Violin Video Lesson: What is the first thing I do with my violin?

So as my students know, I took a year off from Juilliard, when I was a student there, much to the chagrin of my teacher, Miss DeLay. She was not happy about it. During that year I practiced Yost, the key to the mastery of the fingerboard, from 6:30 until eight in the morning. And then Schradieck, School of Violin Techniques, book one. Practiced that from eight until 9:15. This was followed by a quartet rehearsal, which lasted from 9:30 until 12:30, then lunch until 1:30 and at that point I practiced until four, then taught till six or 6:30. After that was dinner, and then from eight to 10 more practice until about 10 o'clock.

So essentially I practiced over seven hours a day that year. So why would I do this? Well, you see at Juilliard, I was surrounded in orchestra by so many talented violinists that had won so many famous competitions already, i felt completely overwhelmed, completely inadequate. Because of this i felt that I needed to get away and catch up or I would be left, totally left behind. Well, that was a long time ago and the things that I learned from doing this were truly invaluable. But, that said, what do I do now? I mean, as I don't have the competitive stress of school or 70 or 80 concerts to prepare for, to prepare repertory for, what are the first things I do now when starting to play my violin? As a teacher, what do I do before that first student arrives?

Well then, here, let me show you what I do when I start my day with the fiddle. So, the first thing I do is touch the violin. I touch it like this, run my fingers on the strings. I want to feel the grooves. I want to feel what that string feels like underneath my finger, my fingers. That's the first thing, I want to ... Oh, I almost forgot. I want to feel that neck with my thumb, with my bow. I want to feel what everything feels like, what my fingers feel like touching the bow.

After a little bit of doing that, I then want to reestablish my ping. I usually start with a D. Here, a D. I don't press very hard. I'm trying to get that ping, all the while keeping my body so that I don't tense up. I establish my left hand pits as well, so I've got to go into the string, to and from the string. I do it there, do it all over. Very hard on the G string. When I do it there, that. And then roll my finger. Finger rolls just to get the speed element happening. Again, all the while, I am not ... I am not simply just lightly touching.

Then, it's with vibrato, always from the note above, and I don't force it at all. And that continuous vibrato is to reestablish a natural continuity with my finger motions, sort of remind me of the reflexes that I hopefully have done the day before.

So that's about it. Those are pretty much the things I do. With the right hand, it's simply very light and then I pull my point of contact as I get more and more into it, and that produces sound. But, when you do it, don't change what you feel in your right hand. So this is what I do to find the violin again, and yes, I do do Yost and a bit of Schradieck every now and then as well. Just as a reminder.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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