violations

Viola notes by Amarevois

Good vibrations

As a young adult who has had little or no exposure to classical music, I was absolutely struck dumb by two similarly energied sounds. One, the sound of Maria Callas opening her throat to the universe, and slightly less formidable, (though no less mesmerising) the sound of a violin or cello, playing a very dramatic Russian-esque romantic melody. My hairs would stand on end. I was spellbound.

Violins are for little people

This was the beginning of my goal to play a stringed instrument in the ‘classical' vein. Crismalmio, my friend, had a violin hanging around (as all good Italians do!) and I tried playing it, but it didn't really work out. Although my left hand could cope with playing the notes (being a guitarist helped) the right hand (or bowing hand) was hopelessly out of control and even when I did manage to place the left hand on the notes in tune, the bow was not able to articulate them properly. What to do?

Well, I swapped it to the other side but left the strings and pegs where they were. I had a left-handed chin piece custom made by a luthier who clearly thought I was a lunatic and charged me accordingly. So now the strings were in reverse order, (from my perspective) but I was now playing it on my right shoulder. Bowing with the left hand seemed so much more natural and manageable. I still had a problem though, because the instrument was so small, (though it was full size) and my fingers had to really squash in and my neck hurt. I decided it wasn't worth pursuing the violin.

bigger is better

Upon speaking with a friend of mine, he convinced me to step up (or down, depending on where you are coming from!) to viola, where I could really stretch out my hand and see the bridge and neck more easily. He also thought that I might be more well suited to viola, as my natural speaking voice is fairly low and he thought I might identify with the instrument in a more personal way. It proved to be true.

I had a girlfriend of mine (who was a string teacher) go to the Luthier's shop and try out an instrument within my paltry price range (there was a nice one there for $60k!) and she chose one for me. The shop had a policy that allowed prospective customers to take the instrument home to try it out to make sure that it was really what they wanted. Of course it was right handed so I couldn't try it out very well (not to mention the fact that I really wasn't able to play yet!) but I liked the colour, and I had a really good strong gut feeling about it, so I bought it.

Wet blanket brigade

I asked the shop to do all the necessary alterations to the instrument to make it left handed, such as make a new bridge, reversing the strings, removing and filling the current pegs and shifting/re-drilling them to an opposite position.

I even asked the sour and grumpy old bastard who ran the place for a left handed bow. After thinking about it for a minute or two, the old fellow conceded an unpractised smile and promised me the finest left handed bow he could find.

I asked if the alterations could be done within a week's time, as I explained that I had a rehearsal scheduled. He looked at me, totally bewildered. “How can you have a rehearsal, you don't even play yet!” he argued.

This kind of attitude is everywhere in society, and rampantly so in the ‘classical world' as I call it. These ‘high brow' so-called ‘intellectuals' full of negativity. I was told not to play left handed, because I would never be accepted into any orchestra. Whenever this happened (and it happened on an alarmingly regular basis) I said I would form my own orchestra if I needed one - maybe even an orchestra only for left-handers! They were easily incensed. To the last, they said I was definitely too old to be starting to learn a stringed instrument (I was only 29!) and that even if I succeeded in finding a teacher that would be prepared to take me on as a lefty, (like I needed one!) I would need at least 10 years of playing experience before I was ready to play in an ensemble, certainly not just a week!

I have never listened to this kind of wet blanket nonsense. I've always believed in myself over anyone else, because I've seen my own strength, time and time again. I waited for no man. I went ahead and formed my own Early Music ensemble the week before I'd even bought the viola, based entirely on like - minded people's open and passionate enthusiasm for the kinds of music I wanted to play. They also had little or no training, or had not played in years. I went for passion and feeling good over education and experience. I had found that most ‘classically trained' people were so over educated that they could no longer connect with the music or each other. They had no joy in their playing.

So I simply played ‘open strings' for the first few rehearsals which were a lot of fun. A good drone is hard to find! The wet blanket brigade were right on one point at least. I didn't manage to get any teacher who was willing to teach me left handed, so I began teaching myself the way I had taught myself many other instruments, by practising with passion and patience, ‘acting as if' I could play and making it a daily effort to do so no matter how bad I sounded or how tired I was.

Labium Ensemble

After about three years, I stopped practising every day. I formed the Labium Ensemble with some original playing partners and a few newbies and off we went to explore the new world of early music in the 21st century.

A funny story: One of the first pieces of music I bought was a Telemann canonic sonatas for two violas. I was very excited when I ordered it, because there are so few pieces written for two violas. I went to the shop and picked up the order and brought it home and opened it up. To my amazement both the parts were exactly the same! I had NO idea that that was the point of a canon, one person starts and then the other comes in a little later with the same part, like a round of sorts! I thought I had been ripped off! I rang the store but there was nobody there. I left an answering machine message that I wasn't very impressed that after waiting all this time that they had given me two parts the same!

It wasn't until the next rehearsal that one of the girls told me that that was exactly the way it should be. I relayed my answering machine message and they all fell about laughing uncontrollably at the thought of the faces of the shop owners when they got the message! I have never lived it down...and to be honest, I don't mind...

Current Violations

These days I am concentrating on recording and producing my contemporary works, but I have always worked on the Labium Ensemble in the background. I don't play viola much, but I love it when I do. I have a few like minded friends and we get together and play sometimes, it's a lot of fun and very rewarding. However, viola does feature on a few of the tracks on Unravel...