach your students to play and/or improve their bowing to achieve better fiddle playing?
I maintain that there is a gigantic difference stemming from the purpose of bulk of the music which violinists versus fiddlers play. Concert violin music is either composed "purely", meaning independent of consideration for the violin's natural capabilities, or composed by extreme virtuosos who are interested in extending their technique and thus the instrument's capabilities.
Fiddle repertoire evolved out of a a very different need: in a word, dance music. It was developed by people who by and large were not professional musicians and who were not formally schooled (in music, anyway); therefore, most of the technical development went into memorable 1st position melody, using ringing open strings, and with the end of maximizing rhythm and groove.
Also there is a major difference based of fiddlers' ready acceptance of amplification in the form of microphones and pickups. As I said, as a result of these two factors, repertoire and amplification, fiddlers are not required to "project" like concert violinist, and detail and rhythm become paramount.
The repertoire, fiddle tunes being an aural tradition, are much more malleable in the matter of individual interpretation. This means that a fiddler can adjust the material to his playing rather than the other way around, as with the concert violinist. This has advantages [the repertoire can actually be played, and participated in, by a large amount of people] and drawbacks [individual technical development can become static or even reverse over time].
I try to teach intonation and rhythm as part of a continuum, as the rhythmic pulse subdivision speeds up, it becomes ornament, groove, nuance and finally pitch.
I encourage metronome work; I tell fiddlers that while the metronome is not a "natural" rhythmic environment, if they can get a groove going with it, they can pretty much be flexible enough to play with anybody, and their playing will become reliable enough for others to fit their own groove into the person's playing. Taping one's practice sessions is important. So is playing with other people, especially people who already have a good rhythmic feel.
