The Inner Violin

By Dominique Hoppenot

The Inner Violin is a guide to the mastery of violin technique and offers a path to the authenticity that all artists strive for. Hoppenot was the first to observe what she called le mal du violon (the violin disease). Very early on she understood that this problematic rapport with the instrument was a common condition of musicians who associate the violin with physical pain, anxiety, and frustration. This book demonstrates with acute clarity the connection between body and mind when playing the violin and interpreting music.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781622777976

Book preview

9781622777976_cover.jpgThe Inner Violin: Le violon intérieur, by Dominque Hoppenot. Translated by Anne Squire. Illustrations by Adrien Fossa.

The Inner Violin

Le violon intérieur

Dominique Hoppenot, trans. Anne Squire

Layout and Design Martha Chlipala

Cover art: Violin and Guitar (1913) by Juan Gris. Public domain.

G-10880

eISBN: 978-1-62277-797-6

Print ISBN: 978-1-62277-733-4

Copyright © 1981 by Editions Van de Velde, Paris (France)

All rights reserved.

GIA Publications, Inc. logo

English translation Copyright © 2023 GIA Publications, Inc.

7404 South Mason Avenue, Chicago, IL 60638

www.giamusic.com

Published and distributed by GIA Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Dedication

For Guillaume, with my gratitude.

A finger points toward the moon.

Pity upon those who contemplate only the finger.

—Buddhist proverb

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Le mal du violon 9

Chapter 2 Another Approach 17

Chapter 3 Aligning the Body 29

Chapter 4 How Not to Hold Instruments 43

Chapter 5 Sensation / Body Awareness 65

Chapter 6 The Language of Gesture 79

Chapter 7 Tone at the Heart of Technique 107

Chapter 8 Intonation Within 127

Chapter 9 Rhythm and the Instrument 137

Chapter 10 Tonicity and Relaxation 149

Chapter 11 The Influence of Breathing 157

Chapter 12 Concentration 165

Chapter 13 The Interpreter and Musical Expression 171

Chapter 14 Another Student, Another Teacher 191

Chapter 15 What Is the Meaning of Practice? 209

Chapter 16 About Stage Fright 225

Chapter 17 Children 231

As an Epilogue 243

About the Author 245

About the Translator 247

Chapter 1

Le mal du violon

After more than twenty years of teaching the violin, I have compiled observations that have never ceased to intrigue me. These observations could in and of themselves form a kind of white paper on the suffering of violinists.

Upon my first contact with musicians who come to seek my advice, I all too often detect signs of pain—more or less discreetly concealed, which I attribute to what I call "le mal du violon." For many of these musicians, the violin is synonymous with agony. This is not too strong a term. They unconsciously develop a sad, painful relationship with their instrument that intensifies over years of studying and that gradually enslaves them. Their unhappiness manifests itself in different ways: frustration over their inability to achieve musical expression or to solve a technical problem (let alone put it into words) and acute anxiety when performing. And let’s not forget all the fears: the fear of playing, the fear of failure and the deep-seated fear of a teacher’s irrevocable judgment. Finally, these troubled musicians harbor the illusion that they alone are failing while all their peers are managing so well.

I experience this suffering more directly—I should say I hear it—when a musician picks up his violin or viola in an attempt to show me the nature of his difficulties. His sound is weak—devoid of authentic resonance and sincere expression—and his agitated body is contorted—marked by a lack of physical balance that is all too visible, sometimes blindingly obvious. This alone would explain most of the problems he complains about. There is, moreover, no sign at all of pleasure in his playing. His excessive tension and anxiety prevent him from attending to his sound and realizing the line of his musical ideas. Focused exclusively on isolated issues such as an overly tight vibrato, a weak "détaché" or various physical tensions, he is convinced that everything else is fine. But I detect a much deeper malaise, which I believe to be the source of all his problems, whether or not he is conscious of this. He is ill at ease with the instrument, with the music, and last but not least, with himself.

