Posted on

Some thoughts on practising (II) – this time, pain-free

As requested by a reader (thank you Junior for the suggestion), I am writing this as an add-on to the previous post on practising. I would also like to thank everyone for your kind words and support that you have given me. It means a lot! 🙂 

In the previous post on practising, I wrote more about how we should be solving problems instead of playing through whatever we have learnt. If you haven’t read it, you may want to take a look at it here. Other than that, I have also noticed that students tend to disregard how their bodies feel, especially the fingers and arms, while practising. With the violin being such an unnatural instrument to pick up, it is all too easy to play with excessive tension. This can lead to injuries in more severe cases. The most worrying part is that we tend to think that it is because we are still getting used to the instrument and thus it is normal to experience pain while playing! You may feel some level of discomfort especially in the beginning stages but it shouldn’t be pain. 

Both kids and adults face this problem but I am usually more worried about adult students who have a higher threshold for pain and discomfort, as well as the discipline to practise for much longer hours – a recipe for injuries! I wasn’t an exception as well and I did get injured in my first few years of violin playing which got me obsessed over avoiding such injuries for quite a period of time (and I perhaps drove my teachers crazy back then (; ). In fact, tension problems can exacerbate during performance when you get nervous, and can negatively affect your playing especially in crucial settings like exams, recitals, auditions etc. 

As such, I hope that we will be more mindful towards our bodies during practising and not just focus on hitting the right notes at all costs. Again, I’ll use some examples from violin playing to explain what I mean and I hope that other instrumentalists can draw parallels from them too. 

Checking for excessive tension while practising 

With so many studies and books being published on violin-related injuries, I’ve realised that violinists (and violists too) need to be really careful in not playing with excessive tension. We are most at risk of sustaining a long list of injuries that include neck and shoulder injuries, back injuries, tendonitis, etc. I’ll include some links below for further reading if you want to read up more on the topic.  

It’s not just about getting injured, but playing with excessive tension makes it difficult for us to fully express whatever we are playing. How do you play with freedom of expression if you are not even comfortable with the instrument? And how will you effectively convey your musical ideas to the audience if you are grappling with excessive tension? Of course, it takes time to get used to the awkward position and movements needed to play the violin but that does not mean we need to work against our bodies and make it harder for ourselves… 

The most common issue is that students tend to focus so much on getting things right and not pay attention to what their bodies tell them. In some cases, they persist in practising although they feel pain, instead of trying to find out what’s causing it and how to fix it. 

The bow hold 

The bow is a good place to start – are you holding the bow more tightly than you need to? Can you hold it a little less tightly with the fingers? Do the fingers feel cramped or strained? Are the fingers in their natural position? Did you extend any finger too far away from the others? I’m not going to start a war on which type of bow hold is better but perhaps you’ll want to take just a few minutes to feel how little effort it takes to let the bow just stay on the strings. As one of my teachers said, “The best bow hold is no bow hold.” Work with gravity and try to feel the weight of the bow on the string. It is easier to do this at the frog where the bow feels heavier and try removing a few fingers after placing the bow at the frog. As always, this article is no substitute for a proper violin teacher and you will need someone to teach you about good sound production. The point here is to give you some idea as to what you can do during your practice sessions and be more aware about how your body feels. 

The left hand  

The left hand also has several areas which we can look at, and see if we can reduce excessive tension. Are you gripping the violin too tightly because you are afraid that it will drop? Is your thumb squeezing the neck? Are your fingers pressing too hard on the strings to get the notes to sound? Do you tense up when a shift is coming? 

See if you can relax the thumb and fingers more. Again, it is crucial to find a comfortable left hand position so that you can navigate up and down the fingerboard with ease. This can be a huge step to achieving better intonation, shifting, and vibrato.

Playing loud 

Playing loud is one of the many things that can cause us to stiffen up because we want to put in more effort to get a bigger sound, and we can get worried about whether we can achieve sufficient projection. One of the common issues is to tense up the bow arm and press harder on the bow (whatever you do, please don’t press the bow down with the index finger!). In fact, we need to relax more, work with gravity, and let the bow sit better on the string. You can also explore the sounds that you can get from different sounding points. 

The violin set-up 

Last but not least, if you find that excessive tension persists and adjustments made to your technique seem to be ineffective, you may want to take a look at your own violin set-up (i.e. your chin rest and/or shoulder rest combination).  See if they are of the right shape, size, height etc. that suits you. 

