Author Archives: fiddlerintheloft

Vibrato: desirable but difficult

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“A regular, pulsating change of pitch used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music”

“A slight rapid fluctuation in pitch of a note”

Using vibrato on a stringed instrument is a way to mimic the human voice – it adds character and depth. There are evidently all sorts of politics surrounding it: the extent to which it should be used, how long it has been widely practised etc. I don’t have the time, space or knowledge to go into it but there’s a bit more detail on the debate here.

As for the practicalities, I’ve found it to be a lot harder to do than it sounds. And, if the countless YouTube vibrato tutorials are anything to go by, I’m not alone.

I still feel quite dependent on my left hand to hold the instrument at the neck (rather than having it safely gripped between my chin and shoulder) so I have trouble relaxing my left hand enough to roll my finger back and forth as required. Inevitably, the only way to get any better is to do regular vibrato exercises. They sound revolting but, by all accounts, work.

For me, there’s also a psychological aspect to it. As I said before there’s something a bit ‘unEnglish’ about vibrato, like pronouncing correctly a foreign word that’s now widely used in English: a proper French ‘r’ for your Tesco croissants, the gutteral ‘j’ for your extra jalapeno from Dominos. Vibrato a feels a bit show-offy, “look-at-me, look at me I’m not just playing the notes, I’m doing a bit of vibraaaato”. It’s all very well for real musicians but for the rest of us is it not just a little bit pretentious? (The answer is of course no.) And then there’s the fear that you could have a go, not quite manage it and then feel silly for trying. But that’s true of more or less everything.

The fear of being found out

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Have you ever been introduced to someone, immediately forgotten their name, got to know them really quite well and then left it far too late to be able to ask without offending them? I once knew a fellow parent for months and had some fairly personal conversations with her, all the time not having a clue what her name was. I just kept hoping it would come up in conversation somehow and dreading the time when I had to introduce her to someone else.

It has, for me, been a bit the same with learning to read music. I was taught how to read music as a child but soon afterwards mislaid the knowledge and then, suddenly, it was too late to admit it. I worked my way through the grades learning the pieces mostly by ear, became head of my school orchestra and lived in fear of the music director saying in early rehearsals: “could you just play that bar for us?” By the time I joined an orchestra at university, it was getting really rather awkward and that, combined with general laziness and the distraction of suddenly becoming ‘an adult’, signalled the end of my playing for a few years.

Just to clarify, I’m not completely musically illiterate, show me a note on the stave and I can, for the most part, find it on the viola. But sometimes there’s a bit of time delay, and I might well not be able to tell you the name of the note. So, when the conductor says, “violas, play me that E”, I do so very quietly and tentatively in case I’ve got the wrong one. It’s a rather embarrassing admission to be quite honest.

Why, you are probably thinking, do I not just learn to read music properly? That would of course have been the sensible thing to do. And I’m now, finally, doing what I said I’d do at the start of all this and going back to the very beginning. There are tonnes of fantastic music theory websites out there but it turns out I don’t have the self-discipline to use them methodically so I’ve gone old-school and bought myself an idiot-proof music theory work book, starting at grade one. Maybe this time next year I’ll be able to play that E with a bit more confidence.

Mussorgsky revisited

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Until Wednesday night, I had quite mixed feelings towards Mussorgsky‘s A Night on the Bare Mountain (or Night on Bald Mountain?). There was a depressing incident at primary school when a supply teacher asked us to listen to it and write a piece of creative writing based on what it inspired in us. It didn’t stir up anything other than bored feelings in my 8-year-old self, so my essay was pretty dismal and I got called into the headteacher’s office and quizzed about why I’d only written three lines in the hour or so that we’d been given.

Parmigianino's 'Witches' Sabbath'

Later on it was one of my set study pieces for music GCSE. I quite enjoyed the graphic textbook illustrations of nefarious activities at the witches’ sabbath but again, didn’t feel especially moved by it. I’ve heard it countless times since on the radio and sometimes hummed along absent-mindedly but never consciously sought it out to listen to.

