By Paul Stein: When is the best time to reset the left hand, that is, back to the specifications set at the factory? Later than youd think. Lets put the idea of relaxation in perspective. Its not the highest priority of a violinist, whos simply trying to play the right note at the right time.
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After shifting, vibrating, and double stops, theres going to be collateral damage. It takes an agile, ready-for-anything mind to juggle ten balls in the air while feeding the technique beasts, let alone adding five balls just to deal with relaxation. I wish I could simply will my hand to relax, but nothing is ever that straight-forward on the violin. (Talking about it, however, is relatively easy to do. Its fun to explain what goes on when you play the violin. Talk, not action, takes all the pressure off.)
The left hand is inherently more complex than the right hand, since the different finger lengths and varying hand positions arent issues in the right hand. Since theres so much to concentrate on, I learned to be satisfied with just folding in, here and there, small feelings of relaxation. For something I have fought so hard to accomplish, even a few moments of supple, soft, and springy muscles are sweet.
When I work on relaxing, two frustrating side-effects rear their ugly heads. First, I no longer recognize my playing, and second, when I concentrate on one thing, something else goes wrong. Now, how do you mount a strategy against those kinds of obstacles? Remain patient, practice a few measures at a time while observing as many details as possible, and never lose sight of your beautiful sound and phrase contour.
A Truly Relaxed Left Hand
After decades of feeling painful pressure points of fingers against wood, hand positions that teeter over like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and criminally negligent fourth finger extensions, I feel confident that I can describe what complete relaxation feels like. There is no pressure between the thumb and the fingers. Every new note creates a new hand position, one that is well-balanced and has no fingers intertwined with each other.
Our left hand has many jobs to do, and its ecosystem includes constantly changing conditions, plus pinpoint intonation and vibrato. The odds of numerous flaws and potential paralysis far outweigh the chance of having complete relaxation. The clever violinist finds common-sense ways to manage various movements which, by the laws of physics gone awry, have a tendency to implode and do the opposite of what theyre supposed to do.
Dont Get Stuck
The thumb is often inclined to do more than it needs to do, beyond merely supporting the neck. Instead it regularly presses up and assumes a hard, rigid intrusion. When it goes up and stays firm against the downward moving finger, a vice-like grip happens and seeks, often in vain, to find some relief. What goes up should go down, but thats often the last thing the thumb is capable of doing. The actual target on the fingerboard should simple be a momentary station on the fingers path, not a place to get stuck on. Impact is not a word I associate with finger placement. Picture yourself fingertapping on an iPhone, subtract several degrees of intensity, and you have the right amount of no-impact gravity for the finger action. Put the energy youve saved to good use! Apply it to the bow, for starters.
Vibrato often adds unnecessary intensity to the already unwanted hard pressure. To alleviate the developing pain, mentally focus on the specific area. Instruct your thumb to release the pressure. Remind yourself that the pressure wasnt necessary to begin with. It was just a very bad habit, built up over decades. Removal of even a tiny target of pain is a victory, because youve kept your individualistic hand position. The first target of removal is the hardest. The rest will be easier.
A Philosophy of Being Wary of What Could Go Wrong
Stating the obvious, eliminating bad habits, one step at a time, is a successful approach to steady growth on the violin. Stating it is one thing, achieving it is another. When it comes to removing pain and hardness, the reward is well-worth the effort. There are plenty of panaceas, such as lower the thumb, in order to produce less tension, or play more on the fingerpads than the fingertips, but they may serve more as a diversion than as a way to focus the mind. Ive never found a pedagogical theory, or gimmick, which did the job of making me listen to myself and observe how much I was falling short of what I wanted to hear coming out of my violin.
My playing was limited by my ability or inability to predict and prepare for the obstacles presented by the violins physics. With hindsight its obvious that the four planes of the strings were laughing at my repeated attempts to ignore them. The truth eventually came after years of suspecting I was barking up the wrong tree. One teacher, whom I had never met, presented the cold hard facts in such a way that I could feel my brain being re-wired as I read The Science of Violin Playing by Raphael Bronstein. I was the kind of player that needed the direct approach of avoiding the potholes of the fingerboard. Dont tell me what to do; tell me what not to do.
Raphael Bronstein and the Terrain of the Left Hand
It started with the idea that four fingers in one position on one string will feel different than on the other strings. I had been transferring my muscle memory from one string to the next without making fresh calibrations, hoping for success with as little thinking as possible. The esteemed violin professor from Manhattan School of Music and Hartt College, Bronstein, painted the picture of a left-hand and fingerboard apparatus that was three-dimensional, full of altitudes and variable conditions. He called it visual intonation. He was a student of Leopold Auer and a member of the Glazunov Quartet. His students included Elmar Oliveira, Martha Strongin Katz, and Phillip Ruder.
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