This is important as it can reduce a lot of unwanted tension in the neck and shoulders just to accommodate the instrument. For example, if your chin rest is too low, you will have to bring your head too far down just to rest on it. The opposite is true as well – if the chin rest is too high, you create unnecessary tension in the neck and jaw too. And to make things worse, you can feel aches and pains after practising, or even get injured. I’m sure that if you are reading this post up to this point, you’re pretty serious about learning the violin and the last thing you want is to not be able to play the violin for a period of time right? 

Conclusion 

These are just a few things that you may want to start looking out for in your practice sessions. A blog post is insufficient to cover much depth nor serve justice to such a huge and important topic. However, I hope that this will help you to get started on looking at these issues, even if they may seem trivial. There is no quick fix to tension issues and the best time to get started is now. 

As always, do leave a comment to let me know your thoughts. Do subscribe to the blog too! Happy practising and cheers! 

~Vanessa

Articles for further reading: 

Moraes, G., & Antunes, A. (2012). Musculoskeletal disorders in professional violinists and violists. Acta Ortopédica Brasileira, 20(1), 43-47. doi: 10.1590/s1413-78522012000100009 Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3718408/

Niles, L. (2018, October 23). Preventing violin-related injuries, with Pamela Frank and Howard Nelson. Retrieved from https://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/201810/27513/

Schallock, M. (2017). How to hold a violin. Retrieved from https://www.violinist.com/violin/how-to-hold-a-violin/

The Strad. (2018, September 18). 10 ways to avoid tension in your playing. Retrieved from https://www.thestrad.com/10-ways-to-avoid-tension-in-your-playing/21.article

Posted on

Some thoughts on practising

In the years that I have been teaching, it is pretty common to find out that students usually equate “practising” as “playing through”. I’m sure that music teachers out there will agree with me. This is a misconception that is all too prevalent in students of all ages and it is the teacher’s role then to correct it. Plus, the teacher’s job is arguably to cultivate students to learn independently outside of lessons and be their own teachers in future.

During lessons, it is easy for teachers to see how (or if) a student practised during the week. The kind of practising produces the kind of results – you reap what you sow.
Thus, playing through an entire piece over and over again during your practice session, with the same mistakes happening over and over is not practice! Often, the result of this kind of practising manifests itself in the lesson such as in cases where the student fumbles over the same old problem areas, transitions not fixed etc. In short, it is all too obvious and I’m not going to spend too much time listing all the cases out.

We also always hear “practice makes perfect” and if you don’t get it, just keep trying again until you succeed. These have been discussed previously in many articles that I have come across regarding practising the instrument and the consensus reached in them is that practice does not make “perfect” but rather, practice makes “permanent”. Only perfect practice makes perfect. That explains why articles often talk about how difficult it is to break a bad habit and in more extreme cases, some say it is better not to practise at all if in doubt! So now you know, playing through your pieces is just a matter of reinforcing your mistakes! However, it must be made clear that playing through is important to see how well everything fits into place and to identify areas for improvement. It is also to make sure that you can play the piece in its entirety before you present it for a performance or exam.

So what then should we be doing during practice sessions? In short, solving problems. The articles I came across also talked about “deliberate practice” and I will include them right below for anyone who is interested to read more. Ideally, one should be identifying specific areas/spots to work on. Know what you want to achieve and how you want it to sound like. Then play it and be as critical and honest as you can with yourself in identifying the problems e.g. an out of tune note, a bad shift, poor bow distribution etc. It is a good idea to record your playing as well. After that, pick one problem, think of ways to solve it, and test your solutions to see what works best given the context of whatever you’re working on. It is important to narrow and break parts/phrases down – to one or two notes depending on what the problem is. After you have come up with a solution, you should be focusing on making that a habit. Repeat this and also make sure that you can integrate the isolated parts back into the entire piece. This should help to make practising more efficient.

It may not seem all fun and games and deliberate practice can be very mentally draining. The experts and best violinists often said not to practise more than an hour at one go and take breaks to ensure maximum focus. The consensus seems to be a maximum of 3-4 hours of total practice time in a day and the brain will not be able to absorb anymore beyond 5 hours. Quality, not quantity. You should have time to relax and have fun outside of the practice room and it is always better to keep the practising consistent i.e. practising everyday at shorter intervals vs practising for long hours once a week.

I hope this helps and continue to enjoy making music! Meanwhile, am looking forward to seeing all my students in person soon. This is slated for phase 2 of the easing of the circuit breaker measures.

I’ll also be sharing more articles on my pages and updating the blog whenever I can. Stay safe everyone!

As always, do leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.

