I use the metronome with extremely slow tempi and each passage is only a line or two. I practice them a minimum of ten or more times each while adding to the old previous line. Then I do the same kind of practicing but backwards. Also, I analyze the entire piece from a music theory perspective. While analyzing it, I write the entire composition out by hand.
i think this series is one of the beat things that happened in this situation. Thank you and keep doing this👏🏼. Would like you to talk a bit more on your violin, shoulder wrest, chin wrest,...
It is very helpful that you're sharing your thinking process. Knowing what a highly talented and skilled musician is thinking while performing can help others avoid following fruitless paths. Thanks
Excellent! Playing passages (or even an entire piece) on the piano is key. You happen to have piano technique. For those of us who don't it is even better, since we are forced to play every thing very slowly and really "taste" every note and harmony. Brilliant point about doing it with the opposite hand. Thank you!
I'm a jazz guitar player and that was really helpful! Thanks. You're clearly an excellent teacher. Maybe a weird request, but I would be interested in hearing you work on interpreting a vocal melody (lately I'm in love with Nessun Dorma) on the violin and talking about how you transfer that to your instrument and get a vocal sound. Just a thought.
Super interesting, as always. And I’m stunned at how many forms of memory exist… also in how many different states of mind we can find ourselves. Thanks for sharing those tips with us, Augustin 🙏☺️
Thanks for all of your videos. My teacher taught me that there are three types of music memory 1) muscle 2) auditory 3) visual, seeing the page in your head
So great, all your videos... marvelous! And the advices, and all your being: so natural , simple and so mature in the same time: simply absolute perfect 😀🙃🙂👌 !
Hi Augustin, Thank you so much for all your educational contents. It's such a valuable resource for so many string players. I hope you might have time in the near future to make a "Ask Augustin" video regarding sounding point. There might be other opinions about this but: I personally feel and hear that you never force the sound out of the instrument. That the sounds has always a ringing quality, but also doesn't lack in volume or intensity. Is this something you specifically worked on or decided to incorporate in your playing. Anyway, I just love your music making. Herzlich Grüße
Hello Augustin, I'm enjoying both your performances on RU-vid and the “Ask Augustin” series. So thank you for creating these videos. Relating to memorization, do you find it helpful to write down from memory selected passages of a composition you're learning? I've tried doing that a few times, and it's been very hard. Thank you, JS
An interesting point is that in many types of music, no sheet music is ever used - memorization is not seen as an issue at all. For classical musicians, the 'music' can actually get in the way of the music, but that would not happen to a jazz, folk or country musician as they learn the music in a completely different way. For musicians from India or Africa, it is non-issue, and they play extremely long and complicated pieces lasting for hours.
Here is an interesting podcast that explains how memorization works from a neuroscientific point of view. In this approach, playing a violin piece on the piano helps strengthening the retrieval of a piece from long-term memory (just as Augustin explains in the video): bulletproofmusician.com/molly-gebrian-on-efficient-effective-and-reliable-memorization-strategies-for-musicians/
My teacher recommended playing the piece through in your head, no instrument. If you can't visualize a certain part then you don't know it. It's really hard!
How do you approach the preparation of a piece in the repertoire that you didn't play for a while to be ready for next concert? It is not like the study of something new, but it is not even just a matter of playing it all along…
For solid memory I tried one method and it work well. Memorize strictly measure by measure. If you can memorize one measure and the very first measure, you can master entire music. Another word, every measure becomes the very first measure. I got this hint from Heifetz when I was his student .
As well as playing g the m elody with the right hand on the piano as A suggests I wonder if playing left handed would work ? Very slowly!(and not forgetting the strings swap about!) because would not that also refresh the stri g crossing side of the brain too?
To me, a memory slip feels like a wave of adrenaline sweeping away the focus spotlight that observes the music while playing. Is there a way to train keeping the focus in place even under adrenaline, or does this maybe happen automatically with experience? Knowing a piece consciously and by muscle memory gives it more robust repesentation in mind and body. However, wouldn't keeping the focus in place during an adrenaline storm also address the root cause? Is this even possible (and how)?
you are right that staying focused is the key. The problem is, what if you suddenly have the thought "what comes next"? And you have no idea what notes come next? Your mind draws a total blank. Suddenly, your fingers won't remember either, because muscle memory only works when we're not thinking about it. That is a true memory slip, with no way to recover- it can happen with a piece you've played a lot! The only thing to do is stop, look in the music and restart. It has happened even to some great musicians and virtuosos. conscious memory prevents this- you can be totally in the moment, and think of what is coming up - in other words totally focused, undistracted-- without the risk you might not know what comes next. And if you do end up having a slip someday, it will make it easy to recover - so that even if you play some wrong notes, you'll get back on track and keep going because you know exactly where you are in the structure of the piece, you know the orchestral lines, you have a sort of grid to help you remember. If you can recover very fast, then the audience will quickly forget it even happened.
@@AugustinHadelichViolin OK, so the takeaway is to train staying focused on the one hand and on the other hand develop the tools like conscious knowledge of the piece to recover before major damage happens (my brain likes to shoot questions at me like "wouldn't this fingering be great, too?" and "oh look, a motif!! in orchestra performances to mess with my playing). I tried to play my current Bach piece with the right hand on the piano. Interestingly, while playing it was possible to ask the left hand for the next note when I was a bit stuck. So access to muscle memory seemed to be possible while not playing with the left hand (but I understand that this is not the point of the exercise). Halfways through I go really stuck and went back to the sheet music. This method seems connected to watching out for surprises when practising: Whenever I'm surprised while playing there is something to analyze that is not working well: hesitation how to continue with the next notes, crunchy sound, weird bow balance etc. For me it is more productive to watch out for surprises than for errors, because surprises can be observed with distance and are an almost physical sensation whereas errors are always connected with (moral) judgement which doesn't help me fixing problems. Thank you for taking the time to answer.
I love it when playing fast pieces memorized that have similar but a bunch of parts, when you have a brain fart, and go to the wrong part. Especially with an orchestra playing behind you, and a bunch of people watching. Heh Heh ... I did that once, and had to call a "do over" it was quite funny and natural the way it happened. I said "in life, you don't get do over's, but in music sometimes you do ... and went back to where we left off with the orchestra pretty quick, and everyone had a laugh ... what do you do?!!!
Augustin, I first heard your playing at the Queen Elizabeth competition and recently got to hear you live at the PSO 360 concert. I love your artistic sensitivity! If you get the chance, would you kindly check out my piece "Heavenward: Meditation for Solo Violin" on my channel? Thanks for these videos!
Dear Augustin, first of all, I would like to thank you to post this valuable series of videos. I would to know if your emotional state influence your practise and, if is that the case, how you manage it,. Big hugs from Portugal
I think it's a little bit absurd that soloists are the only ones that can't have sheet music. I mean it's 2020 we have technology put monitor on the floor or something.
No. You need to know that piece of music inside and out in order to have a fantastic performance where u can offer something very special to the audience and connect. How easy is to just stare at the sheet and play the notes. The only time u should have notes in front of you is when u need to read and understand a piece of music. I Never have a sheet of music in front of me when I practice. I want to feel everything thing I do. I want that experience Everytime.
Dear Augustin your Tutorial ist perfekt from the Pianochair if you you want wenn can play Bachs Doppelconcert in Weilburg Schloßkirche after corona your Tip with the Rest between zwo books very good Greetings Stefan Germany violin viola
Working backwards is genius, because you are playing towards something more familiar? Mind memory is conscious, muscle memory is subconscious. We need both?
