1. Deliberate practice and the violin

​1.    Deliberate practice 
I have always listened to classical music, which I have loved since I was a child. My father listened to opera; he loved Beethoven. He knew nothing more than he liked this music and I never thought to ask him how he had met it in Sydney, Nova Scotia, growing up in the great depression on the wrong side of town. Growing up in the Maritimes I was also exposed to fiddle music as a fundamental feature of Maritime culture. And, of course, my coming of age coincided with the great folk festivals of the late 60s and the dynamic rock revolution of the 70s and 80s. Suffice to say, I have familiarity with a broad spectrum of musical genres.
 
I progressed doggedly, passing my grade 1 examination, 7 months later (95). Playing before an examiner was, as Rory had voiced a couple of years ago, an intimidating experience. There is you and your violin and the marker and nowhere to hide. As a professor, I was used to making presentations before audiences of diverse sizes from a few people to hundreds. But I spoke about material that I had researched, taught, and written about as an expert in my field. I supported my talks with fancy, attention grabbing multimedia. I got to stand behind a lectern. I was never as exposed as I was playing the violin for an audience.
 
Just playing for my teacher could make me break out in a cold sweat. But music is meant to be played with and for others, so performance is an essential skill. I had to practice performance as well the many physical skills intrinsic to playing a musical instrument.
 
When I visited family in the Maritimes, I played for my mother in hospital (woe betide anyone else trapped in the same room). My brother would groan. My sister would praise my efforts, and acidly remark that no other 60 year old in the family seemed to be learning anything quite so difficult. My 90 year old mother would ignore her sniping children and merrily sing along. So would my daughter, in support of her grandmother slowly fading with dementia. I accumulated tunes I picked out by ear that mom could still sing: Frère Jacques, Row, row, row your boat, Old MacDonald had a farm and suchlike. I sent a tune a week to my sister (mom’s caretaker) to play to her. This became my weekly learning-by-ear project.
 
On trips to visit David’s parents, both musicians, we gave concerts. Playing with David made me sound so much better. My father-in-law, a cello player and a choir singer with a practiced ear made the suggestion that I sing along to my playing for a check on pitch fidelity. Though I am not sure my singing is any kind of asset, singing in your head really helps to hone pitch, a necessity in playing any unfretted stringed instrument. It was a good call.
 
The term “deliberate practice” I was familiar with, but it wasn’t until my list of scales and études grew too onerous to plow through daily that I had to schedule what I could and should do on a given day. This reshaped my practice, which by that point had grown from a half hour to 45 minutes stretching into an hour daily. I had to choose scales matching the requirements of the études and repertoire pieces, and make sure that I managed to do everything over the course of a couple of days. By the time I reached level 4, I had a grid outlining four days of technical studies: scales, arpeggios, double stops, which themselves followed left hand and bow warm-ups and preceded études and a selected repertoire pieces. Within each section, I had specific practice points. The job was to try to focus on one thing at a time—dynamics, pitch, expression, slow bowing, clean string crossing, and more, though I had to be responsible for everything in the end. Violin learning is intensely physical as well as cognitively demanding and aesthetically challenging. Practice is complex.
 
I have remained with the same teacher, an excellent critic, demanding of attention to details and a seemingly endless font of advice on how to do sometimes minute things that contribute to violin playing. She is a concert violinist, who teaches. Now retired, I can be flexible with her timing, but I am constant. Even on weeks when I feel I have acquired absolutely nothing in practice, we have our lesson. Sometimes it is highly informative. Sometimes I feel like a four year old who can’t tie my own shoelaces. Always it is a learning experience. Nine months following my Level 1 exam, I passed Level 2, (88), and a year after that, Level 3 (87). Lucia was frank: the period of preparation gets longer with each level and the marks slide with the increasing level of complexity. I am hoping to be ready for my Level 4 exam in a month or two and have extended my preparation accordingly. Lucia says, there is no hurry.
 
I now practice once or twice a day for an hour to an hour and a half. I stretch and roll out tight muscles to keep as much fluidity as possible playing an instrument infamous for causing neck and back pain. Five years after that first birthday gift of a rental violin, I treated myself to a handmade carbon fibre violin that I fell in love with. I have upgraded my wooden violin and acquired two quality bows: a carbon fibre for fiddle music, and a pernambuco wooden bow for best tone in classical music. The idea that I might stop playing is now ludicrous—this is an immense journey and I have got this far. There is no turning back!
 
My teacher says, you can become a doctor in 7 or 8 years, but it takes a lifetime to become a musician. I still resist beginning my practice some days when listening to myself is depressing, though less so than in the early days, when dogged repetition was required to get anywhere at all. I now also take fiddle classes in addition and sometimes play fiddle tunes with friends who are more advanced but gracious and tolerant. Come to think of it, my pitch is better than some of the other fiddlers who haven’t paid such close attention to detail as I have had to with private lessons. I am working on vibrato which I find fearfully difficult. Lucia reassures me. This is a long process. Just keep working every day and slowly, there will be progress.

​Heather Lotherington

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4