Simona Bonfiglioli and Pinchas Zukerman in asynchronous dialogue

The Violin Masterclass – Asynchronously

Canada has set us Finns a fine example in the building of the information society and the development of distance education. The promotion of telecommunications there has not, however, been left to the 'market forces'. Rather, Canada looks upon the promotion of the information society as an intrinsic value. A couple of years ago Pinchas Zukerman, the world famous violinist, prepared a masterclass in the violin to be conducted as a videoconference. The aim was for him to teach students in Israel and the occupied regions of Palestine. The political leaders of these states nevertheless wanted to step up their mutual hostilities and the project was cancelled at the last moment.

A masterclass as a video conference

The pioneering work done by Maarit Rajamäki in organising the Zukerman masterclasses is an inspiring example of good organisational skills. One especially interesting feature of this project set in motion in the late 1990s was the idea of the masterclass taught as a videoconference.

Olli-Pekka Heinonen, at that time Finland's Minister of Education, spotted the merits of Rajamäki's work and channelled a considerable sum of money to the development of this mode of teaching via the Sibelius Academy. The Minister expressed the hope that the Sibelius Academy would engage in partnership with ICL and two telecommunications companies: Nokia and the Helsinki Telephone Company. Maarit Rajamäki carried out her part of the bargain, but the administration of the masterclass project failed to achieve the hoped for results.

At no stage have there been any problems with the Canadians, however. My colleague Matti Ruippo read a paper at the ISME 2000 conference in Edmonton. While there, he decided to go and meet an acquaintance called John Spence working at the Communications Research Center (CRC) in Ottawa. Their talks were further enhanced by the arrival of a third party with experience of Finland: Pinchas Zukerman.

The MusicGrid distance teaching project

Thus began a partnership that looks set to continue for a long time to come. The International Centre of Chamber Music - Virtuosi, at Kuhmo and the Kuopio Department of the Sibelius Academy were approved as partners to the MusicGrid project. Their joint R&D has proceeded smoothly, together with John Spence and his colleague Martin Brooks at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). All have shared an interest in the teaching of music by means of videoconferencing.

Last spring the Särestö Academy founded by Maarit Rajamäki arranged for its summer camp to be held at the same time as the Canada's National Arts Centre's Young Artist Program (YAP), thus creating an excellent opportunity for working together. In addition to fencing and archery, the programme for the violin course held this time at the foot of Levi Fell in Lapland also included asynchronous masterclass teaching in the violin provided by Maestro Zukerman.

In June 2003 the author, assisted by Matti Ruippo and Timo Haverinen, organised a masterclass with the Särestö Academy as a network communication application. The solution was based on asynchronous, i.e. non-simultaneous communication. The method is a simple one: the student asked a musical question that was relayed via an Internet file transfer to Zukerman, who was teaching at the YAP camp. He then studied the material at a time that suited him best and recorded his comments for transmission to Finland.

The result was a sort of ping-pong teaching operating in both directions across the Atlantic. We soon found that the time difference was actually an advantage.

Matti Ruippo and the author had a chance to meet Pinchas Zukerman when he appeared with pianist Marc Neikrug in the Stars Series at the Kuopio Music Centre. Acting as their local manager on this occasion again was Maarit Rajamäki, Director of the Särestö Academy, who set up a joint breakfast conference for us. We thus had a chance to hear what our Canadian visitors had to say about the project.

Videoconference like talking on the phone

Pinchas Zukerman made it clear from the start that for him, there was nothing unusual about videoconferencing. "I teach from the same building as the one where Martin works. It's just a matter of going downstairs," he said.

"After that, distance is no longer an issue, but personality counts for all the more. The character of students varies a lot. Mexican students are shy. Finnish students are direct." Making contact depends a lot on the teacher's attitude: "Don't think about the computer, but about the human issue, i.e. the student at the other end."

Zukerman reckons that for the system to work, the student needs the assistance of a local tutor. "You have to have someone there that the students are comfortable with," he says, and by way of example nods in the direction of Patty Kopek, who has helped to run a number of masterclasses.

How can you teach the violin by video?

We contemplate the essence of asynchronous interchange. Pinchas Zukerman emphasises in many ways that the dialogue must be very direct, spontaneous, and sufficiently detailed. Cut out all the unnecessary formalities. A question on fingering might, for example, be: "Where do you start? Where do you end?"

The student should be instructed to be very specific in asking questions. As the Maestro jokingly said, "The question should be short, and the answer should be even shorter."

