I recently started playing the baroque viola in order to complement my baroque violin playing. Here are five things it taught me…
Going for it
Playing side-by-side with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century was one of the more cool things I got to do during my training.
4 ways in which the internet doesn’t understand classical and early music
It’s getting too much.
What is historically-informed performance?
‘Historically-informed performance’. It’s a mouthful. It’s one way to describe what I study with the help of my baroque violin. And it’s something that musicians and scholars have been working on for half a century.
Learning to play the violin
Here are some tips that violin students might find useful.
Concert etiquette
I was thinking about that debate about etiquette and tradition in classical music concerts.
Under-the-collarbone violin playing
A few years ago I experimented with putting my baroque violin low, holding it as directed by Geminiani in his famous treatise: ‘The Violin must be rested just below the Collar-bone’. This position is fairly unusual even amongst baroque violinists. (It’s not so unusual in the folk world). I’ve since returned to a more usual semi-chin-off on-the-shoulder position, but the time I spent playing in a different way was useful, fun, and illuminating.
Shanties
My violins and other instruments
I play violins, and other on-the-arm bowed stringed instruments, and I sing.