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I mentioned, in my year-in-review post, that I seem to be on the road towards a reconciliation between my two musical halves: the classical musician and the fiddler. I've been trying to figure out just when this started happening; if you look back, most of my early music-related posts involve my inability to get these aspects of myself to operate in harmony. After some reflection, I think it began at about the same time I moved to Ambler, for two reasons.
First, there are two libraries within walking distance of the house. There were libraries in Manayunk (or at least near it), but I didn't really frequent them. Here in Ambler, I acquired library cards fairly early on, and started taking out books. This included what was essentially their entire section on violins; construction, history, biographies.
I had already been aware that the split between "classical" and "folk" performances dated back to the early days of the violin's development. Initially, the harsher sound of the violin was generally scorned in favor of the lute, which is what was used for courtly and religious music. Violins were relegated to accompanying dancers, and even then, only peasants and the like. It wasn't until later that the violin was used by the well-known composers, once they realized that the violin's better projection made it ideal for orchestral works.
What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer amount of crossover that actually exists between the two worlds. I was aware that plenty of composers wrote music in the style of folk tunes (Brahms' Hungarian Dances immediately come to mind, but there are tons of others), and that a lot of the earlier music was written to be danced to (gavottes/minuets/bourrees/etc). What I didn't expect was to find that pretty much every ostensibly Classical violinist (or at least the ones who have written autobiographies that I read) have also seriously experimented with folk tunes. There's Itzhak Perlman's well-documented forays into the world of klezmer music. Arnold Steinhardt's discovery of tango. Yehudi Menuhin's love of Gypsy music. The two fields don't really have to be exclusive.
Second, not having a job allows for a frightening amount of free to to spend practicing. I found (not-quite-legal) PDFs of the Suzuki books floating around the 'net, so I now have an archive of music and technique books (I actually own these -- my sister has the Suzuki's, which is why I needed to find copies) that will take a while to exhaust (especially with the existence of www.imslp.org). My practice habits have changed. I decided that going through all of the stuff in the technique books was stupid; instead, I only really need to use those exercises that are directly relevant to what I'm playing. Going exercise by exercise made a certain amount of sense when I was learning different skills. Now, not so much.
At the same time, I find that I'm instinctively developing my own fingerings for a number pieces. There are certain compositions which must be played a certain way, in certain positions (Kreisler's Liebeslied comes to mind, mainly because it's sitting on the top of my stack of music at the moment), due to a particular sound the composer wanted. But most of the things I've found lend themselves a number of possible fingerings. And there's a certain amount of joy inherent in looking at a piece and saying, "How do you want me to play that? That's stupid -- this way is much easier." It allows me to tailor my renditions of things to my strengths. Not having a teacher telling you that you must play in a certain way is rather liberating. So is choosing what you feel like playing, rather than having it assigned to you.
I think the word 'liberating' is what's key here. I have no desire to become a classical soloist (nor do I think I have the talent anyway), and I couldn't care less if some dancer objects to my choice in bowing style or fingering or variations on a tune (within reason, of course). It's selfish, sure, but when you get right down to it, I'm not playing for other people, anyway; I'm playing because I enjoy it (OK, OK, it's technically for other people in the sense that they might be listening. You know what I meant). It's music, and I like playing music. There are now times when I'll be wandering around the house playing some random concerto, when I'll suddenly slip into a reel or strathspey. And when I'm done with that, I might segue into some 5-minute-long improvisation on one or two strings that eventually resolves itself into another dance tune. Letting my mind go produces interesting results (and yes, I was aware my mind went a while ago ;-)).
I suspect, at the most basic level, it's a matter of judging classical vs. folk by their similarities rather than their differences. At some point, I made that shift in view, and things have been rather different (and exciting!) since. *grin*
First, there are two libraries within walking distance of the house. There were libraries in Manayunk (or at least near it), but I didn't really frequent them. Here in Ambler, I acquired library cards fairly early on, and started taking out books. This included what was essentially their entire section on violins; construction, history, biographies.
I had already been aware that the split between "classical" and "folk" performances dated back to the early days of the violin's development. Initially, the harsher sound of the violin was generally scorned in favor of the lute, which is what was used for courtly and religious music. Violins were relegated to accompanying dancers, and even then, only peasants and the like. It wasn't until later that the violin was used by the well-known composers, once they realized that the violin's better projection made it ideal for orchestral works.
What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer amount of crossover that actually exists between the two worlds. I was aware that plenty of composers wrote music in the style of folk tunes (Brahms' Hungarian Dances immediately come to mind, but there are tons of others), and that a lot of the earlier music was written to be danced to (gavottes/minuets/bourrees/etc). What I didn't expect was to find that pretty much every ostensibly Classical violinist (or at least the ones who have written autobiographies that I read) have also seriously experimented with folk tunes. There's Itzhak Perlman's well-documented forays into the world of klezmer music. Arnold Steinhardt's discovery of tango. Yehudi Menuhin's love of Gypsy music. The two fields don't really have to be exclusive.
Second, not having a job allows for a frightening amount of free to to spend practicing. I found (not-quite-legal) PDFs of the Suzuki books floating around the 'net, so I now have an archive of music and technique books (I actually own these -- my sister has the Suzuki's, which is why I needed to find copies) that will take a while to exhaust (especially with the existence of www.imslp.org). My practice habits have changed. I decided that going through all of the stuff in the technique books was stupid; instead, I only really need to use those exercises that are directly relevant to what I'm playing. Going exercise by exercise made a certain amount of sense when I was learning different skills. Now, not so much.
At the same time, I find that I'm instinctively developing my own fingerings for a number pieces. There are certain compositions which must be played a certain way, in certain positions (Kreisler's Liebeslied comes to mind, mainly because it's sitting on the top of my stack of music at the moment), due to a particular sound the composer wanted. But most of the things I've found lend themselves a number of possible fingerings. And there's a certain amount of joy inherent in looking at a piece and saying, "How do you want me to play that? That's stupid -- this way is much easier." It allows me to tailor my renditions of things to my strengths. Not having a teacher telling you that you must play in a certain way is rather liberating. So is choosing what you feel like playing, rather than having it assigned to you.
I think the word 'liberating' is what's key here. I have no desire to become a classical soloist (nor do I think I have the talent anyway), and I couldn't care less if some dancer objects to my choice in bowing style or fingering or variations on a tune (within reason, of course). It's selfish, sure, but when you get right down to it, I'm not playing for other people, anyway; I'm playing because I enjoy it (OK, OK, it's technically for other people in the sense that they might be listening. You know what I meant). It's music, and I like playing music. There are now times when I'll be wandering around the house playing some random concerto, when I'll suddenly slip into a reel or strathspey. And when I'm done with that, I might segue into some 5-minute-long improvisation on one or two strings that eventually resolves itself into another dance tune. Letting my mind go produces interesting results (and yes, I was aware my mind went a while ago ;-)).
I suspect, at the most basic level, it's a matter of judging classical vs. folk by their similarities rather than their differences. At some point, I made that shift in view, and things have been rather different (and exciting!) since. *grin*
