Well as the pianists have one, what about any violinists / violists?

Personally I view the differences between the viola and violin as more than just 'bigger'.  As a result of size you have to do different fingerings.  There's something about the tension of the strings that means you cannot hammer a viola as much as a violin - you have to sink into the string a lot more.  And the instruments speak differently.

But that aside, there's much in common, so maybe a joint thread is OK.

Anyone got any questions?  Like how can you do the tango and play a viola at the same time?  Or what is the future of the violin?  Or how do you get young boys to pick up the fiddle at school (I always see schoolgirls carrying violin cases, not schoolboys)?

Tommo

Well since you invite questions, Tommo..... How the devil do you string players play a violin one minute and then the viola the next with different clefs, different fingering, different everything without having a fifteen hour brain transplant operation in between?

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that you people who play musical instruments are actually a different species from me and there's a world-wide conspiracy to keep quiet about it.

GG, as my newly-appointed "straight man", has fed me the cue for a most amusing remark about violists' brains which I shall nevertheless refrain from making.

Oooops, it seems I just have 

Being a bit of a violist myself, in a shambling and unserious sort of way, my own feeling about the instrument is that I never feel that I'm playing "a large violin".  Instead, the viola is an alto 'cello - at least, in my mind, and I'm aiming more towards a 'cello sound than a violin sound on it.  The best solo writing for the instrument (Hindemith, Berlioz, Vaughan Williams) exploits the lyrical tenor register,  and in good orchestral writing the viola frequently carries the "bottom line".   Plus, of course, the viola's tuned exactly one octave higher than the 'cello,  and violists frequently make use of solo 'cello pieces  (Bach suites, Kol Nidrei etc) in recital programmes.


Entirely agreed!  My teacher (I still have weekly lessons, although at least half the rationale for them is social these days) is a violinist, and this concept comes up frequently...  I don't say you'd bow passages entirely differently on the viola, but there are certainly differences...  I think violists play more on the upper half of the bow than violinists, overall?  You can't "whack" the a-string on a viola, because it will just squeak or grind.

I've been dotting in and out of the forum today, so sorry I havenlt replied to these yet - I feel there's so much to say on all the replies (well, maybe not ollie's! )

So, I guess a good pace to start is t-p's reply about holding the violin.

My opinion is that you should not grip the violin (or viola).  Gripping restricts movement not only in the hand that is doing the gripping, but also in adjacent joints.  That all leads to inflexibility, which means playing cannot be agile.  You'll also get strains and aches.

But holding the thing without gripping is scary - you might just drop a lovely instrument!  It takes faith and practice.  (I'll leave it to others to argue if the violin is the most awkward instrument to hold, but I can't think of any worse....)

Here's how I go about things if ever I need to revisit my stance....

Place the violin on a table to your right.

Stand with your arms loosely by your side.  Your palms are probably facing behind you.

Turn your left palm to face forward, so your left thumb goes forward and left.  You may now feel like you are about to bowl underarm.

Bring your arm up so your hand is at nose height.  It should be about a foot in front of your face and slightly to the left.  (In fact, a foot directly in front of your left shoulder.). Your 4 fingernails should all be facing your shoulder.

Now the tricky bit... Take the violin in your right hand and place it between you left hand and neck. 

The neck of the violin should rest on the point where your first finger joins the palm.  (By the way, to a violinist, 1st finger is what pianists call 2nd finger).  Let your left thumb just touch the other side of the violin's neck.

The body of the violin should rest on your shoulder and, without you doing anything else, will slip off.  So, turn your head towards your left hand, then drop your chin onto the violin/chinrest.  Don't grip, it's enough just to trap the violin slightly.  Don't raise your shoulder, as you'll get huge tension in your back and left arm.

Minimising the drop of your chin is good, so many violinists (especially those slim ones who don't have multiple chins) put on a shoulder rest.

At the end of all this, you should be standing straight, with the strings of the violin horizontal and you looking down them towards your fingers.

