Doublestop Magazine

If you’re remotely interesting in fiddling, you need to check out UNC-TV’s Folkways episode on fiddling in North Carolina.

David Holt introduces four fiddlers who have created their own styles either from picking up the musical tradition of the region, differentiating from a basic style or combining the styles of several different musicians.

Each of the fiddlers goes into a fair bit of detail about their specific playing style, talking about what they’re doing with both the left and right hands. It is a lot of fun to watch these guys play and to pick up on the variations. It’ll knock right out of your head any notions about there being one right way to do things.

My only gripe: I’d love to see a HD version of the episode to better see those hands move.

If, like me, you’re a fan of violin-themed podcasts, you need to check out Bowtech. Unlike the music podcasts I reviewed earlier, where I panned those with too much talk, this podcast is all talk. In short, it is like hanging out with a couple of guys in a violin shop talking about all things violin/viola/cello. Host Erik Friedlander, a cellist, talks with violin maker Ron Fletcher.

They’ve done seven episodes (plus an extra mini-episode that, for some reason, they don’t count), and they’ve covered topics such as instrument auctions, varnish, rosin, and more. I think they’re worth a listen, if only for the running gag about Friedlander dumping a beer into his cello…

The MacArthur Foundation folks just announced their 2008 Fellows — don’t call them geniuses — and a couple of them have ties to the violin world. Violinist Leila Josefowicz is one recipient, as is music critic Alex Ross. Congrats!

Barbara Quick, author of Vivaldi’s Virgins, wrote to let me know about an upcoming event in Bethesda, MD. She writes that she’ll be at the “Bethesda Barnes & Noble on Monday, September 22, at 7:30. Lina Montopoli, an extraordinarily talented 16-year-old violist from the Washington D.C. Youth Orchestra, will be performing in a duet of words and music with me.”

Something to check out, if you’re in the area. For more on the book, check out Barbara’s website.

Here’s a few links that have been kicking around my browser for a while now:

• Corner Violin Shop on Weird Instruments: Viol da Gamba — the post includes a few nice photos and a bit of history on one of the more unusual stringed instruments out there.
• The Project Gutenberg eBook, Music Notation and Terminology, by Karl W. Gehrkens. This is an ebook version of a 1914 book. You may find it handy if you have a notation question…
• TED loves classical music — links from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference. (No, this isn’t some guy named Ted!)

You know those stories about the musician who leaves a million-dollar instrument in a taxi? The latest story features Philippe Quint leaving his 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius in a cab. Never fear, for this one has a happy ending. The cabbie, Mohamed Khalil, tracked down Quint and returned it. As a thank you, Quint gave “a private 30-minute performance on Tuesday in the cab waiting area at Newark Liberty International Airport” (plus tickets to an upcoming show).

My shoulder is a bit sore. It could be because I played for a couple of hours this morning. (Or it could be because I held an increasingly heavy infant this afternoon.) Anyway, the twinge in my shoulder reminded me of an NPR story I heard yesterday: Treating the Ails of Musicians.

Pianist Leon Fleisher is perhaps the most well-known case of a musician being sidelined by a debilitating injury. After being unable to play with his right hand, he re-invented himself as a left-handed player and conductor. Leah Fleisher, his daughter and a physical therapist, tries to make sure that doesn’t happen to other musicians.

The story isn’t solely about violinists, but it does touch on the unique challenges faced by string players.

Speaking of the physical challenges of playing the violin, if you have any great resources on the subject (stretches, exercises, training, etc), shoot ‘em my way. Or, if you’re a professional in this area and you’re interested in writing an article for us, that’d be most welcome, too.

The Seattle Times’ Melinda Bargreen reports on a recent forum on the future of classical music. From the sound of it, it seems like many participants rely on education and outreach as their main strategy:

At the forum, speaker after speaker described what their orchestra, their opera company, their educational institution was doing to reach into the community and (especially) its schools. If the school districts can’t muster the funding and manpower to teach youngsters about great music and how to play it, these groups aren’t going to sit idly by while their art form fails to renew itself.