Then, on Wednesday night, this term’s orchestra rehearsals began and we had our first crack at it. And it was terrifically exciting – I couldn’t believe I hadn’t ever ‘noticed’ it properly before. I was swept along by the story and had a real sense of the individual roles of each group of instruments in the narrative. As a viola you’re right at the centre of it all, and it’s a lovely place to be.

 

Why I need a Tiger Mum

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I am determined that, for the first time in my life, next week, I will go to an orchestra rehearsal having prepared properly. But, when I say ‘determined’, while the spirit is willing, the flesh is pretty unreliable.

I’ve touched on this a lot but I can’t seem to learn the lesson myself so I’m going to risk monotony and repeat: you get out what you put in. Not rocket science I grant you, but the mind has ways of playing tricks…

To pluck an example out of thin air: you sit perched on the threshold of a brand new year, the festivities have more or less destroyed any semblance of a routine that you had put in place, you are struggling to get back on top of work, your children’s school routine, housework, thank you letters, family/friend commitments etc but, nonetheless, in the spirit of New Year Resolutions you commit to practising each evening. The first evening goes well, better than expected even, you find yourself clocking up two hours of practice. But, come the second night, you start up again and realise that there doesn’t seem to have been much of an improvement despite “all that effort” that you put in the night before. You tell yourself, “well, perhaps I’m just not cut out for this, if I had any real talent I’d sound a lot better than this by now, and also there’s something on the telly that I’d really like to watch and I could murder a nice glass of wine or several”. And thus, another hobby slowly bites the dust.

I’m sure I’m not the only person to have been a little in awe of the mums on Meet Britain’s Chinese Tiger Mums, which aired tonight on BBC2. Quite mad in parts, yes, and I’m not about to sign my almost 2-year-old up to Kumon maths classes but I did agree wholeheartedly with the message that sustained effort reaps rewards. In fact, I found myself wondering if one of those Tiger Mums would take me in hand and ensure that I spent all my leisure time practising scales and partaking in other improving activities. I just don’t have the self-discipline to do it myself. But, the truth is there is no short cut, if you want to get better at something, you have to put the time in. As my husband helpfully said to me the other day: “if it was easy, I’d be doing it”.

Back to square two or three

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The point of this blog was partly to keep me playing the viola. “If I don’t practise I’ve got nothing to write about…” I said, possibly a little complacently. So that explains my recent cyber silence: a combination of work, travel, Christmas and the preparations for it, has meant very little practice over the past couple of weeks. I picked my viola up again the other day and really felt the difference (not in a good way). Tricky bars that I’d practiced for ages, and more or less mastered, felt completely foreign to my fingers again.

Before the relapse I felt I’d turned a corner, my bowing had improved, I’d attached a new chinrest and felt the benefit, and everything has started to sound a bit better. So I feel as if I’ve taken several steps backwards. It hasn’t taken  me right back to where I started in September though, which is relief – I covered a lot of ground in an hour of practice. But keeping it up feels impossible at this time of year with lots of family visits, no childcare and no routine. Happily, the season of new starts is almost upon us. In what’s left of 2011 I’ll be trying to come up with a practice (and blog) schedule for next year that I have some hope of sticking to. Bring on 2012.

 

Playing along to a CD (not as easy as it sounds)

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Practising can be quite a lonely and, dare I say it, tedious business at times. Particularly if you’re doing it right i.e. not just playing the bits you like and can play, but repeating the devilishly difficult bars ad nauseum until they start to sound better. To shake things up a bit I tried playing along to one of those accompaniment CDs (I bought a book that came with one a few weeks ago but have only just had a chance to test drive it).

Practically speaking, it’s quite a tricky: there’s very little pause before or after each track so after you’ve selected the backing track you want and pressed play there’s a mad dash to put down the remote control, pick up the viola and bow and then catch up the two or three bars that you’ve already missed. I tried a number of different approaches e.g. having my viola in place, remote control in same hand as bow, pressing play and flinging the remote across the room as I started to play. Not ideal though.

