Sound travel

Filling the hall: ideas and exercises for teaching projection

BEVERLEY LUNT STEGENGA

BORN The Hague, The Netherlands

STUDIED WITH Marinus Snoeren, Paul Tortelier

TEACHES Undergraduate and postgraduate conservatoire students

The low register of the cello means that the way we project our sound is vital to our ability to communicate to everyone in our audience. This is always important, but it becomes critical when cellists come to play as a soloist either in a recital in a big hall, or with an orchestra – usually in the final recital of the bachelor’s degree and onwards.

A considerable change of mindset is needed to cope with playing in larger spaces, with or without an orchestra. In the struggle to be heard students tend to rely on the first finger on the bow to do everything; the bowing hand will then tense and stiffen. That in turn stifles the sound, bringing it back to the player rather than releasing it into the hall. This affects stamina. Strangely enough it is our internal fear of playing wrong notes that lies in the way of us achieving optimum projection and the way we use our left hand is equally important in developing it.

Cellists need to acquire the relaxation to engage the weight of the bowing arm into the string to support the left hand, or the big shifts a problem and accentuate the fear, so there is a danger that everything may spiral out of control.

EXERCISES

POSTURE Sit around the cello rather than imagining that you are somehow bearing down on the instrument. Imagine that you can sense somebody standing behind you. Keep that feeling and play from the shoulder blade.

RIGHT HAND Treat the first 20cm of the bow as gold; it is vital to producing a solo sound. Pinchas Zukerman used to joke that he would be happy to sell off the upper half of his bow because he maintained that he hardly ever used it.

Relax your elbow and arm, and place the bow at the heel of the bow. Feel its weight sinking into the string, such that you cannot pull the bow (your arm weighs around 5kg). While you do this imagine that you have a dog who loves to put his paw on your knee, and it is very heavy.

Release the weight until the bow starts to move (this will be different depending on whether you have gut or metal strings) Bow half a bow from the heel, then back – find a speed that can handle the weight you put on the bow Then, prior to playing, practise activating your bow in the air at the speed at which you then need to bow the string (practise at different speeds). Watch performances by violin virtuosos Heifetz and Oistrakh as they demonstrate this particularly well.

LEFT HAND Very often string players start shifts slowly and make an accelerando towards the destination note. To project a melody line well it is worth emulating singers, who do the opposite.

While exposing a shift try both getting faster in the shift, and then doing the opposite to improve control. The bow follows what is happening in the left hand

PREPARATION FOR REPERTOIRE

RIGHT AND LEFT HANDS WORKING TOGETHER To create a projected sound, the right and the left hands should work together. When playing a lyrical phrase, visualise it as an artist’s line drawing. Think of the line thickening or thinning with the curve of the phrase. Then play it with your visualisation in mind, listening carefully to the line of the melody. If a phrase is particularly complicated scale it back to a skeleton format and ensure that the right and left hands are familiar with the overall shape of the music before again adding in the detail.

EXAMPLE 1 For teaching this aspect of playing, the studies and exercises in How I Play, How I Teach by Paul Tortelier are particularly useful. This isn’t immediately obvious because Tortelier’s meaning isn’t always completely communicated in the book. For example, the study on page 64 – ‘The 32 Possibilities of Sliding Shifts in the Neck Position’ – is ostensibly for the left hand. However, while Tortelier wanted the shifts to be played as slow glissandos (imagining the left-hand fingers slotting into the centre of each note as if into a hole), he also wanted them to be played with the bow well into the string.

EXAMPLE 2 To focus on good sound production in more detail, it helps to adapt the study given in example 1 and ‘For the Practice of Sliding Shifts in the 4th, 5th and 6th Positions’ (page 66), as follows, using half a bow per slur, heel to middle. This disciplined approach to bowing in the lower half of the bow tackles the ‘fragility of the left hand’ (Tortelier) and means that the bow is well trained to support every shift. Again, this should be played with the bow well into the string.

REPERTOIRE

Look for vulnerable moments for projection in your repertoire; often an exposed section or a phrase that needs to sing through a line of melody, despite tricky shifts.

EXAMPLE 3 Asimple example of this would be in the Tarantella by W.H. Squire where there is a downward run towards the end of the first section with a rest in the piano part, meaning that the cello part is completely alone. Initially students see this as a problem for the left hand, but if the shifts are well coordinated with the bowing it is far more successful. It is worth practising as in example 4.

EXAMPLE 4 Here the complexity of the run is stripped back so that the focus of the player can be channelled into the teamwork between the right and left hands. When the detail is reinserted it will result in a stronger sense of line and projection, vital at this point as the piano part is resting.

EXAMPLE 5 In the first movement of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D major the second entry provides a challenge. The bow has to support the right hand in bar 36 with a minuscule crescendo on the second half of the B to help the right hand to shift to the F sharp. Without this the line of the phrase is lost and all hope of projecting it to the back of the hall is gone.

IN YOUR PRACTICE

Take time to warm up; with exercises first, then scales and arpeggios in rhythms in the key of your piece. Think of what Henryk Szeryng once said to me in rehearsals. He stopped and asked, ‘Where are you on your bow? You must always know it.’

If you have a difficult passage, play it until you crash. Then start after the problem and work back adding one note at a time. Then you can figure out the exact nature of the problem and solve it.

Experiment with your sound; every instrument is different and will require a slightly different approach. Remember that you are not always chasing ‘a nice sound’ under your ear because in a big hall it won’t necessarily travel.

Seize any opportunity to practise in a large hall. Ideally this should be once a week. While there, try to take your ear out to the back row. At 8.30am most halls are empty and it is often possible to do this.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

First of all, remember that the student comes to you with the knowledge from their earlier teacher(s) and it will take time to change their ‘default’.

RIGHT HAND For turned hands and high elbows, try asking students to put their thumb through the wood and the hair of the bow. When they then bow their fingers will collapse and they will feel finger contact with the bow stick on every finger.

Check that your student’s bow is balanced and 80g+. If it’s too heavy for spiccato, consider a second bow where necessary.

LEFT HAND AND SHOULDERS In terms of the left hand, ask students to expose shifts to hear exactly what they are doing within them

Check that your students don’t raise their shoulders, especially as they go into thumb position.

INTERVIEW BY NAOMI YANDELL