Exploring various soundpoints with relatively fast bow strokes - using Rode’s Caprice no. 6 as a vessel!
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The bow hand I feel needs to undergo consistence maintenance, especially as it is easy for the bow hand to succumb and play along the line of least resistance (sliding towards the fingerboard as the string is sloped downwards in the direction towards the top nut). Hence, here is a bit of maintenance work.
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Besides monitoring the bow’s course of direction, I’m trying to kinesthetically attune myself to the specific needs of each string and each soundpoint: each string has a favorite soundpoint for a characteristic sound with good quality, and each soundpoint has an ideal ratio between bow weight and bow speed (and therefore bow length). Generally, putting in efforts to play with full hair has large benefits as well. Like intonation, tone production is explorative work (for the most part).
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This particular caprice helps with intonation as well. With each particular scale, giving relatively more focus on the tonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, and subtonic (leading tone) helps center one’s attention on the inherent beauty of a simple scale.
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Playing with a bit of abandon - relearning the Preludio from J. S. Bach’s Partita no. 3 for solo violin after many years away from it. The prelude’s endless, crystalline energy seems to reverberate in a chamber lined with glass walls - that’s what comes into my mind. Some feelings of high brilliancy and splendor seems timely at this moment...
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The prelude establishes the key of E major, and is an example of perpetual motion (at one of its finest in my opinion!), characterized by unpredictable emphases and phrasing. Also derived some inspiration from @christhile’s rendition of it on the mandolin!
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Work in progress, as always - with rhythmic integrity...
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Rediscovering a sense of inner calm which I find is important for tension-free playing. What oft happens is that we equate physical tension (tightening the muscles) with musical tension - certainly have found myself doing so in the past and sometimes even now... Emotional struggle and musical resistance (whether with respect to harmony, gestures, or texture) seems best realized when the body engages in a clear sense of effort and release and the mind engages in a clear sense of proper bow weight, speed, and soundpoint.
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Started to incorporate Jacques Féréol Mazas’ Etude no. 1 into my maintenance routine - seemingly simple, but not quite. A good prep for a work like Schubert’s Fantasy, perhaps? Focusing on especially the beginning, middle, and end of each note 😁. In large part, it is a balancing act- to start a note with a cushioned vowel sound, the third finger / pinky / thumb are at the forefront of one’s consciousness. To evenly expand and taper off each note, and overlap the end of that note with the beginning of the next note, the fingers are encouraged to be aware of what specific contact points they have with the bow stick (either the top or the side).
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Right hand is definitely leading the left hand, in my case - this mellows down my vibrato, which has the tendency to become too quick for its own good and the good of the Largo character in this Etude.
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