In the end I gave up trying to have any say in what piece I played, started the CD at the beginning and treated it as a series of diverse sight-reading exercises, with accompaniment. I hurtled through a hornpipe and a couple of reels, a poignant Bosnian ‘Hero’s Farewell’, a few bluegrass tunes, then some Hungarian numbers, and finished off with some Christmas carols and a traditional Jewish dance – quite a revelation.

It was good fun, which is the main thing, and playing in a variety of styles feels like a healthy thing to do, musically speaking. Also, playing along with a CD makes it painfully obvious if you’re either out of tune or not keeping time, and, it’s occasionally quite nice not just to hear the sound of your own playing echoing round the room.

It’s been pointed out to me that you can achieve the same effect by playing along to YouTube – particularly useful if you’re learning an orchestral part.

‘SING, SING, SING…’ and other ways to introduce children to music

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Gerry Mannion knows a thing or two about how to get very young children singing. Almost 20 years ago, she set up Tick Tock, a music group for under-5s in Islington, London. It’s run by professionally trained actors and singers and has been a rip-roaring success – there are now branches all over London and beyond. There’s a big element of performance to each session: the team of three perform a new routine every week and it generally involves several instruments, half a dozen costume changes and an eclectic repertoire of songs from ‘Old King Cole’ and ‘Wind the bobbin up’ to ‘Feed the birds’ and ‘All the nice girls love a sailor’. We’ve been going along for three years and in that time I’ve seen cartwheels, robotic dancing, and some surprisingly convincing animal impressions – the energy of the team is something to behold.

I asked Gerry some questions about children and music. And this is what she said:

What can music, song and rhyme do for very young children?
Listening to music can transport you to another place immediately. In the early years, singing and playing music help to develop your child’s listening skills. The repetition of songs and nursery rhymes increases their vocabulary but also helps them to think imaginatively and sensitively, while different sounds and rhythms encourage musicality and song identification. And of course, it’s so much fun!

What do they get from attending music groups?
A sense of belonging and making music together; enjoying and engaging in role play and gaining confidence with encouragement from the group; learning awareness of others, how to participate as part of a group and understand the role they can play as individuals.

And if they seem reluctant to join in?
Remain positive and respect their decision on what they want to be involved with. If they sit and listen and watch, then they are absorbing it and will probably talk about it or certainly return to it during the week. We will always gently encourage the quieter members to engage. If your child seems unresponsive don’t worry, sometimes songs and rhymes are repeated, sung and enjoyed months later.

What can you do at home to encourage them to develop an interest in music?
Play lots of music, anything you like from pop to classical, and talk about the instruments and how the music makes them feel. Make your own instruments using saucepan lids and wooden spoons and rice and beans in jars. Have a music box to keep instruments in. Encourage them to sing and play percussion and tap out rhythms. And SING, SING, SING to your child. Make up your own songs about getting dressed, having breakfast, walking down the street, anything!

What do you like most about what you do?
The children: watching them week by week grow in confidence and musicality, seeing their imaginations grow and developing as little people. Over the years we’ve have had incredible feedback on how the sessions have inspired and initiated a love of music and drama, which has led to enjoyment and success in playing of an instrument and in some cases some fulfilling careers in the arts.

 

 

How and why to join an orchestra

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Playing for and with other people is ultimately what learning an instrument is all about. What’s the point of spending hours practising a piece if you are the only person to hear it? And you really don’t have to have been learning for very long before it’s possible to play in a group.

There are masses of good reasons to join an orchestra or ensemble, but here are the ones that stand out for me:
- It exposes you to music that you might not otherwise play (or listen to).
- You get to know that music inside out – to this day, my favourite pieces of music tend to be ones that I learnt as a teenager for orchestra concerts (or sang as part of a choir) and that now feel like old friends
- It forces you to practise regularly: you’ll want to be able to play your part competently, particularly when the conductor says “there’s something not quite right in the viola section, please could you play that section on your own”. If, as in my orchestra, there are only three of you, there’s really nowhere to hide.
- You’ll meet new people: all orchestras involve a degree of socialising whether it’s over tea and cake during the break or at the pub after rehearsals.
- Then there’s the thrill of performing at the end of it all. I haven’t done that for well over a decade but I’m pretty sure that when the time comes I’ll enjoy it again.
- You can walk around town with your instrument and pretend to be a real musician.

