How To Practice Like the GREATEST VIOLIST of All Time
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2022
- People always say to practice (like TwoSet Violin!) but have you ever wondered how to make that practice more efficient? For this, we reference the true legend of viola: William Primrose. His playing speaks for itself (listen to his recordings if you don't believe me), but I stumbled across his specific ideas about practicing in his written interview book called "Playing the Viola" (written out by his student David Dalton). In this video, I test how effective his advice is by practicing the Michael White Viola Concerto with his methods.
What do you think of how Primrose practiced? Are you going to consider trying any of these methods?
Note: be careful with the 60x method, especially when practicing anything above 5th position. Taking breaks is an excellent idea (endorsed by Primrose in his book), and always make sure your hands are not tense! 
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My viola teacher, an award winner from Ukraine, advised alternating playing tough spots slow and fast, so as to address both accuracy and agility.
They certainly need both kinds of work and it also depends on what stage you’re at. Alternating is a good ratio, but you can adjust from there based on your own needs. For me, I would play some spots slowly as needed, although it was probably about 1/5 as frequent as playing it at tempo in this method
I once had a tricky passage with double stop shifts, and decided to practice those 8 bars 200 times in a row. It is now so engrained in my mind I can still play it perfectly years later. Can definitely recommend
For those who find the number 60 intimidating, try counting it as 10 sets of 6 repetitions, or 6 sets of 10. Take a short break between sets to just look at the passage and go over it in your mind. Then do the next set.
For wind players such as myself, 60 repetitions will be deadly unless your embouchure is already built up like a powerlifter's biceps. I recommend doing one set playing followed by a set just blowing and fingering (no real sound) and alternate those until your chops can handle playing the whole thing. (It could be weeks or longer before you can play that much at a time. Don't push it and hurt yourself.)
Also good advice for those of us who don't have a solid hour to practise due to children/jobs/life etc
Great idea!
Mixing in mental practice is a great idea, especially when your instrument limits your stamina. I do this also when my classes get slow
You’re such a legend. Thank you for the dedication, sharing, authenticity and humour, friend. It’s plenty appreciated!
Woah need to try this, thank you for the inspiration! 🎻 viola power!!! 👑
The end result was beautiful. Definitely going to try this method.
Thanks for this video, this was super helpful - not just for the viola but in general!
Thank you for the insight. 😊 I struggle with practice times for viola. But you incouraged me to try the method you used. Thank you
Very interesting and informative video. Also my piano teacher advised me to play while being distracted by something else, like a tv show. This is a way to build muscle memory. The common point between these methods is that playing should be easy and natural.
Also in martial arts, they practice suburi, that is repeating one movement 1000 times. The idea is that if you can't do that, you waste too much energy and have too much muscle tension and wrong / useless movements.
Really fascinating advice! You sound great, man! Dr. Molly Gebrian also has some brainy practice tips on RUclips. She was supposed to be at AVS to give some lectures but she couldn't make it. I especially like her video about micro-practice.
No hate but raising the stand definitely helps. I'm an intermediate viola player and I, and my teacher lmao, always find me slouching. Keeping the instrument near parallel to the floor helps a lot with bowing and fingering.
Brand new (appx 6wks) violist here. Great video! Your playing is super impressive to begin with, but the before/after really illustrates the power of repetition. I'm not the most disciplined person generally, but the beautiful aound of the instrument keeps me going. I try to practice every day, and i usually do.
Your video is very helpful.
Great video!
I played a section of the 3rd Bach cello suite movement 1 and it worked. And it took me 2 1/2 hours but I did it :)
Hello fellow violist! I loved this! Well made video, great playing and your friend in the end was too funny!!!! I’ve subscribed and feel like I should go practice too now but I also need to edit another video…….
Totally makes sense, though it's interesting how he settled on 60 and not 51 or 73 or something. I snorted when Nina guessed you practiced that three times, lol. Take it as a compliment--she must think you're so good you don't need so much practice! :-D
Well, in real life you don't have so much time to practice. If you have 2 concertos, 2 sonatas and 20 excerpts (for auditions) you won't have your body, mind and sound... If you also are making concerts or work in an orchestra, you will play at some point every evening a different 80 pages of an opera or symphonies.. Don't practice just for one piece, practice for everything you do and will do in your life.. We had to play through our whole studies all the 24 Scales every Day (whole pack of arpeggios and doublestopps). And you had to do every week a technic-exam with Caprice and Scale (you didn't know which one). After a while, you have a demographic map of the fingerboard in your mind. You see a passage and you do it instantly..
New subscriber. Your channel has inspired me to try this and have courage to go out in public to perform...can u please do a video on how to play or the theory of learning how to play by ear or how to go about it for us violas...
Also because I listen to music from my culture and wish to transcribe/ transcript it from guitar to viola.
Thanks viola king and the viola kingdom
Thanks for the sub! Playing by ear is a different process for me than it is for most since I automatically hear fingerings in my head whenever I hear music (probably since I started playing so young). When I have trouble, figuring out the right notes is a process of trial and error. Listen to a recording and try to find what note you heard for each note and eventually you’ll learn a piece. Ofc it’s a lot of work but you’ll get better at it as you go. You could also use notation software to make the sound and then read off of the music when afterwards.
