JAVS Fall 2006

COLLE

By Karen Ritscher

either instrument, one fee l pres sure on the bow before the arm moves. For accented strokes on rhe viola, one needs to ler the fingers react more w the arm "grabbing," as opposed co arm foll owing finger initiat ion. Thi makes a huge dif ference in the roundness and clari ty of the sound in short strokes, as well as legato playing. Often in the initial execution of colic, my viola srudents arc able to find the bite of d1e attack, bur are unable ro Icc the tone ring a the bow "escapes" the resistance of rhe string. Because of rhc th ickness and slower reactions of viola strings, particularly rhe and the violi r needs to have more bal listic or quicker knuckle reaction to the bite. A reachi ng technique that I have u ed to encourage waking up the fingers is the following: I. Place the bow on the string in the middle, with relaxed arm weight and the fingers alive and "ready." Let the arm feel the resistance of the string. U ing the fingers only, do a quick up bow, bur then immediately move the arm down-bow. T his motion results in a dotted rhyrhm: sixteenth followed by dorred-quarrer. 2. Do the same rhing wi th the fin gers moving down-bow (elon gating ro the righr) wh ile the bow moves up-bow.

amount and speed of initiation of strokes and rhe amount of follow through. Viola requires quicker, lighter springing fingers and partic ularly on rhe C rring, a more verti cal pinch. One needs to be able ro instantaneously wrap tl1e bow around the string and then, like a tarded bird, fly away! Nor only i colle helpful for clean artacks and clean projection in viola playing, it is also valuable for developing a warm and "gluey" tone. fin ge r-initiated stroke. On the down-bow, the fingers move curved to elongated and on the up-bow, elongated ro curved. Ivan G~Jamian in Principles ofViolin Pl.ttying defines colic: "rhe bow is placed on the strings from rhe air and at the moment of contacr the rring is lightly bur sharply pinched. imulraneously wirh rhc pinch, the nore is attacked, after the instantaneous sounding of the nore the bow is immediately slight ly lifred off the suing in prepara tion for rhe next stroke.... It is in action, although nor in sound, nor unlike d1e plucking of the string, making as it were, a pizzicato with the bow. " (74-75) While violinists emphas ize beginning and ending the stroke from the air, the ame stroke for viola can easily starr from rhc string as long as their knuckles arc accive and ready to spring. For all accented strokes on To review, the word coffl comes from the French for glue. ollc is a

Recently, l was having a lovely aru rday evening dinner at rhe New York ity West Side re tau rant, Niko's with my friend and esteemed colleague, Greg Fulkerson. Mr. Fulker on is one of the mo r intelligent and rhoughrful people l know, as well as being a brilliant violinist and deep musi cian. I was grateful rhar since it was ju r rhe rwo of us, we could indul gently shop-ralk about string play ing and reaching, without boring or offending any of our other friends or spouses. We were happi ly di cussing the amount of finger leading vs. reactivity to various strokes on violin and viola. At some point in our discussion, one of us made the deliberately dramat ic ob ervation that "although reach ing colle is one of the most useful learning rool we have, there are almost no practical applications!" Then, upon reflection over several week , I began ro question the veracity of that statement and have since realized that actually there are many more usefu l outcomes from working with cotle than one can consider in a short discus ion. Like mo r violin-viola technique , colic for the viola is essentially the same as for the violin , bur some of irs lessons may be even more importan t for violists in particubr. The difference of articulation for violin and viola seems to be rhe

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