Preparatory Violin Study Part 2

​1.    Preparatory violin study 
Lucia, my violin teacher, who I had not seen in months, approached me online in the spring of 2020 when we were all hunkering down for what would be a couple of years, though none of us knew that then. She suggested I start up my violin lessons again on zoom. Lacking distractions from work (in my home office), I thought, “why not?” But this time I would take a more systematic approach. I would take David’s advice and follow the RCM program to put structure into my learning.
 
Lucia thought this was a stellar idea, and so I bought the RCM Preparatory Violin books: technical study and repertoire, keen to crank up again on a clearly defined path. Looking through the books, though, I became fearful: this was preparatory? It was hard! Worse still, the preparatory technique book spanned from preparatory to grade four; sneaking a peak ahead was the stuff of nightmares: notes all over the place, doodads over the notes, fancy scales under long phrase lines and all nature of scary stuff.
 
I should come clean and admit that I studied piano as a child (early Pleistocene era), so I was not musically illiterate. The six years I spent learning to play the piano with French Canadian nuns (tough task masters) included theory and, helpfully, solfège, which I was to meet again, unexpectedly, in fiddle class a little further down the track. But the system at Notre Dame D’Acadie was organized differently from RCM programs so I could not say what grade I reached. Nonetheless, not having to learn theory and sight reading from a standing start was helpful: the cognitive load in reading music and playing it at the same time is significant and should not be underestimated.
 
All the same, I had to see the notes on the page as points on a violin string. This was new. I could picture, say middle C (along with the scales, arpeggios, etc.) on a piano but I had to find it on the violin and hear it and feel it in my hand, so I wasn’t (desperately and unrecognizably) off pitch. Preparatory began sensibly with the A major scale, the most basic scale on a violin, played on the easiest string to reach. This was friendly. I knew what a major scale should sound like, so I could practice towards it sounding right. I could reach these notes, though they were kind of pesky to find. With the A major scale, I had the A major arpeggio over one octave. I had single bows only: one note, one bow. I could do this!!! I graduated to the D major scale. So exciting! By now I could reach the D string but going from the A string to the D string was harder than the other way around. And then, the D arpeggio. I was rocking.
 
The études were another matter. On the first page was one in sixteenth notes going up the D scale but it had accented quarter notes in it and dynamic shifts, and… harmonics? What the hell? Where did these come from? My violin teacher admitted that she favoured the Suzuki approach to the RCM program, as RCM tended to erratic étude and repertoire choices and levels of difficulty varied even within a single level. But Suzuki was for children, I thought. Well, she explained, adults do it, too. It is oriented to ear-training. The downside is that Suzuki learners are not as strong at sight reading as RCM learners.
 
At the time, I was senior faculty at a large urban university, seconded to a senior administrative post. I had to solve faculty problems and answer to university leaders throughout my day—all on Zoom—which limited my available practice time, and on some days, wiped me out past even starting the depressing regimen of hunt and peck scales. But motivated by a fear of making a total ass of myself in front of an examiner accustomed to 5 year olds capable of mastering this content, I pushed onwards. I stretched, I practiced, I recorded myself and self-critiqued. I watched superstar violinists on YouTube, and listened attentively, studying how they held their violins and their bows. I practiced with my husband playing the piano or the ukulele; I played to recorded tracks; I sent video-recordings to friends and family. Mostly they were encouraging, and not without incredulity that I would undertake such a project at my age.
 
My daily practice was organized around a linear read of the technique and étude book, followed by my big moment: my repertoire pieces. Two! I felt practically ready for Carnegie Hall in comparison to where I was with Twinkle, twinkle little star a year ago. And as such, my practice was shaped as a daily scrum with my violin, progressing through each section of the preparatory course that I would have to perform for my examination, though the sightreading selections came later, as did the ear training. Ear tests I got from David, whose musical knowledge was immense, and patience, even more so.
 
Most of the repertoire selections were sensibly scored in the keys of A and D but some joker had put in two pieces in the key of C major, which is NOT a friendly key on the violin. At least, not at this level. The pieces had names like Playing ball and Pony trot, which felt a little undignified for a mature woman. Nonetheless, I tried as many as I could manage and settled on a pretty lullaby called, evocatively, Song, and another rather quirky piece that was quite dramatic in character, called, The old jalopy, which had a cute slide at the end of it. I practiced these pieces till my fingers were raw, so keen was I not to make a total fool of myself on my debut examination. David and I practiced together once a week, he on the piano part provided in the repertoire book. From this, I got the bright idea to tape his part, so I could play along to it during my daily practice. The exemplars provided by RCM were all too fast, plus they were played by professional musicians with beautiful tone, vibrato, perfect intonation. Impossible models…
 

part 1

part 3

part 4

part 5