Violin Video Lesson: My FingeringBoard Journey: Changing places... Keeping Patterns!

So, I was visiting a violinist friend in Sweden and we were talking shop as we usually did when we saw each other.

After a while, I said to him how much I admired Michael Rabin, especially his recording of the Bruch's Scottish Fantasy.

I started to play the opening with my "Rabinesque" sound that I'd been working on and he agreed that I had gotten very close to what he sounded like.

It was then that he said, however, that I was playing the Bruch a half step too high. Needless to say, I was surprised, but I immediately lured it a half step and kept playing, keeping all the intervals, all the patterns that I'd done before.

Okay, so I didn't think much about it.

There's nothing really changed. I mean, the patterns, everything that I had played before, I just did it the same way, just half step lower.

But years after that, I thought about this encounter and remembered what I did, which caused me to ask myself just how did I do it? Well, after thinking it through, I realized that I could do this because of my understanding of my fingering board, my understanding of patterns.

You see, because I wasn't thinking of the notes or what position I was in, I was freed from all of that extra baggage. You see, thinking through patterns made it more direct.

It cleared things up.

All of this got me closer to my goal of having one thought which provoked multiple activities, one thought which caused many things to happen.

All of this happens because of my understanding of the patterns involved in playing it. So why don't I show you how I map out these patterns in the Bruch, the opening to the Bruch Scottish Fantasy.

So first we have to get to the B flat, so I will create a one finger arpeggio starting on B flat on the A string to get there.

Next, I need to be sure that I've kept my fingers from the F sharp in place, which is enharmonically a G flat, and this will allow me to easily find the B flat.

It's two whole steps away.

Next, to get to the E flat, I'm using the G flat with the third finger as an intermediary step, creating a suffix -like exercise from third finger to third finger to first.

Now, with the shift from the E flat to the F, I do first finger to first finger, but first I do first finger to second finger just to locate where it is, and then first to first. Now from the G flat to the B flat, it's visually a half step or technically a sixth. Anyways, I play them together.

Now as my hand is larger, I can use my third finger for the E flat, but fourth finger is probably the more traditional way to finger it. I'm playing the notes in between to get to the D and then measuring the distance to the E flat. While doing this, I'm also measuring what it feels like in my hand to do it.

Then I create another shifting pattern to get to the B flat, first finger to third finger.

Now for the C flat to the B flat shift, or as I do it, a slide, I first replace the first finger with the second finger, then I work on the C flat to the B flat slide.

I mean this is a slide that I really enjoy, but it requires that I listen throughout and have a clear rendezvous point, clear place to go to, which is the B flat.

But I need to really, again, clearly hear it in my ear.

And with that, we have mapped out the passage.

At this point, playing at a half step higher or lower is totally possible, as I understand the patterns, and because of this, we rely on them rather than thinking about the notes or trying to figure out the positions.

When I was younger, in a recording session in Nashville, you see, I did country music recording sessions before I went to Juilliard.

The singer would say to the producer that the arrangement was too high for them.

At this point, the arranger would step out of the control room and tell us to play a half step lower, as there wasn't time enough to rewrite the parts.

So we just had to transpose it ourselves right on the spot.

I tried quickly writing things down in the music, but that didn't work at all, since there just wasn't enough time. So I learned to just move my fingers to another position while looking at the notes, and play the same intervals, play the same patterns.

Okay, so why don't we look at the second theme from the first movement of Mendelssohn's Concerto in E minor? After having practiced it as I did in the Bruch, I can play at a half step higher. Well, it sounds a bit strange, but I did it.

Keeping the same patterns, my mapping allowed me to play it in a totally different key, a half step higher.

All right, so with that, do take care, and if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to my channel.

Oh yes, don't forget to click on the notification bell so you can choose how to be notified when new videos have been published. Again, take care.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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