Tackling those Walton sixths...

Patricia McCarty • March 2, 2018

Technical resources & practice strategies to strengthen your left hand

So many young violists are offering the first movement of the Walton Concerto for summer program and college auditions these days, and as a listener I evaluate the player’s ability to convey nuance in the melodies, execute expressive shifts, produce clear, strong tone in highest register of A string, deliver clean fast passagework, present tempo transitions, and play those sixths in tune with beautiful tone. Just as there is a minimum height requirement for youngsters to board certain rides at an amusement park, facility with long distance shifts and sixths should be a prerequisite for playing Walton. That said, the sixths in the first and third movements are challenging for nearly everyone, and there are some practice strategies with which to tackle them.


Before practicing the first movement Walton passage, add to your daily warm-up some sixths in A major on A-D strings, experimenting with new vs. same finger sixths in broken third patterns, parallel scales, and shifting. Make up short exercises which resemble fragments of the passage. If working on a shift, use the Dounis grace-note shifting exercise (Artist’s Technique of Violin Playing, Op. 12) to loosen your left hand.


If having trouble with either intonation or tone quality in this passage, keep revisiting your decisions about fingerings, where to shift and where to change the bow. Consider a mixture of sixths with new fingers (1-2, 2-3, 3-4) as well as with same fingers shifting (1-2 – 1-2, or 2-3 – 2-3). In many instances, same finger sixths will keep your left hand more relaxed and can be done either cleanly in a bow change or portato stroke, or slurred with occasional stylish subtle glides between the notes, a hallmark of British string music from this era.


Keep reinforcing a beautiful aural model by playing only the top voice, with the fingerings you would choose if this were not a double-stop passage, then return to the real fingerings, one voice at a time with the age-old practice technique for double-stops, fingering both notes but sounding only one, then switching to the other. Make sure that you know the lower voice just as well as the top one, and that you can hear the top and bottom voice lines in your head away from the viola, both individually and as double-stops. In all the practice techniques, always remember to keep a light touch in the left hand, and always use the same bowing and bow distribution you will ultimately be doing, so that anything in the left hand which needs to happen cleanly during the bow change will also be practiced in context. Follow up non-vibrato practice for intonation purity with addition of vibrato, and keep this vibrato small enough that the interval is still clearly in tune. Sometimes experimentation with the bow's amount, part, weight, and contact point will help clarify this passage -- make sure you are not "over-bowing" with too much or too fast a bow, especially during shifts.


Try the passage in many different practice tempi with various practice strategies:


1)very, very slowly with total awareness of the sixteenth-note rhythmic subdivision to perfectly time shifts and finger placements; do this with soft tremolo bowing to help lighten and time the left hand, gradually increasing tempo

2)too fast a tempo on purpose, to insure that your touch is light and your movements both unhesitating and accurate; do this in good rhythm with very short, firm placed spiccato stroke, using the silence between the notes to help left hand learn its placement in faster tempo. Follow this up with the real bowing, but with the bow stopping between the notes. Then gradually slow the tempo back to reality and reduce the bow’s stopping between notes until slurs are restored.


While the above practice strategies for this passage can help the player improve command of sixths, keep in mind that much like any athletic endeavor, experience with a consistent daily warm-up which addresses various double-stops is the path to develop the left hand’s accuracy, balance, strength and suppleness required for passages like this one as well as others in our 20th century repertoire.

How can I overcome nervousness at auditions and concerts?

By Patricia McCarty • January 9, 2018
At an audition or other anxiety-producing performance, you hope to be so intensely concentrating on creating your mind's aural image of the next few notes or musical gesture that any nervous anxiety about how well things will go, how past notes were played, or the outcome of the audition finds no place in your consciousness. Easier said than done by all of us, but there are ways to work towards this end. It would be helpful to know which aspects of your playing are most affected by nervousness - intonation, shifting, rhythmic stability, bow control, vibrato, musicianship - in order to give extra attention to supplemental work on these issues. It can sometimes help to focus on a technical issue which gives you confidence; Joseph Silverstein once said that when nervous in performance he would focus his attention on the sensation of the middle finger’s contact with the bow. Hanging on to delivering strong rhythmic control (especially if articulation is involved), listening to how your tone shapes phrases, and immersing yourself in the harmony can all help chase nervousness into the background. If, despite careful preparation, you have difficulty presenting your best work in the heat of the audition/performance, then perhaps you need to look for ways to simulate the concentration required when "this is the time that really counts." Your practice day should include warm-up, slow work on the passages incorporating all musical details, gradually working passages up to tempo while evaluating how it sounds, much consistent successful repetition up to tempo, and finally a real performance for a recording device of the whole piece up to tempo, without stopping, including all musical details, and without evaluating at the moment how it's going - just aiming to make the next few notes or gesture as you wish them to sound. Knowing that you will have to listen to and evaluate this later should make you concentrate more intensely than in normal practice. But ideally, you should approach all your practicing with “the time that really counts” concentration, even if just isolating a single detail in slow practice tempo. Listen to that recording; you can make one daily to hear consistency. Evaluate it as if it were someone else and compare it to your aural mental image of the most perfect performance imaginable. Next practice session focus on the things you wish to improve and record again. Keep recreating that aural image away from the viola in your head, and let that continuous train of thought lead you through your recorded "practice performances" of the material. Be aware of and make time for two kinds of practicing - one when you are able to evaluate how things are going, and the other kind in which the aural image of what you are about to play must keep going without any judgmental distraction. If you can practice spots and perform the whole from memory, it's a great concentration builder. At a professional orchestra audition candidates are not expected to perform from memory, but based on the players I have known, those who regularly perform solo repertoire in concert from memory tend to bring a more intense concentration and more consistent performance to orchestra audition material.