In search of the right sound

Through the discoveries to be found inside the wonderful Yankelevitch book about the Russian violin school, and thanks to my own experiences with teachers from the Russian tradition, I will post updates about my personal journey within the world of sound production on the violin.

How crucial is emotional engagement during a musical performance?

We often hear music professors tell their students that they have to put their feelings into the music. Some might even say that what we feel while we play is what brings the pieces to life. However, when it comes to performing, we sometimes feel like our emotions get in the way of our technical ability to transmit what we’ve learned in the practice room. So, where should our focus lie when we perform? Is there an optimal way to engage emotionally without losing control of the physical aspect of the performance? Ph.D in performance psychology Noa Kageyama will help us understand and reflect on this specific issue.

The importance of posture

When it comes to the way we stand when we play, some might say to each their own. This is in fact true to some extent: between Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos and David Oistrakh, there’s pretty much no similarity in posture.

However, posture makes a significant difference in the result of the sound we produce. This has been proven not only for singers, but also for instrumentalists - even I once had the chance to experience this personally with the help of an overtone-detector and a touch sensory mat.

So, is there a certain way to stand to develop better projection? Thanks to many talks with my different professors, I will come back with more information on this issue soon.

How to enhance your auditory sensitivity

We all experience it sometimes. You take a day or two (or six) off from your instrument, and when you start playing again, you actually have a feeling it sounds even better than it did before, even though you aren’t in shape. But is this in fact an illusion? Does our ability to hear small details get worse when we take a break? And if so, is there a way to train our ears as to hear out of tune playing, rusty attacks, noise between bow changes, etc, more clearly?

Method acting in music - does it work?

Drawing parallels between your own experiences and the role you’re playing is a well-known concept in acting. Actors manage to use the emotions they experienced at a specific moment or period of their life to make their character’s emotions more believable. But could this concept work in music as well? If I play an Amoroso passage while thinking of how I felt when I was first in love, does it come across through the instrument?

Nature and Music

Many composers were (and are still) inspired by the sounds and impressions of nature in the process of writing their music - Messiaen, Schubert, you name it. Even the main theme of the third movement in Beethoven’s violin concerto is a copy of a motive sung by the blackbird. As music performers, is there something about the closeness between human and nature from which we could learn?