Nathan Cole hosted a free 4-day online seminar on the violin solos of Rimsky-Korsikov's Scheherazade.
I attended for all 4 days (1 hour per day), for which I had to change much of my schedule to accomodate. It was totally worth it though.
I did 2 out of the 4 homeworks and will be revisiting the course materials once I gain more perspective about the ideas from this session.
Day 1: Shaping
This was all about trying out different ideas about what the music should feel like and from there, how it should sound.
We were marking up the score, trying to come up with words to match with the feeling of the music: flying, water, flowing, and for me, pirate analogies.
Also we started connecting the music with the story of Sheherazade, imagining how these stories of life and death could be told in music.
Next Nathan introduced the idea of Tabuteau and phrasing by numbers: assign a range of numbers to phrases in the music, and they represent the relative intensity/emotional range that should be in the music.
I'm liberally paraphrasing the concept, and there's lots more to dig into.
Maybe this link might help? https://marceltabuteau.com/articles/online-articles/phrase-by-numbers/
Day 2: Fundimentals and core skills
Nathan showed a pathway towards ricochet. I tried it, and was able to get my bow bouncing! I've never done a ricochet before and it was a light bulb going off in my head. I got it, then lost it, and I believe I can get it again with some practice.
There was also a bit on double stops, which I'm super excited about!
My focus on technique for the rest of the year will be on:
- shifting to different positions on all strings, using different fingers (2 finger scale)
- double stops of all kinds
- ricochet
Day 3: Positioning, finding pathways for the bow and for breathing
This day went a bit beyond my technical skill level, since a lot of the discussion was on voicing string positions. One idea is to keep one voicing on one string, and use shifting to keep one voice/musical idea/flow on one string entirely to keep the quality of sound, and then move to a different string to give a different voice to the next "character"
This idea is like treating strings as "roles/actors" and keeping the lines from a single actor on the same string, and then conversations like in stage plays can start to occur, where different strings (representing different voices) can talk to each other in interplay. Again, this is a rough re-interpretation of what Nathan was trying to say.
It was really interesting, but I gotta get the basics of shifting ready before I can really try out the ideas here.
Then from there, Nathan starting working with bowings, fingerings, etc, where to put the upbows, where to interrupt a musical idea with a shift or a string change.
Day 4: The Hero's Journey
Day 4 was the day I really started thinking in terms of "What is actually possible for me and my playing"?
I looked up the Hero's journey pictogram at the same time as Nathan started talking about it. And I started remembering all those hero's journey maps I was using in my English studies.
It's a story and I am both the writer as well as the hero.
Nathan started talking about the Hero's return, with something changing inside him (or her). The changes occur inside, awakening the belief inside that there are possibilies: there are pathways, there are ways through that leads to a conclusion, refreshed, and with the strength to look forward to the next adventure.
Nathan brought on the "hero's gallery" of current students/partners in the Violin Hero program and I thought the speakers were inspiring. However, what I saw and heard online were just the external signs. What actually changed was inside them.
Nathan is starting a new season of the Daily Virtuoso program, and I restarted my commitment.
One journey through Scheherazade just ended, and I am starting a new journey.
Postscript:
I forgot to mention the one thing that kept me going through the 4 days: the discord server and the conversations in the community. So many different people with different ideas, coming from different levels. It was a bit tough to keep track of all the conversations, but the general "push" of the crowd made it really rewarding to go through these ideas together. It was like fireworks: every summer in Vancouver we have a few weeks of fireworks, and it's always packed with crowds, but all of us are there experiencing the same things together. The group was pretty amazing.