@@ViolaKing bro thank you so much. These words of advice I will carry always. Thank you so much for this because today I have decided to become a true musician to my own style. Thanks always bro
Primrose also goes on to say that 60 is just an arbitrary number that happens to work for him, and each student/player should use sense to come up with a number of reps that works best for them.
I did a project on him in six grade and still immediately recognized him
For me it seems like long periods of practice followed by a long break really helps. For example, by the 60th run-through I'll have it down pretty well, but the next day I can pick it up and play it perfectly first try
YESSSSS! Twoset shirt! Guys sub to Viola King! What a Legend! And also great tips and thanks for sharing!
👍
my little practice secret is whenever i’m working with a metronome to try and get an area down with intonation as well as tempo every click i go up i do it 3x..
so if i do 100 then i click it up to 105 i play it 15 times.
then if i start to fumble i always go down 15
How many violist does it take to screw in the lightbulb? Wait did someone say “screw in the light”?
3 times?!?!
!
How did you count repetitions? I personally wouldn't bother with that.
I kept tally marks on my music. Leaving them there to give me confidence!
Interesting! (no joke)
How do you feel about Molly Gebrian 's practice advice if you have heard about it? Otherwise, you might be interested, she is a violist and neuroscientist who offers science-based advice on RUclips on how to practice the viola.
That certainly intrigues me. I feel like I’ve heard her name before but I can’t put my finger on it. In any case, I didn’t know she’s on RUclips so I’ll certainly check it out. Thanks
@@ViolaKing You are welcome. Thanks for the videos 🙂
That's a "shifty" opening.
There's no substitute for a good teacher instilling principles. X amount of times is not constructive if there are gaps in the prerequisite techniques, both technical and musical. If anything it can reinforce rather bad habits.
I've read primrose's book a long long time ago. He's a charismatic writer but this is one bit of advice that taken at face value is a bit counter productive.
I've been doing it wrong for the last 50 years!
REPETITION ALONE IS USELESS AND WRONG! INITIALLY, ALL PRACTICE MUST START OUT EXTREMELY SLOW, INCREASING IN TEMPO AND AS PERFECT AS POSSIBLE. A METRONOME MUST ALWAYS BE USED. REPEATING THE SAME ERRORS OVER AND OVER, WITHOUT THE CONTROLLING INFLUENCE OF A METRONOME AND A CONSCIENCE APPROACH TOWARD PERFECTION, IS STUPIDLY DEFEATING, FOOLISH AND AN ENORMOUS WAISTE OF TIME, EFFORT AND ENERGY. SO, YES, USE PRIMROSE'S 60 TIMES, HOWEVER, WITH A METRONOME AND EXTREMELY SLOWLY INCREASE IN TEMPO UNTIL YOU GAIN THE PERFORMANCE TEMPI.
Lol very lengthy, ur just saying practice through thinking, as that's what you do through slowing down. XD. Meh, things work differently for different people yk:) anyways goodluck with whatever ...
Hope you get your shift key unstuck. I think primrose’s repetitions could be used with or without a metronome depending on what what stage you’re at. At early learning stages it makes sense to use a metronome. At later stages (as I am at in this video) the metronome can be used to check your tempo every now and then but repetitions without it are also important since you will not have a metronome in your performance
FIRST, I USE CAPS BECAUSE I AM LEGALLY BLIND AND TO GET MY POINT ACROSS. SECOND, I ONCE LONG AGO, STUDIED WITH PRIMROSE, SCHOTTEN, AND MANY OTHER GREAT AND FAMOUS VIOLISTS AND MUSICIANS AND I HAVE TWO PHDS.
DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BRAIN FUNCTIONS BETWEEN RIGHT AND LEFT HEMISPHERES OF THE BRAIN IN RELATIONSHIP TO RIGHT AND LEFT HAND COORDINATION OF THE BODY? THIS IS WHY THE METRONOME AT ALL STAGES IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT. EVERY GREAT MUSICIAN AND CONDUCTOR I HAVE STUDIED WITH HAVE STRESSED THE EXTREME IMPORTANCE OF THE METRONOME. I AM A RETIRED CONCERT LEVEL PROFESSIONAL VIOLIST, CHOIRMASTER, ORGANIST, HARPSICHORDIST, COMPOSER AND TEACHER - HAVING TAUGHT THOUSANDS AND HAVE BEEN PRINCIPAL VIOLIST IN A FEW ORCHESTRAS. @@ViolaKing
YOU WOULD BE SHOCKED AT HOW MANY PEOPLE DON'T THINK OR LISTEN CRITICALLY!@@charlie0707
I beg to differ about Primrose being the best. Tertis wasn't no flop... and Rolla taught Paganini.
I’ve been playing viola for almost a year and I still sound like a dying cow. 🫠😭
😂
Cow gang! 🐮
What is the name of Primrose's book?