Who are these unfulfilled musicians? Some of them have racked up years of professional playing—and disappointments. Before the passage of time deprives them of any hope for improvement, they wish to take leave of their habits and their passivity. They consider entering another competition or working on their own to improve so that playing music brings them greater personal pleasure. Other, younger musicians—after the period of letdown and emptiness that often follows the final diploma and the coveted prize—are at a loss when they can no longer find any motivation to practice without a goal and a deadline. They are seeking courage and a reason to take up their instrument again. Still others, bitter and disappointed to have so narrowly missed their entrance (to the Paris Conservatory, it goes without saying!), and feeling deeply devalued by this rejection, are looking for an alternative path to a professional career. What other options do they have after so many years of specialized practice? Finally, others realize that they have reached a plateau, that they are no longer progressing within the institution where they have been so brilliantly accepted and thus are trying to get out as fast as they can (with a prize of course!).

Whatever their histories, many of these highly accomplished young instrumentalists do stop making an effort and progressing, once the goal has been reached. Sometimes they even regress far below their capabilities. Regretful and somewhat bewildered, they claim that they are no longer what they used to be.

When a student’s only focus is on the prize, he will live with the memory either of that blessed moment or of his failure. If he has not evolved and lived for the love of music and the instrument and has failed to develop his musicianship accordingly, he has no sense of reality. He is at a loss because he doesn’t know who he really is or the nature of his dreams and he is not even aware of what it takes to play his instrument. All kinds of questions arise in his mind: Does he even love music? What role does music play in his life? I know how to answer these questions when I am dealing with passionate musicians, be they professional or not. But all too often, with would-be professionals, I am dismayed by how all their years of practice—joyless and devoid of imagination—have eroded love.

If, since childhood, one has seen the value of practicing correlated solely to evaluations or competitions, without the slightest notion of pleasure and well-being in making music, then one ceases to be invested. One stops growing. "Le mal du violon" dwells in this absurd contradiction. Can music for its interpreter be anything but a means of expression? For an artist to truly express himself, knowing a piece inside out for the fleeting moment of a single performance is not enough. The musician must exist within the piece, he must have something to say and the ability to say it. From this perspective, he has the duty to cultivate the freedom to be himself; he must feel a strong desire to play with a creative courage that brings out his own understanding of the musical text. Above all, he must have a true connection with his feelings. Such qualities will blossom only with an absolutely solid and reliable instrumental technique, refined to the highest degree. But never should technical virtuosity be seen as an end and not a means. It should not pervert or stop the development of the artist-to-be. Every day, I witness the suffering of musicians who have reached a cut-off in their development.

While many violinists experience this "mal du violon" as individuals, it also has repercussions for future generations who need to be spared similar suffering. A number of questions come to mind:

Is it normal that so-called professional musicians feel great anxiety when they have to perform the tiniest little solo or when, for a competition, they have to play a piece they have practiced over and over since the age of sixteen?

Should orchestras, in such desperate need of good violinists, be forced to turn their recruiting to foreign countries, when the number of young musicians finishing their studies in France is adequate to assure a high-level selection?

Is it acceptable that a violinist with twenty years of studies under his belt should still be worried about the successful execution of a sautillé, a staccato, or long steady bows?

Is it inherent in the profession to have to practice for hours on end with back pain and paralyzing contractions so acute and chronic that regular recourse to osteopaths or acupuncturists is needed?

Is it just the diabolical difficulty of the instrument that explains why so many musicians settle for mediocrity or end up abandoning the violin altogether? Does this fabled difficulty justify outcomes that fall far short of the extraordinary effort invested?

How is it that the violin, a wonderful medium for exploration and discovery, has become the vehicle for gradual deterioration experienced as failure? Doesn’t this add up to a profound "mal du violon"? And what can we do about it, if anything?

I can answer these questions with my own story, which is similar to that of many musicians. My story goes back to the rebellions of my youth, when questions like those above either remained unanswered or were answered unreliably. Luckily I withheld the submission often expected of a young student. This dissent set the direction for all my future research.

I did not accept that after hours of practicing, I still couldn’t find lasting solutions to technical problems and never understood why.

I did not accept that year after year, the same difficulties recurred, evoking the same observations from my teachers, who could not come up with even the beginning of a logical solution.