Once you’ve made up your mind, UK Amateur Orchestras is a great place to start (provided you’re in the UK obviously), it lists all manner of non-professional orchestras, bands etc, catering for everyone from beginners to semi-professionals. There are dozens in London alone and, to my great relief, plenty of them don’t audition, you’re just invited to attend a rehearsal and see how you get on. And that is what I did last week, albeit with some trepidation because it’s been a long time, and I wasn’t sure my sight-reading was up to the job. I needn’t have worried, I was not alone in struggling with some of the music… and it was fun and challenging, and everyone was very friendly. So that’s it, there’s a small sub to pay and then I shall officially be a member of an orchestra.

 

The Suzuki Method – what’s it all about?

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I’ve always liked the sound of the Suzuki method. Until recently I had only a very vague notion of what it actually entailed but had heard about the emphasis on group playing, which sounded fun and sociable. For the uninitiated, Suzuki is often described as ‘the mother tongue’ method – children start very young (from 3.5 upwards) and the emphasis is on immersion, repetition, listening and support in the home. This page explains it very clearly, and here, is the wiki link. Generally speaking, opinion seems to be divided: I know several professional musicians who learnt this way themselves and are complete devotees, and others who don’t see the value in children beginning formal instruction at such a young age.

Shinichi Suzuki

Anyway, my oldest child is almost four and so, if it’s the right thing for her, now is the time to start. The process begins with observing some classes and we went along to our first one earlier this week: it was impressive and, initially, a little daunting. We walked in (late) and found three impeccably behaved 4-year-olds sitting on their respective mats, listening attentively to the teacher and playing musical games (stand up when you hear xx rhythm, sit down when it stops again). Behind each little musician was a mother on a chair scribbling notes. Later, the children took turns to trot up to the front and practise their solo (bowing before and after). When I say solo, they are at the very, very early stages so it’s basic one-note stuff but the structure and organisation were quite formidable considering the age of the children.

I didn’t think we’d last 5 minutes before one or other of my children started kicking off but they seemed pretty gripped by what was going on and even 21-month-old who’d come along for the ride, sat quietly on a chair for the duration of the lesson (it may actually be the longest she’s sat still in her whole life during waking hours). There was a 10-minute break before the second half of the class, which was all about musicianship and looked a lot more like the other kinds of music groups we’ve been to but a tad more structured: sitting in a circle, singing your name, learning to shake in time etc The difference, for me, was that my normally shy daughter joined in like she’d been doing it her whole life.

The things I liked about it:
(a) The children seemed to be having a really good time, not one of them complained, asked when the session was finishing or looked fed-up
(b) Despite being highly structured, the atmosphere of the classes was very gentle. The teachers were enthusiastic, funny, unpatronising and incredibly good at keeping control of the very young children they teach without being overbearing
(c)  There’s a big emphasis on attention to detail: correct positioning of instrument, bow hold etc is constantly being reinforced so that it becomes second nature
(d) ‘performing’ in front of other people is a very regular (and therefore presumably unscary) occurrence, which must be beneficial later in life in any context
(e) It was a warm environment: lots of toys in the main waiting area, younger siblings tottering about, picnics being had.

The drawbacks:
(a) It is (relatively) expensive. There’s a transparent breakdown of costs here (as you’ll see if you click on that link, the Hackney Suzuki Hub that we went to offers discounts to people who are struggling with the cost.)
(b) It requires a really big time commitment – one 90-minute group lesson plus a 30-minute private lesson every week – so, when you factor in the travel time each way, it’s not for the faint-hearted.
(c)  It requires a lot of input from the parent: you are your child’s ‘home teacher’, which means you have to attend all the lessons, take notes and supervise daily (albeit brief) practice sessions at home. I’m hoping this will work out quite well for me because I might learn something along the way but if you don’t have any personal interest in music it might be a turn-off. Also, I’m freelance and work flexible hours so attending lessons will mostly be feasible for me but would be tricky in families where both parents work full-time 9-5.

I’m already hooked so now it’s down to my daughter to decide over the next few weeks of observation whether she is too.