Recommended Reading

The first book I would recommend, which is an easy read and very informative, is The Inner Game of Music written by Barry Green and W.Timothy Gallwey.

Barry Green is a very accomplished double bass player, and so being a string player his comments can be easily related to. As a young performer I became aware that, during my solos, there would be conversations in my head like "...uh oh... here comes the hard bit... here it is... right... oh God well that didn’t go too well did it?! - I knew I should have practised that day 2 weeks ago when I decided to go out for a curry instead...!" I also noticed my negative attitude during lessons. As soon as my teacher said, "do this" - my immediate reaction, before even putting the violin to my chin, was "I CAN'T DO IT" and so therefore, inevitably, I couldn’t.

One time I was rehearsing a duet piece with my violin partner. We were going over one particular passage, and I was starting to feel very stressed as my partner kept saying to me "NO! PLAY IT LIKE THIS” and would then do a demonstration of what he wanted. But every time I played the passage, the more stressed and emotional I became the more my playing worsened.

After playing the passage for the nth time, my violin partner was starting to become quite stroppy with me, but having run out of emotion myself, I just thought well I'll play the passage again just for the sake of it, I don’t really care any more. I played. What came out surprised me so much that I almost dropped my violin! It was played beautifully, 3 times better than how my violin partner had played it. I couldn’t believe I had it in me! He just stood there mouth open and speechless!! 

After that I soon came to realise that if I just relaxed, and believed in myself, difficult musical passages that I had practised so hard on became the most natural and easy thing to play. Realising what effect confidence had on my playing, I did a little research and found this book. It is something I still read to this day. You can practice "The Inner Game" on almost every aspect of your life.

The second book I have discovered is Healthy Practice for Musicians by Elizabeth Andrews. I cannot stress enough the importance of good technique for string players. And that also, a technique that may suit one person may not suit another. That is because we are all different - something I have learned the hard way. I had suffered from an injury for many years from being taught a way of playing that was wrong for me. Elizabeth Andrews was a viola player, and so she "gets it" more than most. I met her once, and she immediately knew that I was a string player by the shape of my skull and the way I was holding my head!!! Amazing!