Sounding as good as the best player in the world - right now
With
Simon FischerSimon Fischer shows how three simple controls - a straight bow, balanced speed and pressure, and an even tone - let you play a single sustained note as well as any player alive.
What's in the course
11 lessons (1h 7m) · 1 free
01. Warm up to exercise one with a simple straight-bow exercise
Free lesson1:53
02. Explanation and demonstration of exercise one
27:16
03. Exercise one in more detail
12:03
04. Isolating the elements
3:16
05. Playing musically
4:41
06. Making the perfect change of bow
7:03
07. No such thing as an inaudible bow-change
1:22
08. Feeling the momentum of the bow
3:18
09. Adding the left fingers
1:15
10. Applying soundpoint practice to passages
2:53
11. Sounding as good as the best player in the world - right now
You are here2:08
Lesson transcript
The Power of Practice: Achieving Mastery in One Note
There's a wonderful thing about these exercises:
They make it very easy to play a note as well as the very best player in the world could. This is simply logical, not a matter of vanity.
An Example Exercise
Consider this exercise from a different perspective. If you can do three things:
-
Draw the bow parallel with the bridge:
This is a skill that anyone can learn, even if they don't master it immediately. -
Balance the speed and pressure on one sound point:
Achieving the right vibration from the string at its widest is something almost anyone can learn. -
Maintain consistency:
If you can execute these three aspects evenly, you can confidently say that with this violin, these strings, and this bow, you are playing that one note, D, as well as anyone in the whole world can play it.
The Limitations of Mastery
After all, what more can anyone else do? Sustaining this one note up and down without vibrato.
- If you gave this violin, with these particular strings, and this bow with this specific hair and amount of rosin to a world-class soloist, what more could they do other than:
- Adjust the speed and pressure
- Change the distance from the bridge until the balances are appropriate
Of course, if they were to add vibrato or play that same note in the context of a musical phrase, other factors would come into play.
The Mechanics of Sound
However, here we're focused on the simple mechanical fact of how the bow makes the string vibrate.
It's a very short step to making the same sound on a note in a piece and feeling the expression in it.
Making the string vibrate evenly by adjusting the speed and pressure on any sound point has little to do with being a musician or an artist.
It's simply a matter of natural human sensitivity and touch.
A Hidden Potential
This is why so many of us are actually infinitely more talented than we realize.
11 lessons
1h 7m of structured video lessons
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Meet your guru
Meet your guru
Simon Fischer enjoys a distinguished and wide-ranging career as a performer, educator and recording artist.
He has performed worldwide as a recitalist, and committed three Brahms Sonatas to record, a recording that received high praise in Gramophone Magazine.
Simon is recognised as having a place amongst the world's elite teachers. He is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music, and has held positions at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Wells Cathedral School and the Purcell School, and for 15 years was a visiting professor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. Having studied in London with Yfrah Neaman, and in New York with Dorothy DeLay, Fischer's approach unites the best elements of the French, Russian and American violin traditions.
Fischer's published work greatly influences the teaching of the violin. Having written for The Strad magazine since 1991, his monthly articles have attracted a worldwide following. Published by Edition Peters, his technique books Basics and Practice (translated into Korean, Italian and German), Scales and The Violin Lesson, and the DVD The Secrets of Tone Production (now available to stream via MusicGurus), have become standards on many continents. His book and DVD Warming Up was described by The Strad magazine as "23 pages of pure technical gold".
In 2014 Simon Fischer was awarded the European String Teachers Association prize "In celebration of a lifetime contribution to String Teaching".
In his four-part Secrets of Tone Production course, Simon guides you through getting to know your instrument and then working through his fundamental tone exercises step by step, so you can produce a richer, more controlled and more beautiful sound on the violin.
