55 - Best Practice Strategies according to Leopold Auer Part 1

0:03

Welcome to the Violin Podcast.

In today's episode and for the next 4 weeks we'll be talking about Leopold Hour, one of the most famous violin pedagogues ever.

And we're going to be discussing some really important elements about violin playing that he discusses in his book Violin Playing As I Teach It.

0:23

And we're going to be diving in real deep into the elements in the next 4 weeks.

So who is Leopold Hour?

Leopold Hour was a teacher from Hungary and he was actually a student of Yosef Yawking for a little bit of time between 1863 and 1865.

0:41

But the reason why we talked about Leopold Hour today is because he is the teacher of Yasha Heifetz.

And anyone who's a teacher of Yasha Heifetz must have some amazing knowledge on the art of violin playing.

And that's what we're here to discuss in this four part series with him.

0:59

And we're going to be going deep into all the details in these next four episodes.

So if you're not subscribed, make sure that you get the weekly episodes straight onto your mobile device or wherever you find podcasts.

So if you're stumbling across this video or this podcast, welcome.

1:17

I really appreciate you joining us today.

We're going to be talking about practice and how to practice efficiently according to Leopold Hour.

Now practice is a common topic in the world of classical musicians.

1:33

We're always told to practice, practice, practice.

Now many of you who are listening have an idea of how to practice, but you don't know how to get started or you are stuck in your practice.

As you are listening to this podcast, I hope in the next 4 episodes where we talk about the specific principles of Leopold Hour.

1:53

And we're not going to talk about everything in this book.

But I do realize that there are so, so much information in this book and I just wanted to point out specific things for my audience today.

So here we go, how to practice according to Leopold Hour.

2:09

So we're going to go bullet point by bullet point and explain each one individually.

So here we go, #1 self observation and without practicing with the awareness of what you're doing, he quotes.

It's worse than wasting your time.

2:26

He writes without with self observation to develop and perfect your falls.

And I actually want to read you a quote from the book that I I obtained for for this podcast and I'm just going to quote real quick in in the preface.

2:42

Yet the most essential factor, if the observance of these carefully formulated principles is to show any practical results, has hitherto been largely overlooked.

And this factor is the mental one.

By no means enough stress has ever been laid on the importance of mental work on the activity of the brain, which must control that of the fingers.

3:02

And yet, unless one is capable of hard mental labor and prolonged concentration, it is a waste of time to undertake the complicated task of mastering an instrument as difficult as the violin.

This is important because he writes that on the very first page in the introduction, right before, like he even gets into the details of actual violin playing.

3:26

I think it's absolutely important for every student, every violinist to have self observation while they're practicing and while they're performing.

Because in my experience, if I don't actively participate in the practice regimen then I go on autopilot an I don't have a good practice feeling when I leave the practice room.

3:50

And what ends up happening is because you feel so bad leaving the practice room, you are kind of forced to practice more later on in the day.

And that creates a more stressful environment because you may have a deadline to practice for and you just are kind of crunched on time and you didn't use your your practice time wisely.

4:09

Therefore you have to use more later on in the day and that creates more stress on your body and you you want to be efficient from the get go.

If you have a lot of self-awareness and self observation during the practice, you're going to find that your results will come faster to you.

4:28

That's what I always tell my students and patience is actually one of the most important things I teach in addition to self observation.

Because a lot of the things that I do as a violin teacher is to help the student teach themselves in the practice room to give them the necessary tools.

4:44

So if I'm not teaching them how to be aware of their mistakes or how to or how to find their mistakes, that could be really bad for them later down the line.

And that is why you have to have a good teacher to help you teach these, these tools, these skills on how to observe your mistakes.

5:06

So I want, I want to encourage you that if you're listening to this podcast, really try to dive deep into how you're practicing.

You'll notice that if you do this, you are going to have a more tired brain than you ever will because you are actively focusing on each element of your playing all at the same time.

5:24

And I think the violin playing, especially when you're practicing a new piece for the first time, that is a kinesthetic activity.

We have three different types of ways we learn the violin orally, visually, and the act of violin playing is a kinesthetic activity, so you are learning while doing it.

5:41

However, you are also applying visual and oral learning at the same time, which makes playing the violin so incredibly difficult to do well.

And when you are observing all these things, all three at the same time, you are going to be more effective in your practice.

5:56

And as a matter of fact, you'll be able to practice less and get more results down the line.

