Virtual Music Lessons in the Age of COVID-19

 

There is more time to learn things in the pandemic. So this age of at-home learning is perfect for taking up or refreshing musical skills on an instrument.

 

When the coronavirus shut down much of the world in mid-March 2020, in-person music instruction failed to meet the criteria for “essential work.” But musical instructors and institutions wasted no time in launching online music education.

 

And that education came in a broad range of types of music instruction. It is possible to teach just about any instrument, as well as voice, via an online format. The same goes for seminars on selected music education topics. There are classes in composition, concerts with panel discussions with Grammy-winning artists, master class series with professional musicians, and webinars from entertainment industry players who discuss career and educational topics.

 

Insofar as learning and advancing instrument playing, recorded lessons and one-on-one instructions are readily available. But there is a school of thought that the technology is best suited for beginner-level musicians and less so for those who are more advanced. Why? There are several reasons:

 

Beginners and intermediate students – First timers and those with less than two years of instruction can learn the fundamentals of playing. For example, on string instruments (violin, cello, viola, bass, guitar, harp, etc.) learning the basic techniques of fingering, how to physically hold an instrument, basic rhythm and harmony, and of course how to read music, are easily taught in the online format. The same applies to wind, keyboard, and percussion instruments.

 

Advanced students – Students paying university tuition – and playing on fine stringed instruments – are losing out on what it means to play in an orchestra. But even with one-on-one instruction, online lessons means technology, with all its flaws and failures, can get in the way of learning and experience. Hearing the sound as it should be is always going to be compromised; what the student produces on his or her violin will not sound the same to the instructor, and vise versa. Other nuances of playing and learning are often lost through this method.

 

Ensembles – One of the biggest losses when schools and universities go to an online format is the loss of playing in orchestras, quartets, and chamber groups. There are layering apps that make it possible, however it does require additional technology and the savvy for how to use it – by all participants. And it’s simply not the same as being gathered together in one place, where in-person cues truly shape the music sound, timing, and overall artistry.

 

Alas, this is what it is for the time being. If the extra time that children and adults have during the pandemic inspires them to try learning an instrument, this could be a very fortuitous time – for them and their instructors. But for prodigies and budding professionals, the challenges are clearly much greater.

Stringed Instruments: When to Change the Strings

Whether for the violin, cello, viola or string bass, knowing proper string maintenance can reduce the chances of a mid-performance break.

 

Few violinists consider their music to be a contact sport. Sure, there are competitions when the side eye from one player to the next might involve some mental darts and ocular daggers. But there is a situation, whether practicing alone or in full view of the orchestra and audience, where actual physical harm can befall a player.

 

It’s the dreaded broken string. It occurs in concerts: Maximilian Simon had it happen when soloing with the Jenaer Philharmoie in 2016. Ray Chen had it happen in 2017. Itzhak Perlman was said to have played on with just three strings at a concert (it’s evidently an apocryphal tale). The renowned virtuoso Midori endured a broken string as well.

 

When it happens, there is at best an almost clockwork-like exchange of instruments with the concertmaster, who mid-performance exits the stage to fetch his or her own replacement for the remainder of the piece. There are no injuries reported among the most famous of violin soloists who’ve had to keep their cool under these most trying of circumstances. But eye injuries from broken strings among amateurs are not uncommon.

 

What’s important for all violinists is that they recognize when a string is weakening and needs to be changed. Strings are, after all, vital accessories for the violin and every other stringed instrument. So why do strings break – and when should they be replaced?

 

Need to clean. Rosin and natural oils from the player’s fingertips build up and attract dust, all of which leads to wearing of the strings. Cleaning with a cloth can reduce this hazard.

 

Poor set of the bridge or nut. Sometimes the grooves on the bridge or the nut aren’t cut correctly, increasing stress on the strings.

 

Strings wound too tight.  A string should be tuned to the pitch it is meant for. While stretching them to a higher pitch can work for a short while, the added tension can cause several problems: reduced elasticity that can adversely affect tone and tuning stability, and the instrument itself can be compromised.

 

Some last longer than others. Gut strings sound rich, but need to be replaced more often than steel. And for those who just don’t like either, the synthetic nylon strings provide a warm sound and greater longevity than gut. 

 

How much you play. Violin strings aren’t terribly different from car tires in that their lifespan is a matter of time played (miles driven). Someone who practices about an hour a day should replace his or her strings every 4 to 6 months. Play more, replace more frequently and play less, replace less frequently. But most violins should be restrung every 9 to 12 months.

