On Music Education, Psychology & Different Abilities

Global Composers: choosing the right school and method for the violin student

Music educators and violin teachers must have a background in knowing, respecting, and implementing the different musical styles, or creating our own. There are some selected schools we can choose, or use to recreate our technique, based on the student’s hands and structure, and the culture of the student. It’s worth mentioning the idea of tuning the instrument in a way that’s proven to promote spirituality and wellbeing, profound for the artists, performers, and listeners.

Listeners to music at 432 Hz improve spiritually. 432 Hz is clearer than 440 Hz, and more calming. Playing and listening at 432 Hz calms, relaxes, and makes researchers happy. To maximize the emotional impact of their music on listeners, some musicians have even started tuning their instruments to 432 Hz. Nonetheless, scientists and musicians continue to dispute the effects of tuning to this frequency.

Choosing the right method and school for our student is an essential combination. Later, in Chapter 2, we will learn about selecting suitable material based on the student’s age and creative health style. 

Examination and Review of Various Violin-playing Schools and Teaching Methods

Figure 1: Albert Einstein

I know that the most joy in my life has come from my violin. Albert Einstein

Influenced by his mother, Albert Einstein was a dedicated violinist from an early age. He often played classical music on his violin (that he named ‘Lina’) as a brainstorming technique.

Abstract

At first, the violin was primarily employed as a musical accompaniment to the dancers and songs, or as a special show. Later on, playing the violin also showed a variety of forms, and became more colorful, and different styles of violin performance-art emerged, owing to changes in the times and technological improvements. This has given rise to the emergence of various violin-playing schools, as mentioned above. There is much literature on the development of violin schools: 17th/18th/19th-century Italian, French or German; 19th/20th- century Russian or Franco-Belgian.

In this first part, we will focus on the analysis and research of these different schools of violin playing and literature, in order to facilitate the future development of the violin-playing art of pedagogy and methodology, to provide some valuable help to the players, and transform them. In Chapter 4  we will recreate these techniques and present them through performance for the twice-exceptional and gifted children, and students with different abilities.

Introduction

The violin was first very popular in Italy. Since the Italian people preferred the violin to all other musical instruments, the Italian School of violin-playing has a long history of development. However, learners in other countries adjusted and improved their Schools too. The performance-art style of each School is individual, and has continuously changed, gradually, over time. Research, and an analysis of the different violin-playing schools, and of the traditional litera

ture, follows.

Italian School

Figure 2: Francesco Maria Veracini (1744)

The Italian violin school is the earliest school in the world in the origin and development of the violin. It was founded in Italian folk violin-playing, and gradually formed its playing style. The School constructed a solid foundation for the future development of the violin-playing art. The founders of the School included people such as Vivaldi, Tartini, and Paganini.

In the 17th century, Arcangelo Corelli, an Italian and the country’s most famous violinist, known as the ‘king of the musicians’, was not only a founder of Italian violin-playing, but was also the world’s first professional violinist, and played a crucial role in the development of the violin.

Figure 2 (Italian School). This image shows the Italian violinist holding his instrument against his chest. This technique is also documented for the Italian violin virtuosi Matteis, Geminiani, Veracini, Locatelli, and others, and was widespread in the Roman social environment long after Corelli’s death.

Although a violin held against the chest complicates shifting at first, virtuosi of the time managed the most difficult passages very well with this particular violin technique. While anecdotes report Corelli’s failure as a violinist in the highest hand positions, it was certainly not because of this hold, nor was this the reason for the relatively modest technical requirements of Corelli’s op. 5. In fact, it is not at all sure that Corelli intended to show his virtuosity with the sonatas of op. 5. Contemporaries applauded Corelli’s playing: his skill as a violinist did not lie in the high left-hand positions but rather in his complete control of the bow.

Robert Bremner says that this was a criterion for Corelli’s choice of violinists in his orchestras. The ability of Roman orchestras to play with nuanced dynamic control, as described by contemporary observers, confirms this feature of Corelli’s violin school. 

