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Excellent

Such a pity that this wonderful insight is attracting so little attention. The book and videos have transformed my hand frame for the better. I find this lesson inspiring because if such a wee lassie can execute so beautifully, I have no excuse as a burly guy!

Matur suksma

Fantastic student alongside a legendary teacher. She is generating such a bold & beautiful sound with ease using the secure left hand frame technique and comfortable elbow position. A joy to watch. And bravo for the virtuosic introduction at the end. 👏👏

I find playing fifths strengthens the pinkie when practicing octaves. Octaves on A and E strings are possibly more unforgiving than fifths with intonation. Adam Beanstock.

This is wonderful and reminiscent of the works of piano pedagog Dorothy Taubman who taught the proper use of the body/arm/hand/fingers should never go against the anatomy. She also talked about the right contact point on the finger, the fleshy pad not tip. I wish as a young violinist I’d had the ‘Friendly’ approach to playing.

One of the best tutorials I’ve found. This method is helping to improve my playing a lot! When the left hand develops a better shape and flexibility everything else seems to fall in place more easily.

Folks - I'm a very humble self-taught adult starter - RUclips is my teacher. But I'm also analytical and recognise a good idea when I find it. And this is the single most helpful left-hand technique I've found over the years. The exercise where Charlie Jones plays a virtuoso passage in 5ths at full tempo is an eye-opener - you can clearly use this hand-frame for any challenge, not just for slow practice. And looking at videos of the masters with a fresh eye, you can see how they are using this principle as the Prof claims. Just watch their quiet elbows as they fly up and down the fingerboard. Even after the first day almost everything was feeling more easeful. Intonation across strings improves. Accuracy of shifting improves. Control of vibrato improves. Velocity improves. Basically the entire left hand becomes more relaxed and efficient. I'm really looking forward to the discoveries that will follow as I explore the exercises in the book in more depth. And that's for a player with *very* modest talents. For the brilliant young musicians the Prof is teaching, the benefits could be radical. I heartily urge you to approach this with a beginner's mind and give it a fair trial - it's a game-changer...

Ida Haendel !!

wonderful!

Thank you so much, Maestro

Really great lesson! Just got the book and this helps me understand the approach.

Now that's a beautiful setting for a video! :D

"... not only must you practise with rhythm, you must practise always with vibrato because there is no point to practise with a sound you can't use."

I agree Did I say I agree? Because I do

Brilliant technical method!! I was studying the Ciaconne, decided to apply the exercises shown here and with twenty minutes (and the first time doing a full 5ths scale) I could play much better the hard passages of fifths from the piece!

Thank you for posting this Master Class

somebody help me out here, im just starting when he says play in fifths, he means flaten your fingers out like youre going to hit two adjacent stings in the same spot, since they are tuned a fifth apart? and that flatening out makes you play with that flat pad of your finger rather than the tip whch puts everything in the right alinement for good vibrato? is that what we are talking about here?

Here is a real and true Master!

Genius idea! Great, you are a discoverer and help us so much! Thank you!!

Thank-you so much prof Friend. Your method is a very very good and important discovery for me. I'll practice it right away!!

Good point ,listen to your body in addition to the violin.

Rodney has excellent ideas for getting the left hand position right. I would recommend this to all the teachers who are still ruining young students by telling them to push their wrist out and playing on the tips of their first and second fingers. Stop teaching "techniques " that don't work!

A Love Music

Amazing help with everything from approach to practice to shaping the hand. Exactly what I was hoping to find on this subject. Going to order the book soon.

Very well explained theory and realistic! Thank you Royal College of Music

How wonderful!

Soooo anyone know the name of the piece played in the intro?

This is revelatory . texture apart from color . Texture in the bow and color in the hand . My teacher always thought highly of Stern . I saw Milstein as a child - remembe r nothing except that he closed the program with Pagianiana. How I cannot remeber what solos he played and what piano and violin music is funny because I remembe r complete programs from others Pollini , DeLarocha , Pogorelich in LosAngeles .Gary Graffman in Prokofiev no.1 ut I cant rememebr if Milstein played I think he may Mozart eminor sonata - why I think this I don't know . A Full recital and i only remember Paginiiana and not even did he do an encore ! Sad .

