Critical Listening

Critical Listening

Listen! Listen carefully to what you’re playing,” the teacher said.

“Oh, thanks for the advice,” the student should reply (in irony).

While many teachers encourage their students to listen carefully during practice or performance, they often overlook explaining what to listen for and more importantly to work on this crucial skill with their students.

 This article delves into some key aspects of the most essential skill every instrumentalist must master: Critical listening.

Listen to the Four Pillars

To enhance your listening skills, start by focusing on the four fundamental pillars of string playing: intonation, rhythm, sound, and ease. While these pillars may be obvious to every violinist, it's valuable to mention them and recognize common mistakes that can occur in each area.

Listen to your intonation

As a string player, your primary focus should be on intonation. Pay close attention to every interval you play. Practice slowly to allow your mind the time to thoroughly analyze each one of them. Even if an interval sounds correct, play it again to ensure accuracy and for the brain to register the correct distance between the two fingers.
Common Mistake: Correcting out-of-tune notes on the spot during practice. Don’t do that. Of course, I don’t mean to leave out of tune notes pass by uncorrected. What am I talking about here is the tendency of many violinists when they spot bad intonation to slide their finger until they get the right note. Doing this, you don’t teach your fingers to hit the correct spot of the note on the fingerboard. Rather your intonation gets vague with notes sounding more like subtle slides. If you hear a note that it’s let’s say flat, replay the passage and aim to hit the note a bit higher but with complete confidence. If you still don’t get it right, try again.  Repeat the process as many times needed until your hands learn the correct place of each note.

Listen to your sound

The quality of your sound defines your musical identity, so craft it with care. Consider deeply the characteristics you want your sound to embody. Listen to the volume, character, and clarity of your tone.
Common Mistakes: Be mindful of scratches, vague notes (usually before a shift or before and after a string crossing), over pressed sound, unnecessary changes in bow speed, bumpy string crossings, and insufficient dynamic range.

Listen to your rhythm

Ensure that you maintain a steady pulse. From this foundation, you can explore expressive timing, such as rubato.
Common Mistakes: Watch for tendencies to slow down at the end of a phrase, during difficult passages or when playing  soft. Also, give special care to dotted eighth notes with a sixteenth because they can often sound like triplets. 

Listen to your body

Regularly scan your body as you play. How does it feel? Are there areas of tension? Do you have a balanced hold of the violin and bow?
Common Mistakes: Tension often builds up in the shoulders and face during challenging passages or when playing repeated fast notes. Pay attention to tightness in the left pectoral muscles when shifting. Also check that your thumbs are flexible, your fingers are moving freely, and you don’t apply excessive pressure on the fingerboard.

There are much more to say on these four pillars but I thought it’s best to mention here just the basics.

Faulty Sensory Awareness and the Use of Technology

In my article "Faulty Sensory Awareness," I discussed the idea that how you think you sound while playing may not reflect how you actually sound. It's important to seek external feedback to gain a more accurate perspective. One of the most effective ways to do this is by utilizing technology, such as sound or video recording. By recording your practice sessions or performances, you can step back and evaluate your playing from an objective standpoint. Beyond self-evaluation, playing to trusted colleagues or mentors can provide valuable insights. Their fresh ears and unbiased perspectives can help you pinpoint issues that you might have missed, offering constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement. It's crucial to be open to this feedback, even if it's difficult to hear, as it plays a key role in your growth as a musician.

Proactive Listening

Isaac Stern, in his autobiography "My First 79 Years," shared a powerful insight: "When I play, I always think two bars ahead." This statement captures the essence of proactive listening.

Critical listening is an essential skill for any instrumentalist, yet it presents a challenge: by the time you hear a mistake, it's already too late. It’s already gone. While during practice you can replay a passage to correct errors, this luxury isn't available during a live performance. This raises an important question: how can you prepare yourself to minimize mistakes? More practicing is certainly not the answer.

A key element that ensures confidence in performance is the proper positioning of the hands. A solid bow hold, with flexible fingers and wrist, is crucial, as is the correct balancing of the left hand in holding the violin so as to freely vibrate, shift and perform all the other techniques that exist in the violin literature. In a few words, healthy technical foundation. Equally important is proprioception—the ability to accurately sense the position of yourself in space and of your hands in relation to the instrument. You need to create a mental map of your instrument, particularly the fingerboard.

Theoretically, every aspect of violin playing can be measured: the varying finger pressure on different strings and positions, the bow pressure and speed relative to the sound point, or the distance between fingers for each interval. However, in practice, it's impossible to measure nearly anything. Instead, you must develop an awareness and sensitivity of how these elements interact and influence your overall playing.You can enhance this sensitivity by consistently and diligently working on the fundamentals of violin mechanics.

Returning to Stern's quote, he emphasized the importance of mentally hearing the music before playing it. It  is crucial to achieve a level of preparation that allows you to be relaxed and trust that your hands will do the work during a performance without trying to control everything mentally. Trying to think through every detail as you play can be overwhelming and counterproductive. Trust that your hands will execute the music at the moment and at the same time think or imagine the following two bars. This way you can perform with greater confidence and precision. Easier said than done but with practice we will get there.

Increase your knowledge

Dounis was said to have incredible powers of observation (George Neikrug). He could observe on a violinist many more characteristics in their playing (bad or good)  than anyone else. Personally, I believe that Dounis didn’t necessarily posses any special talent in observing. Rather, I believe he had much more knowledge than others, and therefore he was examining more elements in someones playing. Like with everything in life, those who have more knowledge, they have more mental power. So, if you increase your knowledge in sound production, rhythm, intonation, interpretation, then you examine more elements during your practice and performance. Therefore, you create more room for improvement.

Thank you for reading until the end. As always, I would love to receive your comments and thoughts.