The genre seems to have had it’s fair share of premature obituaries, but Bargreen finds signs of life on the internet:

Some of the optimism is generated by classical-music downloads, which have taken off like a rocket as symphony orchestras launch their own private music labels and offer both downloads and live streaming on the Internet. Never has so much classical music been so widely accessible: a trip to YouTube will let you see and hear great performers of the past and present singing arias, playing piano preludes and conducting orchestras.

Being a technologist, I’m inclined to look in that direction for potential strategies. I think I’d look at strategies like giving away concert recordings, and using the internet as a way to have musicians connect with fans. A couple of recent articles by Kevin Kelly (Better than Free and 1,000 True Fans) point out a couple of strategies that could be applied here. “Embodiment” — give the MP3 away for free, but make the concert experience something that can’t be reproduced on an iPod. “Patronage” — explore new ways to connect donors to the organization. (I once got a call asking for donations to help reduce a symphony’s debt — want to guess how exciting debt reduction is to most donors??) The good news is that plenty of organizations are figuring out new models and continuing to thrive.

At least, according to Michael Bach and Frances-Marie Uitti, both cellists who have come up with new bowing techniques, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle article.

Uitti plays with two bows: “one in the normal position atop the strings and the other between the strings and the body of the cello – so that the number of string combinations available to her increases instantly.” Bach (no relation to the composer) developed a “curved cello bow with loosely strung hairs that can be drawn across all four cello strings at once.”

The article has a nice photograph of Bach’s bow, but the Uitti photo managed to cut off the bow. Seriously. The whole article is about unconventional bowing techniques, yet they failed to show it. Anyway.

Anyone tried something like this? Or are you happy with your bowing options as-is?

Reader Heather Tyreman wrote in to let me know about an interesting upcoming event, the “Spring Strings in the Wallowas“. This is a recreational chamber music players’ retreat held in eastern Oregon this April 28-May 1. Looks like a cool location and a neat event.

Following up on our mention the other day of David Garrett’s accident, we found a BBC article on the process of repairing a damaged violin. The article reveals new details about the damage to Garrett’s violin:

The broken violin will take at least eight months to repair. “There are two major cracks on the top on the table where the f-holes are. And two went straight through the soundpost, which is always the bad spot to hit,” Garrett says.

“There are three major cracks from the top to the bottom, as well as a couple of cracks on the side, which don’t really affect the sound that much, but they look very ugly.”

One odd note: the original reports of the accident claimed the damaged instrument was a Stradivarius. The BBC article refers to it as “a 1772 violin made by Giovanni Guadagnini, who called himself an ‘alumnus of Stradivarius’.”

Your bad day at the office pales in comparison to violinist David Garrett. Garrett recently tripped and fell on to his 290-year-old Stradivari. The reports aren’t very specific about the damage inflicted, except to quote Garrett as saying the instrument was “in pieces.” But, the violin, known as the “San Lorenzo“, is apparently repairable, albeit at a price of £60,000. If you’d like to know a bit more, check out the commentary over on violinist.com.

UK luthier Derek Roberts’s website features a wonderful series of articles, illustrated with plenty of photos, showing the steps taken when making a violin. He starts by selecting the wood, and end up with a violin “in the white” (ie, not varnished). I’m not sure if he’s done yet (I’d like to see the varnishing), but what is up there is a nice resource for anyone curious about the process. And if I lived near his shop, and, you know, had spare time, I’d sign up for one of his classes.

The Seattle Times reports that the Seattle Symphony’s principal cellist/wunderkid, Joshua Roman, is leaving for the greener pastures of a solo career. He’s had an interesting career so far:

Roman never planned on a career in the Seattle Symphony. Following his graduation with a master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2006, he decided to audition in Seattle as a sort of practice round for later auditions in San Diego, San Francisco and Cleveland. “I thought I’d play and maybe be OK, and then see how I did next time,” he told The Times after he won. “I was amazed to be one of four finalists, then actually the winner. There was a lot of discussion about my age.”

No doubt the rest of his career will be equally interesting. He’s one to watch.

