Characters, Emotions, Body Awareness and Violin Practice

Practice Strategy, Find the Emotion and Link it to Body Actions/Body Awareness– Always begin with a warm-up both mental and physical, especially for this strategy– choose a passage with a single defined character and name itexample: the character inside this group of notes is “throbbing”- Simulate the bow stroke alone on an open string or single noteexample: bow movement, bow distribution, tone color, emotional content point to “throbbing”- Make a mental “recording” of how this looks, sounds and feels in your bow hand Practice Method 1– Use a “repeat note” strategy to simplify your success – example: play each note 4x, 3x or 2x- As you play the repeated notes, tune into and stay focussed on your sound/feeling recording from above Practice Method 2– Use the “add a note” strategy to simplify your success- example 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. notes until you reach the end of the section- As you add notes, duplicate and stay focussed on your sound/feeling recording from above

Tips for Excellence– Practice your “characters” at half tempo, and gradually up to performance temp- Review your “characters” prior to each time you practice the song/piece- When you finally perform the piece, it’s your job to live the experience of the characters within yourself- Do this work in the very early stages of learning new music