25:30 thats it!!

Thank you so much for this, Rodney. I wish I had known about it some 35/40 years ago. It would have saved me years of pain and frustration to work on my left hand (in special intonation). I have read and heard a few people talking about intonation on the violin/viola in ways which were not only illogical, but completely irrelevant for the instrument. Having just watched your fantastic class a few days ago I immediately went to my violin to work on the 5ths. The results were almost immediate. And not just marginal results, considerable results! Now I will transfer this work to the viola. By the way, I will never ever forget the work we did together at the RCM in the mid 90s, when I played Britten Lachrymae Op. 48a with you and the RCM String Ensemble. Thank you Professor, and God bless you.

So great to see this MC. There is real teaching going on here, instead of MC's featuring players playing already flawlessly.

this is deep

I am 92 and I play the viola. I have difficulty with my left hand off and on. After watching Rodney's in 5ths master class my left hand has improved considerably. Thank you Rodney.

He's such a good teacher. Those players are lucky...

Thank you for sharing! We wanted to let you know that we have added this video to one of our playlists on our RUclips channel. We also would love to invite you to join our online community: facebook.com/groups/globalstringsalliance

for me as a musician but non violinist it is always interesting to learn about the functions of other instruments. This teacher has really something to tell, no joking, concentrated information, like that should be a masterclass, not a comedy show with the student in the role of a jumping jack.

I didn’t expect it, but there is a surprising amount of Ling Lings in this comment section BUT, what I really wanted to say,... HOOLLYYYY FUUUUCK this was helpful

Nothing is at the link. How does one acquire the book? Amazon doesn't have it: "The Violin in 5ths Developing Intonation and Sound?"

Will definitely try this ... thank you Mr. Friend!!!

His left hand teaching is much like that of the late Kato Havas, loose giving wrist, soft touch vibrato but he really goes into detail.What is new about him is the teaching of the 5ths to form the hand and if the 5ths are in tune then you can‘t miss the octaves. I practiced this in some of the nasty parts of the Barber and low and behold it was suddenly all there. One of the best things he said was,“music is singing and dancing“ and rhythmic . Richt on. What I wonderful teacher

At 77 years of age this virus may kick me into touch at any time. But I trust Mr Friend to try an experiment for me. He has an enquiring mind , so I trust him . Just shift the foam pads to a new position under the jaw line where you can find a balance point to alter the violin tilt angle. The pads should be near the centre line and not spread across to restrict movement . Head up and slightly left for E changing towards head down for G .Keep the left elbow down and still .Then only use the bow arm in one plane (as much as possible ) Back to first lessons time. Open strings cleanly . Good luck . Sincerely .

Tilting the violin is a foreign land these days . To change back to that is like changing another person`s religion. Nigh-on-impossible .

I appreciate there are already three excellent presentations from Rodney Friend on this fascinating approach, but please, if you create another one, can we have a camera angle from over his shoulder so we can see exactly the angle his fingers make to the string and how much pad he's using? These are critical details which are really difficult to study in these recordings. Thankyou.

Hope you don`t mind the feedback . 2 schools of thought aimed at the same thing . I offer you any apology you feel is needed .

33.50 Oistrakh would tilt the violin by dropping his chin to play on G and raise his head and turn it slightly left for E. All the while having the elbow in the same position . Not every single time 100 % but mostly . -----You understand ? ---(Paul Tortelier used to say that ).

30.21 The arm (elbow ) has to be in a certain position for the particular string ----Because the Shoulder Rests restrict any chance of tilting the violin . Still photos do have serious drawbacks that can mislead players . Be suspicious of photos and photographers .

I know Hiroki from high school. He's fantastic!

29.21 Notice (about chinrest ) at the centre line of violin is between Rodney`s ear and jaw centre. His helper`s violin centre line is at the jaw centre. These centre mounted chinrests are all wrong . The triangle is out of position .

47.03 Elbow position. The elbow Can (Capital letter to emphasise ) remain in one position playing E and G if the violin is tilted .See Oistrakh in Tchaikovsky 3rd movement .Rapid E to G notes alternation with several changes in violin tilt.Also a bonus as it saves a lot of bow movement as well . Saves almost a foot bow novement each time the violin is tilted .