The Wall Street Journal recently profiled violinist Nikolaj Znaider, and they focused on the instrument he is playing. Turns out his main squeeze (sorry, they started it) is a Stradivari (”Ex Liebig”), but he played a del Gesù (the “Ex Kreisler”) in a recent concert. Znaider turns out to be a very quotable musician:

“The first time I played the Ex Kreisler, I had known it for all of an hour and a half. If I feel an affinity, I don’t have any qualms. Once, in London, a violinmaker showed me a fine violin at five o’clock, and I said, why not take it on stage? The concert was at 7:30. Sometimes a string breaks and you have to take the concertmaster’s violin. It happens all the time. For the audience it’s a big drama. They love it, so you can’t lose. But it’s of no great importance or interest, any more than it is for a tennis player to break a string and change rackets.”

…and…

“My relationship to my instrument? It’s monogamy with episodes of forced promiscuity — those famous moments when a string breaks. In all walks of life there are different people. Among violinists, there are polygamists who have several instruments and enjoy switching. Anne-Sophie Mutter has two fine instruments. I think Itzhak Perlman also has two. Yehudi Menuhin had lots of violins and changed his main instrument regularly. Maybe there was an innate restlessness there — or maybe he didn’t ever find his real soul mate. Deep down, I’m a one-violin guy.”

Good stuff!

There is, naturally, a lot of music on YouTube. But, it can be a bit hit-or-miss. So, if you’d rather leave the hunting to someone else, check out Classical Virtuoso, the “daily blog of the best classical virtuoso music on YouTube.” Although the domain name is violinvirtuosi.com, the site isn’t limited to strings. In fact, as I write this, the recent entries on the site tend to skew towards the piano. But, the archives are broken out by instrument, so you can zero in on just violin (or viola or cello), if that’s your thing.

Looking for more violin-themed reading? Of course you could turn to the standbys, Strings and The Strad. Or, you could check out these:

• Fiddler Magazine offers partial article excerpts online.
• The Old Time Herald focuses on “American old-time music, highlighting string band traditions of the Southeast.” They look to offer a mix of excerpts and full-length articles from their print publication.
• Soundpost Online doesn’t seem to be publishing anymore (the latest issue is marked Fall/Winter 2006), but they look to have a rich archive of about six years of articles.

British violinist Tasmin Little has released a new album, the Naked Violin, as a free download. The album features three works:

• Bach’s Partita No.3 in E major for Solo violin BWV1006
• Paul Patterson’s Luslawice Variations op.50 for violin
• Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No.3 in D minor “Ballade”

Little also includes some commentary about each piece, the two violins she plays on the recording, and some classroom suggestions for teachers.

So, what’s the story here? Is Little just pulling a Radiohead? It doesn’t sound like it. From the interviews I’ve seen about this project, it doesn’t look like she is searching for a new business model for classical music. Rather, she’s trying to bring new fans into the fold. A few choice quotes from an article in the Times Online:

“This notion that classical musicians are all snooty, and that our snootiness creates a barrier that stops people enjoying what we play. By doing what I’m doing I want to prove once and for all that the only reason why people don’t sample classical music is that they don’t have open minds, or they are lazy.”

“It’s about breaking down every possible hindrance to enjoying classical music, and about getting some discussion going about how to make classical music accessible without downgrading the product.”

Spiegel Online has an interesting, if standard-issue, article about the high-end violin trade, “Fiddling the Stradivarius Market.” While a good chunk of the article is an overview of why the Cremonese masters are so highly sought after, the beginning and end of the piece covers the slightly shady world of the dealers who play in this realm.

The violin trade, says Hargrave, has over the years “become an absolute jungle,” he says. “It stinks from top to bottom.” The only consolation, he adds, is that it’s “no dirtier than the trade in carpets or antiques.”

(via the Corner Violin Shop)

Every parent’s nightmare? Or just a lot of fun? Decide for yourself.

Viola players don’t get enough attention, always being crowded out by the violin on one side and the cello on the other. So, it was nice to hear a couple of pieces on violist Kim Kashkashian on NPR recently. One piece is a review of her new CD, Asturiana, and the other is an interview with Kashkashian. From the NPR website:

Today, Kashkashian is one of only a few violists with an international solo career. Her mastery of the rich-toned cousin of the flashier violin has led to many collaborations with composers and arrangers. Kashkashian’s new album, Asturiana, finds her working with pianist Robert Levin, with whom she performs their own transcriptions of songs by composers such as Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados and Alberto Ginastera.