I also did not accept the myth that one’s physical makeup defines one’s destiny. When I came up against such seemingly insurmountable obstacles as my small hand or my thin fingers, my teachers invoked the myth according to which double-stop tenths and a warm vibrato were definitively impossible for me.

I did not accept, any more easily, recommendations that focused on external factors and ignored the root causes of my problems. I found them contradictory, incompatible with each other and therefore useless. This advice served only to undermine my confidence and to reinforce doubts that I didn’t yet know how to formulate.

Still less did I accept that constant pain in my back, my neck and my arms was the unavoidable price of my labor. This price-you-must-pay message had suspicious moralistic connotations that appalled me. And yet I remained in pain.

I kept my doubts to myself and rarely spoke of them; the inviolable distance that then separated Master and Pupil partially accounts for this. But I kept my resistance in reserve.

My secret rebelliousness had no immediate positive results, but it did keep me from considering my weaknesses—my stiff wrist, my nervous vibrato—as incurable. It also led me to reflect on the principles of teaching. Fortunately, I sensed, though I scarcely dared admit it to myself, that I had both abilities and a strong desire for self-expression. I sometimes felt fleeting moments of pleasure that confirmed my intuitions. A certain innate optimism always nurtured my belief that a little patch of blue in a cloudy sky is a sign of hope.

When I began to gain confidence in my powers of discernment, my need to see things clearly, to understand could no longer be denied. I then had several decisive encounters that opened my eyes and allowed me to work at once on my inner self and on my physical equilibrium. In light of this work, I began to reexamine the instrumental technique of the violin. Even before I could explore all of its facets, I realized that everything fit together logically and that I was finding my way to an inexhaustible source of knowledge.

From discovery to discovery with all the challenges and questions that came along the way, my life became a passionate adventure that has not ended yet. A quest that started within myself has continued with and through my students. The revolution that took place in my way of thinking about the violin and music—and henceforth my life in general—has brought me unequaled joys: the joy of an integrated body, the joy of a discerning mind, and the joy of recovering the harmony between body and mind. This new way of thinking was such a genuine response to the intuitions of my youth, and to the questions I was asking then, that I, in turn, felt the need to give answers to violinists who were also seekers. I welcomed those with minds free of prejudice, who were, as I had been, in search of a musical life free of the ever-present problems posed by the violin, free of the continuous fight against the instrument.

This was the starting point of my pedagogical itinerary, and of this book. What you have before you is in no way a theoretical account of a set of biases but the fruit of a long love story. My contribution in writing this book, for the most part, has been to open myself up, to make myself fully available to my students’ experience and to let this experience take a central place in my thinking. I listened, I observed, I was present. Through our exchanges, I did everything in my power to shed light on their problems. Deep within my soul, and with all the insight I was able to muster, I studied and investigated the nature of their struggles, totally engaged in the quest. I slowly realized that I was actually investigating one dimension of self-realization: to be or not to be able to express oneself. I certainly have not construed a science of the violin as a purely intellectual matter, like a detached onlooker. Rather, as a deeply invested participant-observer, I have lived the experience every single day.

I am very much indebted to each and every one of my students. This includes the most rebellious and the most awkward because by them I was greatly challenged. Thanks to them, I had to search and keep searching, and they allowed me to move forward. But I owe the most to the more seasoned students who pushed their experience—or should I say our common experience—far enough to reach not just technical accomplishment but also an indisputable artistic dimension. Their sensitivity, matched with high musical ideals, provided a particularly fascinating territory to explore. The richness of our exchanges inspired me and forms the basis of my analyses.

This book—which in a sense they have co-authored insofar as they nourished my own experience—can be described as a compilation of the conclusions we experienced together, rather than a set of principles rubber-stamped by that experience.

The Inner Violin is neither a method nor a set of recipes, and the details I give stem from my desire to be clear, especially in the chapters about holding the instrument and the dialectic of movement. None of this should be seen as a how-to manual.