 

Experienced violinists generally know how to restring their instruments, and eventually are experts at the rights and wrongs of what kind and when to do it. But the beginner is strongly advised to learn from their teacher or local violin maker.

The Violins of Pablo de Sarasate

 

Among the finest violinists of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Sarasate had two Stradivariuses with which to create great music. Both live on – differently.

 

Among the hundreds of surviving fineItalian violins crafted by renowned violin maker Antonio Stradivari, two were once in the hands of 19^th century virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. One, the Sarasate Stradivarius (1724) is in the Musee de la Musique in Paris. The second, the Boissier (1713), is owned by the Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica in Madrid.

 

Where each is and what purpose it serves is a story that illustrates the different fates of great violins, as well as cellos, violas, string basses and other such fine instruments.

 

First, consider the life and career of Sarasate. Born in 1844 in Pamplona, Spain to a military bandmaster, he showed a natural affinity for the violin at age five and performed in his first concert at age eight. None other than Queen Isabella II was impressed with his talent and he was sent to Paris Conservatoire at age 12 to study there. His career took him to the capitals of Europe, Mexico and the US.

 

Over some 600 concerts, he had not one but two Strads to play on. Upon his death in 1908, he left the eponymous Sarasate Stradivarius to the Paris museum where it remains today. Importantly, it was the subject of study in 2009 on just what physically makes the Stradivariuses so special. Was it the wood, the varnish, the dimensions – or something else?

 

A research team from various French and German institutions (Jean-Philippe Echard and Lod’c Bertrand, lead investigators) presented their findings in the peer review journal Angewandte Chemie. Their methods involved extraction of samples from five different instruments (very small, done very carefully), examined with spectroscopic and microscopic technologies, to identify the wood and varnishes used.

 

The second Sarasate, in the same conservatory where he studied as a child, largely sits within a glass case along with memorabilia from the player himself. But it is played from time to time. The Russian prodigy, Mikhail Pochekin (b. 1990) won the 2008 Pablo Sarasate Prize in Madrid and was granted use of the Stradivari Ex Boissier (Ex Sarasate).

 

Sarasate bequeathed also to the world of music his own compositions, written specifically for the violin if not these two specific instruments. Those scores are in the folk idiom, opera fantasies, original compositions and transcriptions, and cadenzas to violin concertos.

 

One finding of the scientific research was that Stradivari used no exotic materials other than what was available in the 18^th century for decorative arts and paintings. The Sarasate violin showed evidence of red pigment vermilion, used for millennia in great art, including the muralists of Pompeii. It was one of several red pigments that help create the variety of tints to his instruments. Says Echard, the researcher, “Stradivari thus did not use any unusual or secret ingredients. He was simply a true master of his craft.”

The Violins of Jascha Heifetz

His hands may have created the most beautiful music of the 20th century. But in an instant, Heifetz risked it all to save a timeless, priceless violin.

Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987), considered by many to be the greatest violinist of all time, was recognized for his virtuosity in the concert halls as much as virtue in some of the most important issues of his time. How he treated and protected his prized collection of fine violins tells us something about both remarkable attributes.

Heifetz was born in Europe to a Jewish family who then emigrated to the US in 1917. Already a recognized prodigy, he performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall that same year. Well established in his career by the 1940s, he toured Europe during World War II to entertain troops with “mess hall jazz.” After the War, he defied conventional wisdom, which said that the compositions of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, heroes of the defeated Nazis, should not be played. He kept them in his repertoire despite official outcry – “the music is above these [Nazi] factors …. I will not change my program,” he said. After one such performance in Jerusalem in 1953, he was attacked with a crowbar and sustained injuries to his right bow hand as a means to protect his violin in its case. The virtuoso instinctively preserved the priceless instrument; in that instant he may have sacrificed his own ability to ever play again. All in service to a violin that came before him and should last long after he was finished playing it. Fortunately, he recovered from his injury and was able to resume performing for 17 more years.

The record doesn’t indicate which violin it is that Heifetz saved that night, as he had several in his career. Briefly, those were:

Dolfin Stradivarius (1714) Acquired by Heifetz in 1951, it may have been the one saved that night in Jerusalem in 1953.

Heifetz -Piel Stradivarius (1731) Heifetz owned and played this from 1925 until 1950

Antonio Stradivari (1734) One of three Strads that Heifetz played.

