Thought Of The Week: “Tension”
This might be one of the most terrifying words to hear as a musician and at some point we have all suffered from it.
Playing with tension can lead to all kinds of injuries and I know of several colleagues that had to stop playing all together for months if not years due to the repercussions of tension.
One of the most concerning things about tension is that you may not even realize that you are tense and the first time you are being faced with it is through injury.
As violinists many of us experience tension in two main places, our left shoulder and our right hand/wrist. For this post I will focus on the most problematic area, the left shoulder.
The left shoulder is problematic since that is the area that we place our instrument. With the addition of a shoulder rest it is easy for us to want to squeeze the violin against the shoulder.
When the left shoulder comes up every aspect of our left hand technique is effected: shifting, vibrato, trills and especially chords. If you have had issues with any of these techniques it is most likely due to raising your left shoulder.
To combat this, we have to change our approach to thinking about our shoulder and move the violin to the collarbone. However, even with the violin on the collarbone we need to always remember to lower our left shoulder especially when we are under stress.
Helpful tips for working on your left shoulder:
1. Ghost playing:
Use harmonic pressure or less. Slowly add finger pressure until you have sound and you may discover that you don’t need to exert as much effort as you were before.
2. Shifting exercises:
When working on a shift. actively think about your shoulder and relax it as much as possible. If you have been using your shoulder this may take some time to deprogram in your playing but the end result will be a fuller sound and smoother shifts.
3. Stretching/Yoga:
It is important to warm up you body before practicing and also to stretch during your practicing. Treat yourself like an athlete, what we do as musicians is very physical and taxing on our bodies.
4. Rest:
This may be the most important one. Let your body rest and recover, spending too many hours practicing or playing can have negative effects. The most important thing to remember is that our practicing and playing will only improve with how we treat our body.