And in that same light with the solve observation.

The second bullet point that I want to point out is slow practice.

Now you may have heard this time and time again, but I emphasize the slow practice as a second bullet point versus the first bullet point, especially with Leopold Hour because he he talks about without the mental discipline, you cannot force yourself to practice slow.

6:25

You have to be disciplined to be able to practice slowly and observe your details, observe your faults, observe your strengths.

And he has some pretty wise information to give us when it comes to practice and slow practice, and I quote from his chapter.

6:46

I have had students, however, who, in spite of good intention, became the victims of a nervous agitation the moment they took up their violence and were wholly unable to resist the necessity of playing an exaggeratedly rapid tempo.

Such students were never born to become concert players.

7:03

So if you don't have the discipline to practice slowly, then you're not going to get the results from a high level artist.

And I say this time and time again with my students and it's all comes back to being patient with the process.

Some students might get it faster than others.

7:20

However, that doesn't mean that you cannot do it.

If you can practice slowly, you will achieve great results and just observing how you're practicing slowly.

I always recommend a metronome.

If you don't have a metronome in your in your tool kit, better get one because you are going to learn faster by actively learning the music slowly.

7:43

And also you're teaching your brain to send signals to your fingers, into your muscles, into your body and you're helping your brain memorize those movements.

It doesn't happen right away.

It's kind of like the story between the turtle and the hare.

7:59

We always know that the turtle always wins because the hare goes ahead and sleep.

Because he can do the now, he can do the race.

He feels like he's going to be fine.

The turtle is too slow, but the turtle always wins whenever I read that story.

8:14

And this is the same formula.

If you practice slowly, then you may start out slowly.

You're going to learn the piece a little slower.

However, you're going to retain more information because do it with the D addition of sleep, a good night's rest, and soul practice with consistent practicing on a day-to-day basis you will find really, really amazing results.

8:38

Another important factor that Leopold Hour does not mention in the book, but from my own personal experience is that if you practice fast, too quick, you're not going to get the notes right.

You'll you're practicing bad habits, but also you're going to plateau as a violin player.

8:54

So if you are learning something new and you are relying on your short term memory to learn the music, yes that may be good in the short while, but it's not going to benefit you in the long term.

And I'm of the of the of the mentality that you want to be able to play for a very long time, retain information for a very long time, help improve your memory so that way you can play more, perform more, and you won't have to relearn music if it ever pops up again.

9:23

So I'm of the idea if you practice something once, really, really, well, it may take a little longer up front, but at least you're going to have that really pay off later on down the road.

So those are two kind of mental ideas when it comes to practice.

9:40

According to Leopold Hour.

However, he does emphasize which is we're going to be going to bullet point #3 is the left hand shape and confirmation.

And he and I quote from his book, Fingers need to be active in order to retain their flexibility.

And I cannot agree more with that statement because if you are not actively practicing your Shradiak, if you're not actively practicing your scales, then if you feel like you can, you know, go paint something on a canvas without having some kind of structure to the painting, then the painting's not going to make any sense if you are in with the basics.

10:17

If you have everything dialed in with your technique, especially with your left hand, I recommend Sefchek or Shradiak.

I'll leave those books down in the description podcast notes below so that we can take a look at those books and it's really easy.

They look intimidating, but you know with each exercise they do get slightly more difficult.

10:36

But starting with the first stradiac, I really emphasize that with intonation, particularly with left hand fingertip placement, because if you don't have left hand fingertip placement correctly set up on your left hand, then it's going to be really difficult to get good intonation.

10:53

I can't tell you how many times I've had students who have inherited students who have had a very terribly set up left hand took me a year to two years to really fix.

Because just given that the kids scheduled, they're not dedicated to practicing hours and hours a day on their violin, you know, and I obviously don't suggest that.

11:16

However, it does take a little bit longer to reverse the process because you have to reverse everything that they've done and then you have to apply the new method, and that does take a long time.

It's easier with younger students, maybe below the age of 10, because they're still, you know, their brain is still absorbing more information and they're willing to to fix things.

11:38

However, once you get to an older age like early high school, mid high school, late high school, that is really difficult to change your technique.

So you want to be able to set your left hand up in a way where you are achieving maximum efficiency by having a firm placement on the Fingerboard but not really pressing down.

12:02

By pressing down on the Fingerboard, you're going to be really tensing up your left arm left wrist.

So I highly don't suggest that.