Carlo Tononi (1736) This was the violin of Heifetz’s youth and the instrument with which he emigrated to the US and made his first Carnegie Hall appearance in 1917.

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Piacenza (1741) This is an example from the “Piacenza period” of violinmaking by Guadagnini, who lived 30 kilometers outside of Cremona, the home of Stradivarius and other acclaimed luthiers.

ex-David Guarneri (1740 or 1742) It is now owned by the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum

Guarneri (1740) Heifetz bought this in 1920 (which he could afford at the age of 19), and said it was his favorite violin among them all. He held it to his death in 1987.

It ultimately was a shoulder injury, unrelated to the crowbar incident in Jerusalem, which ended Heifetz’s career as a player, in 1970. But he dedicated the remainder of his life to teaching, as well as advocating for causes as varied as the establishment of 9-1-1 emergency phone numbers and the reduction of smog in Los Angeles.

The virtuous virtuoso died at age 87 from injuries sustained in a fall in his home.

Baroque Musical Instruments vs. Modern Stringed Instruments

The interplay of historical events and inventive instrument making – violins providing the best example – led the transition from one period to the next.

The Baroque Period, roughly the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries, was not just about music but also of the visual arts, fashion and architecture. In each of those a bold and elaborate style was a dominant characteristic, at its latest stages giving way to an even more ornate period that we call Rococo or the “late Baroque” period. This latter aesthetic is associated with Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France and an enthusiast of the late Baroque flourishes and stylings. Her execution, and the French Revolution, essentially had a strong correlation with the end of this era.

The transition of baroque violins and other such instruments had a thin link to the end of aristocratic rule. The more modern violins – via Stradivarius and contemporaries, who were luthiers in the era of the transition from Baroque – were about violinmaking for performances in larger concert venues, not just the intimate courts of royalty.

Baroque violins, for example, were physically larger yet projected a lesser sound than the more modern versions that followed them, owing largely to the construction of the instruments: the neck of Baroque violins were set at a more shallow angle relative to the body, which put less pressure on the bridge from the strings. The bridge was shaped differently with greater flexibility due to less mass. The fingerboards were shorter, strings were made of sheep guts (but called “cat gut”), and bows were definitively different, shaped as straight or slightly convex (with a “swan bill” shape). Not only did the sound have less projection, but the range in the upper registers was limited.

The material used for bows was snakewood, as compared to modern pernambuco wood used today (note: composite fiber materials are often substituted in modern bows due to a shortage of pernambuco). Baroque bow weight and the way they were tightened varied by their origins.

But it was the design of the f-hole in the post-Baroque violins that made for perhaps the greatest degree of sound projection. According to John Dilworth, a maker and restorer of high quality violins West London UK, the c-shape of the holes found in early violins and their precursors (in the 13th to 17th centuries) changed to the f-shape, effectively providing a steeper backward slope to the violin neck and fingerboard. This “made the sound of the violin much more penetrating and enabled soloists to compete with the larger orchestras of the period,” says Dilworth.

Many other instruments of the Baroque period had both technical and aesthetic distinctions. The harpsichords and virginals of the era were themselves the “canvas” for painters, effectively becoming works of art that almost look too beautiful to touch.

Performers on fine violins of the period gradually migrated to the new violins, particularly the Italian violins designed and built by Stradivari and later generations of the houses of Guarneri, Amati, et al. Now referred to as the “standard violin,” they nonetheless still are made with variations that allow players to manipulate the instrument in the interest of making great music.

After the French Revolution in 1789, music became the centerpiece of the nation, with audiences joining in song such as the Hymne des Marseillais played at the intermission of all concerts. With the departure – many by guillotine – of the aristocracy, unemployed court musicians were reemployed in the newly created national music conservatory and new venues for musical theater, comic operas (Theatre du Vaudeville) and the Palais-Royal garden, where the Café des Aveugles featured an orchestra and chorus of blind musicians. These venues, often more informal and sometimes raucous, needed louder instruments.

Demystifying the Stringed Instrument Bridge

A simple piece of maple wood might look less important than the showier body, strings, scroll or bow of a violin. But the bridge is critical to the sound.

Among the many parts of stringed instruments – violins, cellos, violas and basses – the bridge might appear to be just a simple wedge positioned there to elevate the strings. It is, after all, just a block of oddly shaped wood that a video game playing student might liken to a space invader character.

But as with the structural bridges we drive our cars over, to get from one place to another, the stringed instrument bridge is an essential conduit. In simplest terms, it transfers vibrational energy from the strings to the body of the instrument, where those vibrations and the sounds they create is amplified considerably.

