Books › Modern violin-playing, 1920 › scan 113
Scan 113
Modern violin-playing, 1920
18 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 53. See the scan on archive.org.
1To descend from these altitudes to the less rarified atmosphere of the practice-room, it may be mentioned that, if the student is playing seated, he should use a chair whose height will not bring his right-leg into collision with his bow. He should sit well on the seat, not eagerly at its extreme edge. His feet should neither be turned under the legs of the chair, nor twisted round them. There should be no tenseness. But the whole thorax should be gently raised; and as much attention should be paid to proper breathing when seated as when standing.
3Every violinist should also play the viola.
5If he asks the reason of this strange advice, the answer is "for his own benefit." But will not his intonation be spoilt? No, it will be improved. He will be forced, by the difference in the note-spaces, into a much more accurate consciousness of his own finger-board.
7To gain these advantages he need not, of course, play the viola in public. But if he plays it at home, it must not be with the sort of amiable condescension with which a crack trumpeter takes up the cornet. If he feels any snobbish inclination to begin by calling it "the more dignified instrument," he should pause. It is tonally the equal of the violin, historically its superior. And if it is useless for flashy trick-work, it can offer, as a humble substitute, much musical loveliness in the twin-realms of chamber-music and the orchestra.
9Another caution. There is no need to sprawl and wallow in one's chair, because one is playing the viola. Violists do not. As a joke, wallowing is poor: as art, disrespectful. Nor should a violin-bow be used. The viola-bow is longer, heavier, and more powerful. Without it, a fine viola-tone is an impossibility.
11Furthermore, as many violinists have a horror, not only of the viola, but of any violin except their own, one may be allowed to quote for their benefit a saying of Wieniawski: Ne jouez pas un violon; jouez le violon.
13It is far from easy to give any general rules that will help the young player in adopting a good violin-position. Such rules are apt to read as if they were snipped out of a copy-book. Thus, one may say that any kind of affectation should be sternly discouraged. On the other hand, the opposite sins of stiffness and slovenliness are equally to be avoided.
15But the ideal is not to look like a violin-playing prig. It is to get a sort of easy freedom and confidence, which may perhaps best be expressed by the one word "naturalness."
17This naturalness should appear in everything you do. If you feel
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