The Violin's Voice

In my first lesson with the Norwegian violin teacher Alf Richard Kraggerud, I was an ambitious 15 year old at a summer camp in the middle of the Swiss Alps, and I had been playing the violin already for 12 years. After listening to me play, Alf Richard said, "Do you know what you're missing? Both of us know that if you entered the Tchaikovsky Competition right now, you'd get kicked out in the first round. Do you know exactly why that is, what it is that you don't have?" I stared at him and mumbled "intonation...? articulation...?" while he shook his head and beamed at me. "No. It's colour. You are a painter, with all the colours in the rainbow, but you only use the colour red." And then, while the towering and majestic Alps loomed over us through the tall windows in that classroom, he led me into the beginning of a new journey, of learning how to "paint."

When we play a melody on the violin, there is so much to concentrate on-- clarity, intonation, volume, rhythm, good posture, straight bow, articulation, etc etc. that we often forget some of the most important things essential to playing a musical instrument: Listening, Expressing, and especially in the case of the violin: Singing. We forget that the very reason why an actor in a Shakespeare play is so compelling is because of the way he uses his voice for each sentence, each word-- how he whispers one word and yells out another. There are colours in his voice, which guide us through all the points and nuances of his expression.

I believe that it's an unfortunate mistake for a violin student not to be introduced into this world of music simultaneously with the world of violin. Music is a form of art, of expression, after all, and without understanding this to the fullest, all the scales and exercises in the world can be of no use. That summer, I listened to Alf Richard's own Norwegian students, all of whom were younger than me, and all of whom truly sang through their instrument-- as if the violin was their own voice, unique with all its different shades and timbres. Two years later I found myself in Norway studying alongside those students. And today, I find myself wanting to share my journey, and give to others what this teacher once gave to me.