~Vanessa

The articles for further reading:

Kageyama, N. How many hours a day should you practice?. Retrieved from https://bulletproofmusician.com/how-many-hours-a-day-should-you-practice/

MacKenzie, A. (2018). 10 tips to help you practise more effectively. Retrieved from https://www.classicfm.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/musician-practice-tips/

MasterClass. (2019). Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman’s tips for practicing violin. Retrieved from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/violin-virtuoso-itzhak-perlmans-tips-for-practicing-violin#4-ways-to-establish-good-violin-habits

Posted on

Music for late starters

Ever heard others saying that they are too old to learn something new? I’ve heard it many times, especially when it comes to music. It is such a common perception and belief (albeit flawed in my opinion) that one has to start learning musical instruments from a young age. And I wouldn’t blame them – society almost always glorifies those who have achieved XXX at a young age and the classical music scene is not an exception. We often see society celebrating the successes of gifted young artists and musical prodigies who have achieved exemplary performance standards at competitions, festivals, and recitals and they can be as young as 5 or 6. Yes, they are indeed very remarkable and it usually leads the rest of us to think about what we have been doing with our lives! At 6, I was just learning the piano for fun while trying to figure out what primary school was all about…

It is therefore so easy for us, the older ones, to doubt our abilities and be discouraged to embark on a musical journey. This issue rings deep within me as I only started learning the violin at the age of 16. I remember questioning myself repeatedly about my prospects when I was a violin major at 20 years old since everyone else was younger than me (around 16-17 years old and they all had started learning the violin at the ages of 4-6). Trust me, it took me quite some time to feel proud of my progress and to acknowledge my achievements to date.

Society doesn’t provide the same kind of support to late starters as opposed to kids and there is definitely some kind of ageism going on in the classical music world. The youngest players are always encouraged and given more opportunities. Why bother with the struggling adult when kids who aren’t even 16 years old can already perform the most difficult pieces? We also often see adult learners being put down by others especially in the early stages when they are just starting to play some open strings or a simple tune.

“Oh look, an adult trying to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! Hah! My kid is already learning concertos!” 

“So old already and still want to learn new things!”

Contrast that with a kid playing the same Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and you’ll hear tons of encouragement.

“Wow son, that’s great! Keep it up!”

“Wow, she’s pretty good at this age!”

It’s great to be a kid isn’t it?

Of course, not everyone is like that. There are others out there who remain encouraging to late starters and I am very lucky to have music teachers, friends, and family members who have been extremely supportive of my musical dreams even though I started the violin at 16. I do not see why we cannot give the same kind of encouragement to our adult friends, especially when they are faced with more obligations that life throws at them! 

Having taught adults violin and piano, I can definitely say that they have the ability to make music too. While late starters and adult learners may not be as flexible as kids, they make it up with determination, discipline, and critical thought. Adult learners are more willing to spend time to hone their craft and think of solutions to problems that they face in the practice room. Coordination and flexibility can be improved over time with practice and one needs to have patience along the way. It is not about talent! Even the most talented musicians have to spend hours to perform at a high level. 

I hope that the perception of “being too old to learn music” will change someday. I believe that anyone who is interested in learning music should give it a shot. Even late starters can reach a high standard of playing as long as he/she doesn’t give up! There are successful musicians who started later than their colleagues although statistically it doesn’t seem very promising but that shouldn’t deter one from learning music. It boils down to practising. I too spent many hours practising and correcting bad habits which I had learnt earlier on, right down to how to hold the violin bow. If I can do it, so can you. 

I always find it so important to give my adult learners the confidence that they need. The only thing that is stopping adult learners from reaching their full potential is themselves and the amount of self-doubt they have, possibly caused by society as well. And these must change.  

That’s all for the topic on late starters for now.

Do leave a comment to let me know your thoughts. 

~Vanessa

Posted on

Happy 2020!

Happy New Year 2020 everyone and I have decided to set up a blog section to write about my musings, experiences, musical issues, concerts etc. which may be of interest to anyone – whether you are a beginner, classical music enthusiast, full-fledged musician, or completely new to music. I will perhaps begin either by looking back at the year 2019 and past concerts as well as my experience as a late starter to help to dispel the common belief that one has to learn music as a child before proceeding to the more serious stuff such as practising, scales, and performing.

On a side note, here’s to another year of music-making with everyone! The upcoming orchestra concerts will be really exciting. Especially looking forward to see a few of my students perform in the February student recitals, and subsequently the preparation for their music exams!

Watch this space for updates and do follow my Facebook and Instagram accounts too!

~Vanessa