Brains, Adults, and Violins

All the latest research shows that middle-aged brains are better suited and more "talented" for tackling complex tasks than younger brains. This is great news if, like me, you are pushing 50 and have a long "things to do before I die" list. I originally posted this clip on Violin Lab but wanted to share it here too. I interviewed Glen Leupnitz, a brilliant scientist who is actively involved in anti-aging research. He has multiple PHDs, developed the canine parvo vaccine and was named by the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England, as one of "2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 20th Century" for outstanding contributions to the field of medicine. I thought it would be great to hear straight from the horse's mouth why learning violin as an adult is an excellent way to combat aging. I also asked, on my own behalf, if after 41 years of playing it was still possible to improve, to "up my game" so to speak.

Is it Too Late for Adults to Learn to Play the Violin?

As I have created an entire website designed to teach adult beginning to intermediate violinists, you can guess that my response to the title question of this blog is a resounding “NEVER”. It is certainly in my business interests to be a strong advocate for adults learning to play the violin.

But that's the chicken. Here is the egg. Approximately 17 years ago, before there was ever a Violin Lab, I started an adult chamber music class at Austin Community College. I already had a booming private studio of young talented kids, and one beginning adult student, a thirty-something year old, who had played some brass instrument in junior high band, but passionately wanted to learn the violin. Leslie was her name and she was my first adult student.

She came to lessons knowing how to read music, but that was about it. She experienced a lot of anxiety in lessons, her nerves manifesting obvious tremors in each bow stroke. After our first couple of lessons, I thought for sure she wouldn't last. I saw the long, arduous battle in front of her, and many times, I must admit, I thought of suggesting that she choose another instrument, something easier, like piano or guitar. What I absolutely couldn't see then was the depth of her resolve, nor could I have anticipated what she would accomplish over the next several years, reaching a level of proficiency rivaling that of a much younger student. Although she was still subject to nervous anxiety, (it frustrated her to no end) she never let it stop her. She eventually tackled the Mozart G major Concerto, Kreutzer Etudes, and a few Handel and Corelli sonatas. As I watched Leslie develop into a competent violinist, my own ideas and feelings changed about teaching adult students. Perhaps I had bought into what our goal-oriented society tells us: that unless we can “master” or “monetize” something, then why bother doing it? And certainly, given the extreme difficulty of learning the violin, if you missed the boat when you were young, then you were better off doing something easier. We are rarely encouraged to dedicate ourselves to a goal simply to develop our artistic selves, nurture our souls, or expand our ways of thinking, detached from any outcome.

Teaching Leslie opened my mind to the idea that learning to play the violin was about self-discovery through process and opened my heart to feelings of outright jealousy.

Throughout my then 25 years of playing the violin, I had enjoyed many technical milestones and accomplishments. I had experienced the utter poetry of pulling deep resonating tones from ancient wood with a stick that felt like a feather beneath my fingertips. I had performed pieces where in pure sweet moments of transcendence I had merged so deeply with the melody that I lost my sense of self. But because I started as a child I had never experienced what my adult student had: the burning desire to learn the violin; the self-propelling passion that comes from choice, the will to continue because it was what I wanted more than anything. Those things I had never owned. For me learning to play was the byproduct of a childhood activity chosen and nurtured for me by my mother, like an arranged marriage, and later the byproduct of a vocational decision to the dilemma faced by every young adult: “What am I going to be when I grow up?”

After a few years of lessons, Leslie’s skills were sharpening and I thought it would be nice for her to play with other people, so I initiated an adult chamber music class at Austin Community College. Again, the outcome of that experience I couldn’t have imagined either. Besides being a ton of fun for me, Leslie met three other women in the class who decided after the term was over to get together once a week to play string quartets. Four women, ages spanning four decades, meeting together religiously for the next decade and a half to mine the works of great composers… talk about your outcomes. I recently bumped into Lola (the oldest member of the group who is now in her 70's) and she said the group still meets regularly, braving in weekly installments the vast repertoire of string quartets.

So back to the original question, if I may wax rhetorical. Is it too late to embark on a journey that will stretch you emotionally, mentally, and physically? Is it too late to engage in an art form, an ineffable vehicle for personal expression that does not rely on emails or facebook status updates? Is it too late to learn you have perseverance and determination you never knew you had? I guess the question really is: Why wouldn’t you learn to play the violin as an adult?

Best Practices: Efficient Violin Practice : "Change the Landscape"

When I go to gym class, my gym instructor makes us use different equipment each time. One day it's the Bosu ball, the next it's the stretchy leg band ( they're really not that stretchy!). She says that we'll see a bigger gain by switching things up, that the muscles learn better that way, otherwise they plateau. I think that idea applies to violin practice as well. If we practice the same notes, the same way, using the same part of the bow, same dynamic....(you get the idea)... we can get stuck. Save the small gain of exhaustive repetition, our body and brain stop learning. However, by making contextual changes for a given note passage we can create new experiences for our mind and muscles.

I recently interviewed the incredible violinist and teacher Dan Kobialka at Violin Lab who talked about dimensionality. I loved the word and now have added it to my own lexicon of teaching terms. Dimentional learning is how we broaden our practice experience and thereby see faster gain.

