Violin Video Lesson: Creating an Etude list

So, in this episode of Why I Teach What I Teach How I Teach, I'd like to talk to you about creating an etude study list. But first of all, I guess you might ask, why study etudes? I mean, why not just go straight to the piece and work on everything at the same time? Well, I believe that etudes are powerful tools for targeted practicing.

They offer a focused environment where we can refine the skills already learned from practicing scales, yoast, dunas, or schraddich.

Think of etudes as a miniature composition designed to focus on specific technical challenges. So studying etudes, then, is about exploring and solidifying newly learned skills in a musical environment.

Here is the etude study list that I've drawn up. But as we all have different situations, different needs, do not hesitate to modify it or even make your own. There are no cookie cutter etude lists, so this list will evolve with your experiences. And that's a good thing.

So I start my list with Kaiser's 36 Violin Studies, Opus 20, and then continue with Dante's 24 Preparatory Exercises, Opus 37, then Kreutzer's 42 Etudes or Caprices, followed by Rhodes' 24 Caprices, then Don't's 24 Studies or Caprices, Opus 35, Fioreo's 36 Etudes or Caprices, and ending with the 24 Etudes by Gavignès. When you count the etudes listed here, there are 212 in total.

However, since I decided not to use all of them, I created a list of essential skills to guide me. This skills list was developed by analyzing the requirements needed to learn and perform the major violin concertos and solo repertoire.

My skills list is made up of fast arpeggios, both detached and slurred, octaves, detached, slurred, and fingered, sixth on two strings and two alternating strings, thirds, both detached and slurred, tenths, slurred, mixed intervals, rapid left hand passages, collets, three note chords, ascending and descending, both detached and slurred, upboost staccatos, and flying staccatos.

The next step was to match each skill with the etudes that contained that skill. But you know what? Another aspect to successfully navigating etudes is in your approach to learning them. For example, look at Don't Opus 37, No. 9. First, break the etude up into patterns.

What do I mean by patterns? Well, if you look at the position of the fingers on the string, then from E to C sharp, I see a whole step.

From C sharp to D sharp, I see another whole step. And D sharp to E, I see a half step.

So the pattern is whole step, whole step, half step.

With this information, I start by looking for this pattern throughout the etude.

Let's call this pattern A.

I see it repeated six times. Let's see.

What about looking for the same pattern but transposed like in measure five? Let's call this pattern B.

It's repeated five times.

So if I practice only one of each of these repeated patterns, I won't have to practice the others.

All right then. Do you see what's happening? If you can play the first pattern of a series of identical patterns, then you don't need to practice the other ones. Get it? I mean, by doing it this way, you're saving an incredible amount of time and energy. When you've organized the etude and practiced it in this way, you should have no problems getting through the etude.

I think that now would be a good time to have an example showing how to navigate etudes.

What about creating a possible path in thirds? Okay then, let's begin.

Since thirds are classified as detached or slurred, we need to decide which to begin with. I've decided to start with slurred thirds. That decision made, first on the list is quarts of number 33.

After a week or so, this one goes well. So you continue with furio number 18.

At this point, you need to assess how it's going and depending on what you think, you could choose to continue the list in order.

You might even think that you've gone far enough for the moment. If that's the case, what should you do? Well, trust your judgment.

Do what you think is best.

Know that you can always return if you need to at a later date, so trust yourself.

Trust your judgment.

But what if you're a teacher? Well, for teachers, the process remains the same and you of course will be assessing the student's progress.

That said, I always shared the etude list with both the student and the parents. I as well set a clear expectation that each etude should be completed within two weeks. I consider the etude completed when the student could perform the newly learned skill within it with as much creativity as possible.

This kind of transparency helps set clear goals, provide a direction, and foster the focused, encouraging, learning environment for both the student and the parents.

Now that we have a structured approach for studying the 212 etudes from Kaiser to Gavries, let's consider another useful step, correlating this etude study list with a concerto study list. Why is this important? Because I believe that it's not ideal to learn a new skill within a concerto. Why do I say this? Well, when you're learning a new skill in the context of a complex passage, there's often a moment of doubt. You're uncertain whether you'll succeed.

Let's say you do manage to learn the passage using that new skill, but does having learned the passage truly eliminate that doubt? Think about it. That initial doubt might still linger in your mind in a future performance. There's a chance that it could resurface. So, is that a risk worth taking? Wouldn't it be more effective to confront and overcome that doubt in an etude that you're not planning to perform publicly? Well, if you have any thoughts or questions about this or anything else that I've talked about in this video, please write them in the comments below.

And don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell to be sure you were informed about future video releases in this series.

Thanks for watching.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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