Just as we cannot conceive of a course of study that focuses on one isolated problem without invoking others, let’s not forget while reading one particular chapter that all problems are connected. A single chapter, no matter how coherent it may be in itself, inevitably remains a cutout of one whole reality. For example, it is impossible to conceive of the idea of concentration without the idea of sensation; sound or breathing could be chapter headings, but it is impossible to talk about either without the concept of the body in balance. In a way, each problem contains all the others. None can be understood in isolation. The order of chapters in this book is only one of many possible sequences, but the idea of an itinerary, of a continuous thread, is absolutely essential. While non-string players may skip the chapters on holding the instrument and the dialectic of movement, which deal with specific violinistic issues, reflections offered in other chapters will be of common concern to all musicians.

In writing this book, I do not intend to provide an exhaustive view of the problems posed by the violin. I know the reality of teaching too well to imagine that one can learn how to play the violin from a book. What is dynamic and constantly new in live teaching can easily become dogmatic when it is fixed in writing. The danger lies in approaching the material only intellectually; whereas living the experience is what really counts. My purpose is rather to open a debate, and in doing so, contribute to the understanding of a situation that has often become calcified or imprisoned by obsolete principles—all for lack of reflection. Only then—if many musicians and teachers are convinced that violin instruction can evolve—is there hope that the violin will be other than the difficult and tyrannical instrument we fight against. Only then will it become an authentic way of fulfillment that will allow the realization of our inner selves and the resonance of our inner vibrations.

Chapter 2

Another Approach

Musicians approach the violin according to their own personalities, their pasts and their aspirations. Thus there are no two identical ways of approaching the instrument. We will set aside the very rare musical genius, who takes up the violin out of a spontaneous passion and develops inevitably as a prodigious talent, to produce Art, with a capital A. Such musicians are fully invested in their exacting quest. They search, make sacrifices and push ahead through the darkness; they never get discouraged or cease to strive, and they never stop trying to attain the unattainable. They find paths that take them where they want to go, triumphing over errors, avoiding pitfalls and ignoring flattery. They are driven by an inner compass which invariably leads them to their star. But these individuals are exceptions that a teacher might not encounter in a lifetime. Their approach to the violin stands outside the norm as a law unto itself, and is not the subject of this chapter.

In the context of everyday life, the most common approach to the violin could be described as unconscious. By unconscious I do not mean that it originates from the depths of our subconscious, rather that it is superficial, haphazard and purely instinctive.

We all know the kind of impulsive and extroverted violinists who play for the sake of playing without any reflection or questioning. They are in shape or not in shape; that is the extent of their barometer for self-assessment. When they practice—which is rare—they play along happily and then tirelessly repeat the difficult sections (never the melodies, that’s too easy!) until it gets better. Obviously, by dint of repeating something over and over, they do improve a bit.

That an ordered structure of ideas might govern their craft is inconceivable to them. They play, for better or worse, by instinct (to use their own word), but in the end, it all boils down to being in shape, or on or having a good day. Generally relaxed and indeed happy with themselves, they do not experience the slightest pain other than being on or off—hence some bitter disappointments!

Such an approach can be deceptive when these musicians are particularly gifted with natural dexterity and possess an innate gift for imitation. They have a hard time accepting that the practice of the instrument is governed by rules and a process. They rely on their talent, going so far as to believe that any conscious process would be an obstacle to their creativity. Since they have no inclination to incorporate the science of the instrument in their playing and trust only their instinctive know-how, they are actually not far from the truth. The slightest infusion of awareness agitates and destabilizes them. It is in a state of unawareness that they manage best, entrusting their playing to God alone.

If, for some mysterious reasons, these same musicians can at times understand a piece of music intuitively and play it in a convincing manner, then for reasons equally obscure, inspiration often eludes them. They are not in shape, to use this famous expression again. Left to their own devices, they lack an effective technique. They do not know what they are doing and are incapable of getting access to the feelings that guided them in their luckier on days. What wouldn’t they give then to have God on their side!

There is also what I call the conscientious approach to the violin. Conscientious violinists are perfectionists, more cerebral and perceptive than the first group, but they are less confident and less apt to go for it. Conscientiousness is another variation of the unconscious approach but one characterized by a certain carefulness, attention to detail, concern with faithfulness to the text and an attempt to be objective in their work. All of these