Tense & Stiff

I’m taking violin classes, and I’m learning more from these lessons than just how to play the instrument.

Before the violin, I played the piano and the erhu. I was decent at them; I had a grasp of basic music theory and knew what to do. So, I dropped some of my cash on a fancy violin from Synwin in late January, with the intention of teaching myself the instrument. “This should be okay! With my background in my previous instruments, I should be able to pick up a third instrument with some proficiency by the third month!”

It was soon August, and I still sounded like a dying cat.

I bit the bullet and asked around for a teacher in August. My friend recommended a lady named Judy* (not her real name). She had been playing for over 2 decades, and was (is?) part of a symphony. She’s a cool person.

I felt nervous playing in front of another person, but I needed someone who can point out what and where I was going wrong. Our first lesson was with me demonstrating how I imitate the sound of a frog being sawed in half. She took one long pause, walked up to me (violin still hanging off my chin) and said, “Relax.”

“Okay.” I took a breath and stretched my muscles.

She shook her head and smiled. “No. You need to relax.”

I was confused. “Alright. I’m relaxing.”

Before I could say more, her hand grabbed my wrist, and she shoke it violently. “See?” She pointed out, “I can barely budge you.”

Her diagnosis: Tension and Stiffness.

The next month was basically a string of lessons of pointing out one big habit: I was substituting firmness with tension, and control with stiffness.

The violin is about balancing what to me were two paradoxical concepts: loosening for firmness. The bow and the strings are stretched tight during play, but that tautness belies an elasticity and flexibility that becomes apparent when you put the two things together: Music is created when the strings vibrate and wobble against the hairs of the bow, which itself is actually springy.

The Big Idea is this: control comes from being relaxed, and firmness comes from knowing when and where to apply the right amount of looseness and pressure. Too stiff, and you lose a lot of control. Too much pressure (i.e. tension), and you become less firm.

What I am getting from the lesson is that the body of the player must follow the same principle. Great players move, bend, and twist with the instrument. They must hold the violin such that it stays put, but isn’t locked into a particular point in space. It needs to move and respond to movement.

That is something I struggle with.

For our latest lesson, we did wrist exercises. I had two fingers on her wrists as she demonstrated how a relaxed wrist should feel like as it bent and moved; it felt like cloth. She then instructed me to feel my own wrists; they felt like cogs in a watch that clicked and cracked with each change in position and shape.

I wonder if this tension and stiffness of my body is an embodiment of my own attitudes and mindset. I am pretty notorious for being a stiff nerd. I take things very literally and seriously; everything is potentially the most important thing that will happen that day.

I guess when people say I’m intense, they were referring to something much different.

It’s funny, ’cause I always associated myself with being disciplined, and ordered, and in control. the lessons I’ve been taking are showing that I am anything but. Stiffness is not control. Tension is not firmness.

I have to learn how to be less tight, and have myself truly relaxing. I have to learn to take the violin as an extension of my body.

I have to learn to loosen up and relax, to be more in control and be firmer.