Kashkashian, whose new CD is rooted in the folk tradition of Spain and Argentina, admits that violists are always looking for ways to increase what’s available for their instrument to play. “We all are, in a sense, missionaries for new music, and most of us are also thieves, because we have to and want to take repertoire from other instruments.”

Today’s Seattle Times featured a profile of violinist Quinton Morris. Morris, 30, is a busy guy:

The young violinist and founding director of the all-African-American chamber group the Young Eight, Morris is three months away from finishing his doctorate at the University of Texas-Austin while he directs Seattle University’s instrumental music division, runs the chamber music program, teaches violin students, devises the curriculum for a new bachelor of music program for string students, tours and performs with the Young Eight — and performs a Mozart violin concerto in several free community concerts this month with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

If you haven’t checked out the Young Eight, you’re missing something good. First of all, you don’t see many octets out there (their website claims they are the “only established string octet touring in the United States”). But, it is hard to not comment on race here. Clearly, the thing that really stands out is that this a group of African-Americans playing in what is, frankly, the pretty white world of classical music. Their goal is to “expos[e] various communities to the arts through classical music.” Or, as Morris says in the Times article:

I never saw an African American playing with an orchestra as a child. Now, to work as a mentor with these talented young players and show them what is possible, right in their hometown — that’s really rewarding.

Want more info? The Young Eight website has a number of good tracks to listen to. I recommend both the documentary video(s) and the The Young Eight Anthem.

Did you enjoy our article “Recording Strings at Home“? Want to know more? Check out Hugh Robjohns’ article “Recording Strings” from a 1999 issue of Sound on Sound. It is a bit more technical than what you’ve read here in Doublestop Magazine, but even the amateur is likely to pick up a hint or two. Of course, I’m guessing few of our readers will need to hear this warning:

“…be warned that applying gaffer tape to an instrument in an effort to secure a mic cable may result in sudden death when the owner discovers that removing the tape also dislodges the varnish.”

Update: I’ve recently run across a couple more items that may be of use to budding violin recording engineers. Recording Review has a number of Tips for Recording a Violin. And, if you’re less interested in the technical aspects of recording, and more wondering why you’d want to do such a thing, head over to the Violinist.com discussion thread on how people use recordings to improve their technique.

Don’t look for this on the concert stage anytime soon, but check out these two videos of Toyota’s violin-playing robot:

• Guardian
• IEEE Spectrum

For some reason, I found the way the robot swayed while playing to be a little creepy. Perhaps it doesn’t quite rise to the level of the uncanny valley, but it just seemed odd to have a robot looking like they were really lost in the music. (Unless, of course, swaying is necessary for playing…is it??)

Oh, and if you’re a fan of brass instruments, Toyota makes trumpet playing robots, too.

(via)

You may not immediately think of Native Americans when you think of traditional fiddle styles, but check out Swil Kanim, a member of the Lummi Nation in the Pacific Northwest. I first heard of Swil Kanim on Seattle’s local NPR station, KUOW. (Hear the interview on KUOW’s website; the relevant part starts 14:00 into the program.) He tells a story of his initial desire to play the violin, in the fourth grade. When the other kids pointed out that it “wasn’t an Indian instrument”, Kanim pointed out that, “of course it is, it has a bow!” Check the story out for more.

The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten recently posted a video follow-up to his now-famous “Pearls Before Breakfast” piece, where violinist Joshua Bell performed in a subway stop, only to have commuters walk right on by.

Although the new video is rather short, there are a few fun take-aways:

• The original article was (and is?) the most viewed article on the Post’s website.
• Weingarten says that other street musicians were “jealous” of Bell by saying that he didn’t know how to “work an audience.” Hmm. I think they (the other musicians) may have a point, but then again the only busker I know centers his act on balancing a guitar on his head while twirling a hula hoop. Let’s see Josh Bell pull that off!
• Bell clearly has better chops than Weingarten!

