"Every player finds some phases of technic easy and others difficult.
For instance, I have never had to work hard for quality of tone--when I
wish to get certain color effects they come: I have no difficulty in
expressing my feelings, my emotions in tone. And in a technical way
_spiccato_ bowing, which many find so hard, has always been easy to me.
I have never had to work for it. Double-stops, on the contrary, cost me
hours of intensive work before I played them with ease and facility.
What did I practice? Scales in double-stops--they give color and variety
to tone. And I gave up a certain portion of my regular practice time to
passages from concertos and sonatas. There is wonderful work in
double-stops in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini _Études_, for
instance. With octaves and tenths I have never had any trouble: I have a
broad hand and a wide stretch, which accounts for it, I suppose.
"Then there are harmonics, flageolets--I, have never been able to
understand why they should be considered so difficult! They should not
be white, colorless; but call for just as much color as any other tones
(and any one who has heard Mischa Elman play harmonics knows that this
is no mere theory on his part). I never think of harmonics as
'harmonics,' but try to give them just as much expressive quality as the
notes of any other register. The mental attitude should influence their
production--too many violinists think of them only as incidental to
pyrotechnical display.
"And fingering? Fingering in general seems to me to be an individual
matter. A concert artist may use a certain fingering for a certain
passage which no pupil should use, and be entirely justified if he can
thus secure a certain effect.
"I do not--speaking out of my own experience--believe much in methods:
and never to the extent that they be allowed to kill the student's
individuality. A clear, clean tone should always be the ideal of his
striving. And to that end he must see that the up and down bows in a
passage like the following from the Bach sonata in A minor (and Mr.
Elman hastily jotted down the subjoined) are absolutely
[Illustration: Musical Notation]
even, and of the same length, played with the same strength and length
of bow, otherwise the notes are swallowed. In light _spiccato_ and
_staccato_ the detached notes should be played always with a single
stroke of the bow. Some players, strange to say, find _staccato_ notes
more difficult to play at a moderate tempo than fast. I believe it to be
altogether a matter of control--if proper control be there the tempo
makes no difference. Wieniawski, I have read, could only play his
_staccati_ at a high rate of speed. _Spiccato_ is generally held to be
more difficult than _staccato_; yet I myself find it easier.