To understand how this works it helps to know some basics of stringed instrument anatomy. While there are variations, the basic makeup of a violin is largely the same as with the cello, viola, bass, and even the less common viola da gamba.

The bridge creates tension on the strings by pressing them upward. Those strings are anchored from the peg box on the neck (the scrolled end of the instrument, furthest away from the player), and at the other end on the tailpiece (nearest the player’s chin). While this tension holds the bridge in place, perpendicular to the strings and instrument body (some call it the belly), the bridge is not fixed by glue or other means to any other piece. It can be knocked loose if mishandled.

Inside the body of the instrument just below the bridge is the sound post, which is a simple peg positioned there to maintain the structure of the instrument and to transfer vibrations from the top of the instrument to the back of it. This further amplifies the sound.

Do you follow the chain of events that make Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony? From the friction of bow-on-strings through the bridge to the body top, through the sound peg to the bottom of the body – and out to the farthest reaches of the concert hall.

A professional violinmaker or reputable violin shop should fit the bridge to a violin. In fact, even a student violin ordered online and shipped to the student will often come with the bridge not in place as it would likely be dislodged or break in transfer. The bridge for a new violin will not even be fitted for placement; it will require refining and shaping from the generic crude, thick and unshaped object that is sent by the instrument maker.

Made of maple, the bridge has cut outs that serve important functions. One is that they have feet that sit on the belly of the instrument body. The violin shop that installs it should form the feet to the slight curvature of the body surface. This enables full contact that transfers the string vibrations most efficiently.

The curly cutouts of the bridge may look ornamental but in fact enhance the sound. If the bridge wood were a solid block the sound would be muffled (these cutouts are referred to as “kidneys”).

The top of the bridge, where the strings connect with it, are slightly grooved to hold those strings in place. Over time, the bridge will wear in this area into deep grooves – the effect of all that string vibration – and while a bridge can be replaced, your violinmaker could alternatively add veneers that restore that point of string-bridge contact.

A well-fitted bridge expertly set can make all the difference in the sound of the instrument – perhaps enough that the student will find far greater pleasure in playing the violin than a video game.

Baroque Stringed Instrument Bows Versus “Modern” Bows

While appearing to be less complex than the violin itself, the bow and its evolution since the 17th century illustrate how “the stick” had distinct advantages.

Violins and bows of the Baroque period (early 1600s to the mid 1700s) were physically different from their “modern” counterparts that are largely the standard of today. But when one considers how the instruments were once played – instead of the chin rest and positioning, the tail end of the instrument could be placed against the breastbone or even the player’s hip – the image of a virtuoso in concert is more distinctly about the player his or herself than the instrument.

But indeed Baroque instruments (violin, viola, cello, and stringed bass) were larger, with slightly different contours, dimensions, and with different materials for strings, mostly “cat gut” (which in fact was sheep derived). Peg boxes and fingerboards were different as well.

It was the bows that changed the most as the famous violinmaker Antonio Stradivari and his contemporaries evolved the instrument to its current form and later, in the 19th century, when bowmaker François Tourte changed both the shape and type of wood used for the bow (from snakewood to pernambuco).

In simplest terms, the Baroque bow wood was a flat or convex shape and shorter than the modern bow, which is longer and has a concave shape.

Baroque bows performed best at the era’s dance music, where the first beat of the music was heavier and the second beat light. The shorter Baroque bow was designed for this sequence, with the frog end providing the heavier part before the sound lifted as the bow traveled across the strings. Modern stringed instrument bows are more even, from frog to tip – which puts the responsibility on the player to effectively create the light and heavy tones.

A London-based group, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, endeavors to use instruments from that time (1600 to 1800) to match the compositions of the same era. They use the Baroque violins, bows and other instruments to perform works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, and Wagner, replicating as best they can the original sounds as intended by those composers.

Where are the Baroque bows today? In an essay, “Traditions of Baroque Violin Playing,” by Richard Gwilt and Irmgard Schaller in 2011, they decry how the old Baroque bows met an ignominious end when they fell out of favor with Tourte’s innovations. “The violins themselves were ‘updated,’ sometimes with drastic measures, showing little regard for historical consideration, and the old Baroque bows were simply (and so sadly) thrown out. You can’t modernize a bow.”

While the originals may be lost to the 18th century version of a landfill, new bows are made in this style out of the original material, snakewood, for violins as well as other stringed instruments. The Baroque era lives!