Growth as a Musician Means Facing a Little Anxiety
Growing as a musician means stepping outside your comfort zone, which naturally bring along with it some anxiety. But it doesn't have to be scary.
May-June 2020
Yamaha’s Latest Silent Bass Offers Players More Control Over Their Sound
By Megan Westberg | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine Yamaha released the newest iteration of its Silent Bass, the SLB300, earlier this year. Much of its makeup is familiar—a maple neck, body of spruce and mahogany, rosewood…
Family Ties: How Pirastro’s Evah Pirazzi Strings Renewed the Family Business
By Patrick Sullivan | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine They stormed onto the stage 20 years ago, and today they still command name recognition and respect among musicians around the globe. Along the way, Evah Pirazzi strings…
Cellist Boris Andrianov Sets Off on Musical Expedition to Remote Russian Communities
By Laurence Vittes | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine On June 8, Boris Andrianov, the Russian cellist who is behind the Vivacello and Vivarte festivals in Moscow, is scheduled to depart with illustrious colleagues on his 7th…
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How to Keep a Cello—and Endpin—Rock-steady in All Conditions
By Emily Wright | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine The first written recollection of a cello with an endpin dates from the late 18th century. Prior to that, the instrument was supported any number of ways: between…
Creativity and Technique Come Together in Fritz Kreisler’s ‘Praeludium and Allegro’
Here's a look how to play Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro in the style of Pugnani, a major work for any advancing student of the violin and a joy to play.
How My Worst Cello Lesson Taught Me the Best Lesson I Could Have Learned
To say it was a disaster would be kind. But this is the one that sticks out for the simple reason that in one of my lowest moments as a student, I actually learned the most.
‘With New Strength’: How Beethoven’s Monumental Quartet Cycle Set My Life on its Course
By Ryan Meehan | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine It will soon be ten years since my friends Jeffrey Myers, Jeremy Berry, Estelle Choi, and I formed the Calidore String Quartet. To celebrate our decade together and…
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View from the Pit: On being an opera concertmaster
By Scott Flavin | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine “Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.” —Robert Benchley I’ve served for almost two decades as concertmaster of one…
Emmanuel Vukovich Plays Violins Both Old and New
By Laurence Vittes | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine I first heard Canadian violinist Emmanuel Vukovich play at the Montréal Chamber Music Festival in 2014. It was after he had completed his undergraduate studies at Juilliard and…
Two to Tango: Tips for String Players Working with Guitarists
By Laurel Thomsen | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine While it can be difficult for string players to find other violinists, violists, and cellists to collaborate with, walk into any crowd and chances are you’ll meet someone…
Stradivari Didn’t ‘Antique’ His Instruments. Why is the Practice So Common in the Violin-making World Today?
Antiquing has always been contentious, seen by its critics as a way of reinforcing the ill-founded belief that old violins are automatically better than new ones.
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Musical Parenting: 5 Pros Reveal How They Passed Their Love of Playing onto Their Kids
By Whitney Phaneuf | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine Learning a stringed instrument as a child is daunting, but likely even more so when your parent plays professionally. So how do the pros’ kids learn? In honor…
To Bow or to Bow Out: Three Bow Makers Detail the Path Toward the Bench
By Cristina Schreil | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine There’s a beloved analogy that reinforces the importance of having a great violin bow: if the violin is the palette, the bow is the paintbrush. It’s a vital…
Lara St. John emerges from a trying year with a new album of the Franck and ‘Kreutzer’ sonatas
By David Templeton | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine Violinist Lara St. John has a certain dream of the future. The far, far future. It involves scorpions. And survival. More on that later. After recently completing a…
Oberlin’s H.K. Goodkind Collection is a Treasure Trove of Historical Violin Texts
By Cristina Schreil | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine For those who can hardly imagine getting giddy over a library collection,consider at least the sheer numbers behind the Violin Society of America Goodkind Collection, housed at Oberlin…
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Otakar Ševčík’s Pursuit of Perfection Changed How Violin Parts are Played
By Sasha Margolis | From the May-June 2020 issue of Strings magazine Through much of the 19th century, virtuosos of the violin were expected to be masters of style, showmanship, and communication. But they were not always paragons of precision.…