violin

Michale, Vitally's, and Helen's notes on staccato:
I've been taught that for the basic staccato and upbow staccato, thebow should not leave the string. It does have to come to a completeand sudden stop, though. Both techniques depend on the wrist andfinger motion. For basic staccato, there should be almost no arminvolvement at all, it should be a quick flick of the wrist,combined with a fair amount of weight on the bow. For upbowstaccato, it's a little more complicated.

Vitally:
Snapping the whip.Whipping action,Flicking the towel at the pool.Trying to help, you doing great Mike.Vitally.


Helen:
Hi Michael-
The bow is loaded with tension. It wants to bounce. The trick, then, is to learn to go with, exploit, or modulate the natural bounce.
Have you read Paul Rolland's THE TEACHING OF ACTION IN STRING PLAYING?
FWIW-
Helen Martin

violin

October 22
My left hand continues to be an issue, but I had intensive massage and treatment on it today and it feels better.

I finally got a direction on staccato---how embarassing--and am lettin my left hand rest one more day before getting back to work.

Following are some notes related to staccato and vibrato from a Suzuki Teacher over in Violinist online.

Hi,Al, I've been a Suzuki teacher for 35 years, and also have experience teaching adult novices. I have some sense that you may be trying to do too much too soon. The Suzuki staccato bowing, up until maybe Book 4, is typically a relatively heavy, short stroke on the string. After that,we lighten it and start getting it off the string by bowing with a feeling of very shallow "smile shapes" somewhere between the bow's center and the balance point. Ditto vibrato. Dr.S. wrote that players should commence vibrato only when their independently-achieved pitch was excellent. They should try making a vibrato sound, and between player and teacher, decide on which finger has best sound and best-looking technique. Vibrate that whenever it comes up, and don't worry about the other fingers for a while. A good teacher should be able to describe what's happening to pitch when we vibrate, and demo the several different kinds. There's enough other vibrato posts that I probably shouldn't review all that here. Luck! Sue

violin

October 18
I've been in a funk of late, still practicing but just not really focused as I'm use to be. I'm alot closer to finishing Suzuki II, and have continued an intense basics review. Things are still moving along, but I got stuck on trying to improve my staccato and it has been a little frustrating.