Left Hand

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Tips on a Warmup & Practice Routine

Foundations for an Effective Warmup

The Thumb and Comfortable Extensions

Reach and Close

Why You Shouldn’t Squeeze Your Thumb

How Your Thumbs Critically Affect Your Technique

Bridges and Bows May Cause Excess Physical Tension

Paul Katz with Rob Mayes.

Continuous Vibrato

Eliminate Stopping/Starting

Eliminate Left Hand Tension (Part 2)

A loose hand is stronger than a tight one.

Quartertones

Beginning Quartertone Scales

Shifting: Hand Alignment

Improve Shifting Consistency

Shifting: In and Out of Thumb Position

Raising, Lowering Thumb

Shifting: The Ears are Boss

Intonation: Ears Guide the Hand

Shifting: Watch the Speed Limit

Timing of Shifts

Tchaikovsky Rococo: Theme (Vibrato)

Freeing the Left Hand for Vibrato.

Uniting the Hands

Varying Left Hand Depth

Vibrato: Fast or Slow?

Choosing Appropriate Vibrato

Vibrato: Hand Position

Techniques to Vary Vibrato

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

I still have not found anything more permanent or more beautiful than music.

Janos Starker

Artistry is in the details.

Anonymous

Progress is impossible without change.

George Bernard Shaw

Cello playing is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration.

Janos Starker

There is a performance nirvana, a miraculous interaction of ears, hands, and emotions. Listening awareness is primary in this zone of creative transcendence.

Paul Katz

My goal is to convey a true masterpiece in whatever I play.

Janos Starker

Intelligence is everywhere in the body, nature and the universe.

Anonymous

Listening is the conduit through which all physical actions creating expressive results are filtered.

Elizabeth Aureden

Everyone knows what they can’t do – our weaknesses scream at us every day. To perform, you must know what you can do and bring the attention of your audience to those strengths.

Gregor Piatigorsky

Improper body use is like a pebble in your shoe. A nagging discomfort, it can cause severe damage over time.

Victor Sazer

Thinking is the biggest mistake a dancer can make. You have to feel, to “become”.

Michael Jackson

Teaching moves through generations. If you believe in the principles that represent the truth in the masterpieces, then you try to preserve those principals. They can be preserved only through teaching.

Janos Starker

Variety, variety – no two snowflakes are alike, no two notes are alike.

Pablo Casals

The fingers have no brains, and they have no ears!

Gregor Piatigorsky

As a teacher, my first task is to teach students how to practice. Once they understand this, they begin to make progress.

Ivan Galamian

Our bodies continually provide us with information, yet we too often ignore or do not understand their messages. Awareness is the first step.

Victor Sazer

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Elbert Hubbard

If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying.

Wynton Marsalis

Creativity takes courage.

Henri Matisse

Teaching should support, inspire, motivate, impart high ideals, and help each to discover and trust their unique talent and strengths.

Paul Katz

Music is one of the essentials in human existence, almost identical with eating, sleeping, making love, the basic functions that keep a human being alive. Music simply, is one of the blessings and joys of civilized human existence.

Janos Starker

There is no top – there are always further heights to reach.

Jascha Heifetz

Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me.

Jascha Heifetz

Art is an activity in which one human heart communicates with another human heart.

Anonymous

Living in question is the most creative and stimulating state of being. Doors are always opening in the mind, one is motivated to explore, to observe and to take note.

Selma Gokcen

Don’t perform – just be yourself.

Bobby McFerrin

Vibrato is like lipstick – too much is ugly – the right amount and color is beautiful.

Felix Galimir

Tension is our biggest enemy. We must spend our life undoing it.

Ida Kavafian

Play the fear out and then tone it down.

Kathy Winkler

Even the smallest motion involves your entire body. Your body functions as a unified whole rather than as a collection of isolated parts. Those who focus too much on small motor movements can easily lose this vital connection with the rest of the body.

Victor Sazer

Real art is one of the most powerful forces in the rise of mankind, and he who renders it accessible is a benefactor of humanity.

Zoltan Kodaly

Just a little progress every day makes big progress over time.

Sally Chisholm

I’ll stop teaching when I stop learning.

Gregor Piatigorsky

The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Thomas A. Edison

Many people are too small to be teachers, but no one is too big.

Gregor Piatigorsky

Cello playing begins in the back, before the sound.

Bernard Greenhouse

On artistic conception: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”.

Michelangelo

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Creative talent has an irrepressible hunger, and for the musician, music is the food it cannot live without.

Paul Katz

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Through discipline comes freedom.

Aristotle

I was born with an ability, with music in me, that is all. No special credit was due me. The only credit we can claim is for the use we make of the talent we are given.

Pablo Casals

With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.

Yo-Yo Ma

Music is powered by ideas. If you don’t have clarity of ideas, you’re just communicating sheer sound.

Yo-Yo Ma

When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling… our actions and lives are always the richer for it.

Yo-Yo Ma

My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there’s a place for culture.

Yo-Yo Ma

Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge.

Albert Einstein

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

Pablo Casals

Listening awareness is primary in the zone of creative transcendence.

Paul Katz

Practicing is the art of making your ears happy.

Michael Haber

Practice like it means everything in the world to you. Perform like you don’t give a damn.

Jascha Heifetz

Like love, performance is not about me, it’s about the other person – giving to the audience.

Kevin Olusola