The same applies to playing. The students should avoid long quotations as most things can be observed immediately. Economy is what Zukerman aims at. If the student input were more focused, he could give feedback on more questions. He would be prepared to deal with half a dozen questions or even more.

The student practising new repertoire needs a capable tutor who knows how things should be done. Some students might be heavy-handed. This is where the visual dimension of the videoconference is useful. The clever teacher can show by example how to correct the quality of the sound, "But the feeling of sound cannot be done."

Pianist Marc Neikrug was most of the time listening to the discussion, giving us quick glances with his intelligent eyes. Now he made a clever point by saying that this problem has little to do with videoconferencing. Many people may even be in the same room and still they wouldn't experience the feeling of sound.

Or as Maestro Zukerman summarised: "You can show a way to get there, but that is as far as you can go."

Computer extends the human capabilities

Pinchas Zukerman has a clear vision in his mind's eye of how the recordings made during the video classes could be used. They could lead to a data bank of material on specific works. Study of the videoconference recordings should be an essential part of the curriculum, so that the students would realise the significance of the method.

As an example Zukerman took a Beethoven violin sonata. He suggested that the work be presented by using a menu of questions. The student knows at once exactly what to do. "Click on seventeen and listen to it." And the mouse click would lead to the archive of quotations.

The Maestro is highly critical in formulating the role of information and communication technology in the teaching of music. We asked if he had any ideas for ways of optimising the quality of the recorded material by such means as post-production. Zukerman shifted the perspective from development to enhancement. From the teacher's point of view, the computer is not a substitute; it is an enhancement. It allows us to go beyond the conventional teaching. "If we think of it as a substitute, we are ... going to get crippled. It is a way of extending human capabilities."

An hour later, the two busy artists were in a hurry to get to the airport. But before they went, I was able to extend an invitation to Kuhmo. I told them about the wonderful Kainuu scenery, the forest trails and fishing.

At this point Pinchas Zukerman turned to Marc Neikrug and said, "He is the fisherman. I do the eating."

violiste Pameal Frank en altviolist Michael Tree

February 10, 2011

As part of the Sphinx Competition last week in Detroit, participants had the opportunity to take masterclasses with members of the jury. On Saturday, two violists and a violinists played for violist Michael Tree, who is a professor at The Juilliard School and Curtis Institute and founding member of the Guarneri Quartet.

He spoke of the importance of being able to control one's vibrato.

"The test of a successful vibrato is that there are not gaps in the middle of notes," Tree said. "It should be even, from note to note, unless we decide otherwise." Discomfort, inconvenience or the presence of shift are not excuses to stop vibrating. "Senza," or no vibrato, can be a nice effect for a moody, distant quality, but it should be intentional. "If one fourth finger has no vibrato, suddenly, for no reason, that's hard to rationalize."

While vibrato should not be overdone in something like Bach, "I'd ask for a single drop of oil on each note."

Also, some words of wisdom on glissandi:

"Nothing is more beautiful than a glissando in the right place, at the right time, but if we surround that glissando with a lot of shifts (which we will call transportation) it gets predictable, and even boring," Tree said. In other words, if every shift has a slide, then none of the slides will be effective or special as used for musical expression.

He also advocated fingerings that use extensions, contractions and crawling up and down the fingerboard, to avoid overly-frequent and disruptive shifting. He demonstrated a four-octave arpeggio, on the viola, with not one shift.

"When you multiply a situation like this 100 or more times, it's a cleaner way of playing," he said. "These fingerings almost never appear in print -- they look odd on paper."

But he said "be very skeptical of what you see printed." Many times, printed fingerings are a reflection of 19th-century ways of playing -- they are old-fashioned.

In working on the Walton viola concerto with Michael, 19, of Philadelphia, he emphasized that "our responsibility as players is to present our listeners with a clear idea of the music where the bar line is," Tree said. Our own familiarity with the music can get in the way. "The poor listener is often left with no particular grasp of the structure or the bar lines. The listener deserves to know where the strong beats are. You can't be too cavalier about rhythm."

He showed Michael a substitution fingering for an octave passage, crawling down the fingerboard and using substitutions and extensions.

"Wow," said Michael.

"I'm getting away with murder, getting from here to her without a shift," Tree said. "I think there's something almost immoral about what I'm doing! But there is no point in working harder than we have to. I listen to maybe 50 Walton concertos a year. I can say I seldom find fingerings I would consider modern."

Itzhak Perlman

NEW YORK May 31, 2007-

Say something!