Clear?  Have I just got a load of people doing funny things in front of a computer?

Tommo

I spend my time looking at violinists back (not so much when accompanying because I am busy then, but while turning pages). So many violinsts are so stiff looking from behind, croocked, and the left hand looks awful.
They should be send here on the board to read Tommo's description.

I was thinking about the way I play in a concert tonight (no 'special' notes, and quite a few bars rest...), and I realised that I still had a long way to go to answer t-p's concerns about posture, as how you hold the violin changes with every note you play (!).  But if I wrote about that I'd never get on to teh other questions on this board - so it will have to wait.

George, I have a few problems when I switch from violin to viola, and I am definitely not a different secies.  They are a) reading the clef, b) not whacking the thing too hard, c) judging my volume, d) vibrato

When I was a teenager, I did a cheat on reading the clef.  G above middle C in the treble clef is the second row up (Every GOOD Boy deserves food), and on  the violin this note is a third finger on the 2nd lowest string (the D string).

In contrast, the 3rd finger on the 2nd lowest string of the viola is middle C.  And in alto clef this is actually the middle note of the stave.  So my cheat was to read the viola clef, but ignore the bottom line of the stave and mentally add another at the top.  Then I would just fool myself that I was playing the violin and reading treble clef.  Ledger lines became a problem, so I have now learnt to read the actual notes, and relate the to their (up to 4 possible) positions on the viola.  I forget about fingers and just get to stop the string with whatever is handy......

Playing the violin for a while gets me lazy.  I remember the feeling in my bowarm, rather than responding to how the bow reacts to the string.  So when I move to the viola, I end up playing with a violinists bow arm - often too rough.  I find the only thing to do is to tell yourself to respond to the feeling you get through the bow, and it all comes right soon enough.

A fiddle is smaler than a viola, and it might seem logical that it is quieter, but this is not always the case.  Violin strings are more taut, and you can get a lot more welly out of them.  But I think my difficulty judging dynamics upon swapping instruments is a personal problem - I don't know anyone else who is like this.

Vibrato is just hard.  A good player uses a variety of vibratos  I sadly rely on an arm vibrato too much.  Wrist and finger vibrato can sound OK on a violin, but they are pathetic on a viola.  My arm vibrato from the violin is just a bit to fast for the viola, and I have trouble slowing it down  (Quiet in the corner there, tonybob....).  For me the violin vibrato is a shimmer about the note, but to get the right seed for the viola I have to pulse slowly downward - again, it may be a problem just for me, and others may have different problems.

Fingering is easy.  If you have a big hand, like me, you can do standard violin fingerings on the viola.  But if you are playing either instrument well, you won't really be thinking about a standard fingering - you'll be thinking about where the next note is on the string and just ow you are going to 'stop' it (Not prevent it, but how you are going to bring the string to touch the fingerboard.)  Your choice of finger, and how you slide to the note perhaps, dictates your fingering.  If you are using this method of playing, viola fingering becomes easy, because you just use whatever is comfortable....

The more I think about this thread, the more I realise that playing the violin is a thing which is simultaneously intensely physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.  Not many things like that in life....  I recommend it to you all.

Thanks

Tommo

I've often wondered - is it possible to 'relax' at a stringed instrument, the way some do at the piano? Or does the strain of the position one holds it in, in the case of the violin or viola, possibly preclude that?

May be I mean that it is easy to get the notes on the piano. Also there is no problem with intonation.
One's brains can wonder off, but on a violin the sound is more immediate and has to be controlled all the way through.

Many teachers I took lessons with emphasize the importance of listening to yourself and ability to actually hear what one is producing. One has to listen to the note though one can not make any effect on it after it is played. The sound decaying gradually. This is a minus of the piano sound, but we are suppose to overcome that.
Creating the illusion of legato is not easy on the piano.
Can you understand that, A? Or it doesnot make any sense to you.