By the mid-18th century and until the early 19th century, the Italian School had become dominant in most of the countries of Europe. Paganini was the pinnacle of this old Italian tradition. However, Paganini did not affect the ‘pedagogical’ passing down of violin technique to future generations, unlike Geminiani and the Italian-trained Frideric Handel. 

At the time, their conception and execution appeared astonishingly accurate to reality; they could even replicate the screams of cats, and dogs’ barking, on their violins, using a range of violin-playing tips, and significantly influencing society at the time. Many performers began to copy their techniques. Corelli then started to arrange and modify some of the junk material left by predecessors, and as a result he developed some relatively regular violin-playing ideas. He’d begun playing the violin as a toddler, and became a professional performer at 13. Paganini was the most distinguished player in the Italian School. Before the 18th century, the conventional violin-playing style needed to be revised to suit the necessities of society. As the period progressed and changed, people were anxious to experience a new kind of violin playing.

Nicolò Paganini, influenced by the trends at the time, developed his passionate violin-playing technique to express himself in completely his performances, which included playing the violin with much more ideological excitement and free-thinking. His playing style was widely praised then and he was dubbed the ‘King of the Violin.’ Since then, many well-known performing artists have emerged in the Italian School. As we can see from the overall development, the virtuosos of the Italian School have shown us the singing of the violin by the use of wide and stretching bowings, and have displayed for us the skills of violin playing, the crucial reason why the violin is considered a singing instrument.

Francesco Geminiani

Geminiani’s The Art of Playing on the Violin emphasized a migration from traditional music to solo and orchestral works. 

He felt that the style of music’s only representing concrete examples, such as a cuckoo or even dancing styles, was an incorrect one, saying, The Intention of Music is not only to please the Ear, but to express Sentiments, strike the Imagination, affect the Mind, and command the Passions. One of the most critical of Geminiani’s technical instructions was that knowledge of the fingerboard and its geometry was essential for success. Geminiani mapped the tones and semitones found on the violin with the intention that learners would mark their instrument in this way to assist them in their efforts to play in tune. 

He also felt that there was one proper position for the left hand: To Place the first Finger on the first String upon F; the second Finger on the second String upon C; the third Finger on the third String upon G; and the fourth finger correctly on fourth String on D. Practicing this grip will enable students to feel and see the correctly structured left-hand position. The Geminiani Grip, accompanying the Learner’s Fingerboard, focused on establishing intonation and posture, and eliminating error. The grip is essential for a beginner’s success.

Figure 3: Geminiani’s Learner Fingerboard

Figure 4: The Geminiani Grip (Geminiani, n.d.)

In addition to discussing intonation, Geminiani emphasized tone production. An ideal location exists for holding the bow for maximum sound clarity, and this spot sits a small distance from the frog. He noted that the bow should be held between the thumb and first joint of the fingers and tilted inward. With free, relaxed joints, the player can draw the bow parallel to the bridge with the weight of only the index finger. He felt that the correct tone, the available bows, and musical bow expressions could highlight the violin’s beauty. The bow used in Geminiani’s time was most likely a Baroque bow, similar to that used by his teacher, Arcangelo Corelli. 

The School of Thoughts and Feelings has superseded the Italian School. However, the Italian School continues to play a significant and memorable role in the development of the violin.

Francesco Geminiani

German School

Figure 5: Joseph Joachim (Wikipedia, n.d.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, letter to Leopold Mozart, July 3, 1778

"How popular I would be if I were to lift the German national stage to recognition in music! And this would surely happen for I was already full of desire to write when I heard the German Singspiel."¹

The German School also encompasses the Hungarian School, and the style of the German School frequently varied, owing to the Italian School’s early influence, and the French School’s later influence on the School’s development. We should note that the German School’s style was shaped by the nation’s cultural characteristics, and influenced by various techniques.

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist. His musical performance seemed more rigorous, an art of tension, and rusticity. It can show the meaning of the works of art, and pays more attention to the emotional expression of the work. He thought that the works of art of a violinist should involve more things: that studying many different art styles, and infusing emotion into performance, is necessary to create a unique art style.

György Ligeti was also a prominent Hungarian