That was the message from violin great Itzhak Perlman, who lent his generous presence to Juilliard's Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies on Wednesday.

"You need to say something, express your feeling about the music," Perlman said. "The minute you express it, your audience will know it."

He described the technically perfect performance, that somehow leaves the listener feeling empty. That kind of performance can be redeemed when the performer plays those same notes with an idea in mind.

"The minute you concentrate on what you are going to do, you will do SOMETHING," he said.

Unfortunately, many of us fall into patterns in our playing, patterns that become so ingrained that we don't know we have become a slave to them. This is especially true when we are playing composed music and practicing it frequently.

"The danger in re-creating music is that it can become stagnant," Perlman said. This is especially true when one has to perform the same piece over and over again.

"Let's take a nightmare scenario that happened to me long ago," Perlman said, and with his characteristic deadpan, "back when I played fast notes."

"I had six performances of the Paganini concerto, right in a row. That's hell."

How can one get through it? Certainly one must not just resign to playing it passively, or just getting through with the attitude, "That's the way it goes," he said. "Music should always be evolving."

"I want to see if we can play something, and then paint it in different colors," Perlman said. He described the painter ("Was it Monet?") who painted many sunsets, all with different colors.

"That's what I need in music," he said. "I need sunsets at different times of the day," the different brushes, different shades of paint.

Perlman had brought 10 of his students to demonstrate his point, not telling them in advance what he'd be doing with them. At this point, he chose to have each of them play a short part of their current piece, then try to paint it in new colors.

He polled the students on their current pieces, and when he came to the Elgar Sonata, he polled the Symposium participants about their familiarity with the piece. Not too familiar! So he chose the student playing the Elgar.

"It's a nice piece," Perlman said, and waiting a beat, "for the player!"

The young man played, with much head shaking and bodily movement. Perlman asked, "Has it ever occurred to you to give it a different flavor?" Perlman suggested making it "more intense."

"In general?" asked the student.

"No, in-tense!" Perlman said, making his audience laugh once again.

The student decided more vibrato speed, more bow speed and more... rosin would help. He quickly left the room for a quick rosin-up.

When he entered with the newly rosined bow, Perlman roared, "Now you're going to hear intense like you've never heard before!"

He played again, with much the same sound but even more movement. "Any different?" Perlman said. "No? Well you LOOK different..."

"Do it again, don't move!" Perlman said.

He still moved.

"There is a thing you constantly do," Perlman said.

"Yeah, 'cause I like it," the young man answered.

"Yes, but you are trapped!" Perlman said. "I want you to be flexible in what you do."

"How do we get out of our musical jail?" Perlman asked the audience. "It doesn't mean that freedom is so great, but it means we can do more."

To a girl who played the first movement of the Franck Sonata, he said, "For us to say something, we have to react to the music."

In other words, we have to listen when we practice and perform. Perlman gave an example.

"I was practicing the Mendelssohn concerto, and I realized I've been slowing down the second theme. Why have I been doing that?" Perlman said. "I tried not slowing it down and I liked it."

"It only took me 40 years to realize that!" he laughed.

Another young man played the Beethoven Romance, not apparently fully aware of how much rubato he was taking.

"What would happen if you don't take time at all?" Perlman asked. Perlman had to wave his hand in front of his face to keep time, but when he played it rhythmically straight, it forced a different kind of color into several notes, sounding much better.

"When you do something right in music, it's contagious," Perlman said. It's like a chain reaction.

"Don't get used to playing it a certain way," he said. "Only get used to playing it. You did stuff that was new; you were not playing it as you practiced it. You were re-creating it."

To a girl playing a Vieuxtemps piece, he emphasized the need to experiment in the practice room. "If you don't experiment with other ways," he said, "you come to the concert and nothing else will occur to you than to play it the same way."

He asked a student playing the Devil's Trill to imagine she's performed it seven times, and "it's really beginning to bug you." Then for a final performance, she has to play it for the pianist's relative in a small village in Ohio, in a barn, for 30-40 people who love music. "How will you make it interesting for yourself?"

After she played, he said, "You should play in a barn more often!"

Another student played the quirky and rhythmically driven final movement of the Shostakovich. Without a melody to play with, what could she do to make it interesting?

"Try pretending that we can't hear you, that there is a glass wall here," he said, "And choreograph what you are playing."

She tried, and he said, "Now choreograph to THEM," pointing to us in the audience, "not to the floor, because the floor is not interested. You look at the floor only to dig a hole for yourself."

As she played, he came forward, pointing to the audience, trying to direct her playing to her audience.