About me and my violin.

I am a violinist. It feels strange to say this as my journey with music stopped for many years. Too much too young perhaps? Who knows, but I know that being with my violin now, gives me more joy than I can ever remember. Perhaps the pressure is off. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone any more - least of all me, my biggest critic.

I started playing the violin, like most children, at school at the age of 9. I was very lucky to be my teachers pet and she chose me to play the violin in a school concert - even though I had just started. I played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I played it perfectly in tune. This was considered to be a sign by the school violin teacher to advise my parents I should have private lessons. And from there it began.

This anecdote may make it sound like I had some talent that I was born with. The honest truth is that my Dad would encourage me to play the piece every day to make sure it was good enough for the concert. It was a simple case of practicing for 10minutes every day.

I excelled at the violin compared to the other students that had started at the same time and in fact, that had even started before me.

I put this down to the consistency of my practicing.

I promise you there was nothing to it more than this. It is the simple boring truth that to be good at something, you really just have to do it - a lot. Whilst my friends were out playing after school, I was practicing. I was getting up early and practicing before I went to school. So it is not an easy decision to make such a commitment. You need to want to do it.

Why am I talking about this in my introduction to myself? I think it is cathartic for me. I think I always had a feeling that I was special because of my talent. And I now believe that thinking like this is detrimental to making it all about the music and the journey. I also believe it is important for anyone embarking on this journey to know that ANYBODY can play the violin. But you can only be great, if you practice. FACT.

This is a huge part of my teaching methodology which is perhaps why I have brought the subject of practice up so early in my little story. I do talk about practice a lot with my students, but it is more about that fact that it is about little wins along the way. It is about the process and the journey. All the trimmings that accompany that, concerts and performances, are just part of the process. They are not the be all and the end all. They are part of the journey, the icing on the cake. It is about striving for your next PB and enjoying the learning. Not about being the next Izthak Perlman - although, with a continuing enjoyment and commitment, that is surely a possibility. Without enjoyment and without commitment we will stop playing and improving. Which will in time end the musical journey for us.

My students PB’s are simple - playing consistently with a straight bow - or playing a scale in tune and in time, learning to use the 4th finger or a new violin position. I want my students to take pride in their achievements and to recognise that they have achieved something new - through their own efforts of mindful practice. Mindful practice deserves it’s own chapter - so I will not introduce you to this now - but just to say, 10minutes mindful practice is worth so much more than an hour of non mindful practice.

Back to my story! I soon decided that I needed to travel from my hometown to have a violin teacher that could take me further. So we took the weekly trip to either Pickering or York to see my teacher. A 40min to an hours journey each way. This advanced me a lot and it became apparent that playing the violin was something that I needed to spend a lot of time doing.

At the age of 10 I received a music scholarship to Catteral Hall, which is the prep school to Giggleswick. It was too far for me to travel to, so I boarded. It was a huge learning curve for me to be away from home and one that proved too difficult for my 10 year old self. So I left after a year, and went to my local school on a musical scholarship. I auditioned to have lessons with Eta Cohen in Leeds, 75miles away from us. I had an arrangement with my new school that they would allow me Wednesday afternoons off, as they were for sports matches, to allow my Mum to drive me to my lessons every Wednesday afternoon.

Eta Cohen was a formidable teacher. She was such a respected name in the music industry and had created her own brand of teaching - which I use a great deal of in my teaching methods. She had me audition for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain - she felt this was a vital part of being a violinist - something I look back on with such fondness and pride. It was always a grueling audition with a piece of our own choice and a violin study written by Derek Bourgeous who was the musical director of the orchestra. These violin studies were always so technical and hard - they were hard to practice, the only motivation was playing it for the composer to a high enough standard to gain a place in the prestigious youth orchestra. Every school holiday saw me shipped off to various parts of the country to practice for a week with the orchestra and preparing for a concert with a renowned soloist in prominent concert halls around the country. My highlight has to be playing the Walton Viola Concerto with Yuri Bashmet and the Shostokovich 7th Symphony at the Proms which went out on live TV and playing for the Queen to celebrate her Ruby Reign. Another highlight was getting a high distinction in Grade 8 violin (the highest grade) at the age of 12. Something of which I am still very proud.

After a while, we decided as a family that attending a music school would be the best idea. I would be surrounded by fellow musicians, I would have a curriculum adapted to allowing me time to play and I would have a great all round musical education. I decided to audition for St. Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh. I studied under Nigel Murray for the 3 years whilst I was there and I continued my piano studies with Audrey Innes. During this time I won a number of competitions on both the violin and piano.

After school, it was an obvious move to continue my music studies at a college dedicated to progressing me as a violinist. I could have chosen a university music course, which is a general course in music, but I had come so far, that it felt right to continue to a course dedicated to becoming a performer. I auditioned for all of the college’s, Royal Northern, Royal College, Royal Academy and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was fortunate enough to be offered places at all colleges, but I had my heart set on The Guildhall. It had a great reputation for violins at the time, so I chose it. I then had to go for auditions with various violin teachers at the college to see who would teach me. I had my heart set on someone in particular, who said no to me, which rocked me as rejection was something I hadn’t really dealt with. As you can perhaps tell from my intro, I had a hugely successful rise in playing, so it was a shock. Having said that I was placed with a fantastic teacher called Detlef Hahn, who worked really well with me.

Currently I teach the violin privately and at my daughters school in Arles, called Domaine du Possible. It is a great school, which allows all students the opportunity to learn an instrument due to the collaboration with Orchestre a l’ecole. This is a dying opportunity at schools across the globe, but it is shortsighted in my mind. Learning to play an instrument is so great for our children’s developing brains in ways which are too numerous to into just now, but I will blog about it as it is fascinating and all parents should be aware of the benefits.

I wish everyone joy in music!