With that, methinks the blog should take a hiatus from Joshua Bell, lest we turn into an all Bell blog.

Public Radio show “The Splendid Table” brought together two of my favorite things–cooking and music–when noted violinist Joshua Bell and host Lynne Rossetto Kasper made pasta. While Bell enjoys good food, he is clearly a novice in the kitchen, and so Kasper walks him through the preparation of a dish that could have been made at the time when the Cremonese masters were creating their violins. (Why was Bell on a cooking show? He’s promoting his new CD, the Red Violin Concerto.)

You can listen to the interview on the show’s site. The interview starts about 12:45 in.

One funny moment comes when Bell mentions that he tries “to stay away from knives…and cleaning up plates!”

NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg reflects on watching history before her eyes. Totenberg has mingled with Supreme Court justices, but she is reminded that her father, violinist and teacher Roman Totenberg, has had a long and distinguished career.

But my father is more than a violin teacher. He is a financial advisor and consultant. He helps round up scholarship money and finds jobs for his students. He is also a Realtor. He helps them find apartments or live-in situations they can afford. And he is a travel agent, and mother.

Be sure to both listen to the piece and read the story (it isn’t just a transcript of what aired). The page includes a number of Totenberg’s recordings — check it out.

Ever wish you had an extra string? Check out 5stringviolins.com, a site for folks interested in these instruments. (As for me, playing four strings is hard enough…)

I thought it would be fun to take a look at one of the many violin variants out there. The Norwegian hardanger fiddle is one of the better known examples (if you’ve seen the Lord of the Rings films, you’ve likely heard the hardanger fiddle in action, as it played a prominent role in the soundtrack.) The instrument looks quite similar to a traditional fiddle, but it features eight strings — four played and four droned, combining to make a haunting sound.

As usual, Wikipedia has a nice background article on the subject. The Hardanger Fiddle Association of America has an extensive website. And, if you’re feeling really adventurous, Dennis Havlena has posted instructions for converting a regular fiddle to a hardanger. For obvious reasons, he recommends starting with a cheap instrument! While you’re at it, check out his video of a variety of DIY instruments, if only to watch him banging on a propane tank.

From a mention of an interview by Alex Ross, we’ll move to an interview of Alex Ross. This time noted blogger Jason Kottke quizzes Ross on his new book The Rest Is Noise). Kottke asks a questions I’ve often wondered about myself — with all the recordings out there in the classical genre, how does one pick the “right” one? Ross responds:

It’s definitely overwhelming – a serious glut. I’ve been reviewing for fifteen years and in the last year or two I seem to be getting twice as many CDs as ever – not to mention all the MP3s that composers and ensembles have put up on the Internet. There are definitely some significant differences among recordings. You have a lot of expert but boring renditions and then you have the ones that touch perfection or posses exceptional emotional power. Listen to Lorrane Hunt Lieberson singing the Bach cantatas and everyone else will sound a little wan. Certain people are always reliable – Yo-Yo Ma is ever eloquent, Mitsuko Uchida is a great pianist, Claudio Abbado makes one great or near-great orchestral recording after another. You can tell from Amazon reviews when a recording has really knocked people sideways. But live concerts are always better!

New Yorker music critic Alex Ross (who is also the author of the The Rest Is Noise) recently interviewed Yo-Yo Ma, focusing on the Silk Road Project. Ma discusses the fluid concept of intonation:

Finally I started learning the Persian dastgah scale, where, if you started on D, the E-flat immediately sounds sharp. But with about an hour’s work any musician can acknowledge these as the desirable notes and the beautiful ones. You can quite easily get your ear inside a scale or mode. And then of course there are the different understandings of rhythm, falling in with West African grooves or with the amazing rhythms created by the tabla player Sandeep Das.

Welcome to the Doublestop Magazine blog. Don’t worry — we’re still planning on publishing a couple of high quality feature articles each month. But, we’ve been running across so much other great stringed instrument-related stuff out there on the internet. So, we’re going to use this space to highlight some of the more interesting pieces. If you have any comments or ideas you’d like to share, please don’t hesitate to contact us!