Best Practices: Efficient Violin Practice : "Extreme Conditions (part 2)"

One of the ways I push myself to the extreme limits of my ability is to play as fast as I can (or can't). I don't do this often. Back in the ol' college days, I was taught that playing very slowly was the best practice technique there was, and certainly there is no substitute for allowing the brain to absorb loads of information at slow tempi. But there are times when pushing my tempo to the very threshold of manageability serves a purpose. I realize that I have forced something out of myself, begged a particular left hand/right hand communication, and challenged myself to fly out of my comfort zone. And in the end, when I ultimately crash and burn I find that I even had fun.

Best Practices: Efficient Violin Practice : "Extreme Conditions (part 1)"

Have you ever done that experiment where you hold up your arms while someone pushes down on them for while with all their might...then they let go... and your arms fly up, feeling light as a feather. That's the principal behind training under extreme conditions. Athletes do it all the time. And we violinists have been dubbed small motor athletes. I have many times experienced the glorious sensation of ease where the violin seems to play itself after having subjected myself to extreme condition practicing.

Here is the musical example I use for demonstrate. It's the opening of the presto movement from the Bach unaccompanied Partita in G minor:

Best Practices: Efficient Violin Practice : "Zoom In"

We've all seen those movies where forensic scientists are sitting around a computer screen looking at magnified DNA images, then the computer analysis specialist repeatedly hits a key that successively magnifies the already super magnified picture of blood samples.. Ok, so imagine you're one of those scientists, but instead of blood samples it's a magnification a string crossing or a shift. Keep zooming in until there is nowhere left to go. You are focusing on the very muscle movement/s responsible for executing the notes you are wanting to play.


This spot in the Bach C major Sonata always gives me grief.


--Beth Blackerby
creator and founder of ViolinLab.com

Best Practices: Efficient Violin Practice: "Isolation"

Imagine you're trying to unearth ancient artifacts of a lost civilization thirty feet underground and you're digging in the wrong place. One of the first tenants of practice is isolation: separating the bits that are problematic and putting most of your energy there.

--Beth Blackerby
creator and founder of www.ViolinLab.com

My Secret Practice Technique #3

This is the part where I try to make an emotional connection with the very notes that at first glance made me want to run the other direction.

Again for reference:

My Secret Practice Technique #2

To understand this next technique, think "cartography". This step is where I uncover the finger patterns that lurk behind what seems to be a string of non-sequitors. If you would like to strain your eyes a little more and see the score I use for demonstration...

My Secret Practice Technique #1

I know I speak for all the orchestral violinists out there when I say how sometimes our spirits sag a little when we pick up our orchestra parts for practice and we see a jumble of ledger lines, fast tempo markings and crazy accidentals. When that happens, I just have to calmly sit myself down and apply these somewhat unorthodox practice methods. Here is an candid demonstration of one of those real life moments.

Below is the musical Rorschach test I'm working on. (I see a butterfly....)

Violin Playing: How to Practice

I have an aversion to routine. Any task that smacks of repetition soon becomes a chore. That's probably why I haven't achieved any degree of success in the "Domestic Arts". Doing laundry, dishes, traveling the same worn paths to after-school activities often puts me in a funk of existential angst. So how have I become a professional violinist, a vocation that is clearly built on layers of routinely repeating repetitive repetitions?

Honestly, I can't answer that question, but I do know that the hours I spent in a practice room becoming a classical violinist went beyond merely playing notes over and over hoping for a better outcome. My most potent discoveries and epiphanies came when I approached the formidable task of "improving my violin playing" in the way a scientist goes about uncovering hidden truths behind incomprehensible phenomena, or an engineer searches for the most efficient mechanical system.

I no longer think of practicing as practicing (although I still say "I have to practice"), but as discovery. I unleash my powers of analysis and creative problem solving, and believe that there are truths and answers that I have yet to understand. So I dig, compare, try out different mental commands, hoping that I'll find just the right thought or elbow angle to produce the results I'm after.

In my next several video blogs I will share some of my practice methods, old favorites that have helped me and my students get more out of "practice". And I invite any of you readers to share your brilliant observations and discoveries as well.

--Beth Blackerby
founder and creator of www.ViolinLab.com

Too Much Pachelbel Cannon?

Had Johann Pachelbel known that three centuries later his beautiful Cannon in D was to float millions of brides down the aisle to the marriage alter, he might have planned his estate better. In my career alone I have cycled those heavenly harmonies thousands (maybe just hundreds) of times to the elegant rustling of bridal trains.

The Pachelbel Cannon is a perfect example of "simple is beautiful". A repeating eight-note cello line underpins florid melodic passages, one following the next, like in a round. The intricate interwoven melodic textures over a hypnotic pulsing bass line have made the Pachelbel an eternal favorite.

Here is my quartet playing the top #1 bridal processional. We originally shot this for a promotional video for our quartet website (Barton Strings).

For anyone who would like to count all twenty eight iterations of the cello line ....

"The Lover's Waltz" by Jay Unger

One of the members on ViolinLab.com requested that I play "The Lover's Waltz", a work written by Jay Unger and Molly Mason, the same composers who wrote "The Ashoken Farewell". It is such a lovely piece. I invited a good friend and talented musician to join me for this little presentation. I hope you enjoy it.

How to Not Sound Like a Sick Cat

The stereotype of a screeching, squawking violin sound would not exist if everyone in the world understood these few simple concepts about: bow direction, bow speed, pressure, and placement.

ME, ME, ME

One of the members of www.ViolinLab.com posted a request to "hear my story". It is not at all illustrious. So for the very few who would like to know of my humble violin beginnings, this is for you.