But another excellent way to increase flexibility and firmness with the fingers is through scales.

And I also leave a wonderful scale book that I like.

12:21

It's from Barbara Barber.

That's something that when I was growing up, I use that book.

Sometimes the Galamian and the Karl flush can seem really intimidating, but seems like this book has really connected with my students.

It's really approachable.

The font is nice, fingerings are almost identical to the Galamian skills, so everyone has a different school of thought in regards to that.

12:46

But I think just having a technique foundation will certainly help you achieve the results that you want because it all comes back to how disciplined you are with the first bullet point self observation.

If you're going through the Shradiak with, you know, just mindless practicing just to get it done, then that's not the point of it.

13:04

Another thing that I actually I forgot to mention in the previous bullet point, the slow practice.

The reason why teachers encourage students to practice slowly is not because of tempo.

Believe it or not, it's not tempo.

It's so that the student can listen more intently to their intonation and focus on little details like sound production, intonation, fingertip placement, posture, How am I feeling while I'm playing this?

13:31

Am I tense?

Is my shoulder tired?

Is my neck pressing down on the violin too much?

Those are other elements that you can apply with slow practice, but we're going back to the left hand in addition to the slow practice by practicing slowly with the left hand.

13:47

Ideally you want to have a straight left wrist and you want fingers curved over the Fingerboard so that way you have maximum flexibility and versatility on the left hand Fingerboard.

And often times when I encourage students to practice your stradiac, they come in the next week and their intonation on their piece improves twofold.

14:08

So if you're a teacher listening, I encourage you to at least try out the Stradiac.

Or if you're a student listening, or if you're Conservatory student, maybe this is the necessary boost or necessary step that you need to get back on track in the beginning of 2024.

14:24

Now I'm going to include a bonus tip with the with the practice, and this is often overlooked.

For the serious violinist, for the concert izing violinist, for the Conservatory violinist.

And that is to rest during practice hours.

14:43

You know, Leopold hours suggests that we play no more than 30 or 40 minutes at a time and then try to try to get some rest.

Now that actually is a little bit of a lower number than what I'm used to teaching usually.

I suggest for my serious students to practice 15 minutes and then rest 10 minutes.

15:03

Because I'm assuming that if you're taking kind of these micro breaks in between, you know, switching your scales, you know, scale book to like your concert piece and then you're you're switching your scale sheet to your Shardic.

So you're kind of like doing these micro breaks while you're in that one hour time frame and I also talk about that in my musicians practice guide, which I'll leave in the show notes below.

15:26

But if you are not resting, then you know you're not giving your muscles and your brain particularly a chance to recover and analyze the information from your practice.

That's where sleep.

Good sleep comes in.

15:41

Because if you don't have good sleep, your brain is actually processing all the information from the day.

And if you're not letting your brain have that opportunity to rest and repair itself, then it goes back to, you know, square one where you have to be self observant of your habits because a lot of your habits will actually creep outside of the practice room in your everyday life.

16:06

Now, a lot of you have rehearsals, schedules, homework assignments, as whatever the case may be, and you're a teacher, perhaps who wants to get into performing again.

And you just have to kind of be really strategic with how you are teaching your students and you're not emitting too much energy during the day for your evening rehearsals.

16:30

I've been there.

Trust me, it's not an easy thing to do because you may have a family, you may have kids, you may have other life things they need to take care of.

But you should prioritize rest and sleep because it's better to do that than to waste your time practicing 2 hours and just getting nothing done because you go from the plateau that I've mentioned earlier down to a decline.

16:56

So I hope these tips help you rethink practice according to Leopold Hour and what a what a wealth of knowledge he had.

Especially when you know when we're talking about Yasha Haifa's teacher.

I wanted to do the specific episode series to get you back on track if you have not been a good steward of your practice.

17:20

But I thought, I hope that this is the necessary motivation for you to get back on track.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Violin Podcast and the next week's episode.

We're going to be talking about tone production according to Leopold Hours.

So I really want you to stay connected with me on social media.

17:38

Hit the subscribe button if you're listening on YouTube, or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform of your choice if you're listening on Spotify, if you're listening on Apple Podcast, if you hit the like button, or if you give us a rating that helps the algorithm boost the listenership so that way it helps the podcast out.

17:57

If you're listening on Spotify.

If you're listening on Apple podcast, leave a rating.

Let me know what you think of the podcast and TuneIn next time for the next episode