JAVS Spring 2024

In the Studio

The Hunt for the Purple Viola Sound by Christiana Fortune-Reader

I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with how my usual teaching approaches for sound development seemed to be falling flat in my lessons. I firmly disagreed with Pinchas Zuckerman’s take that a string player “is born with a personal sound, as individual as a fingerprint – it can be developed and perfected, but not essentially changed.” 2 I decided it was time for a redo. I started the process of revamping my teaching by becoming the student subject of my own research project with these questions in mind: What tools and structures for sound development could I give my students that would give them an immediate audible result for next week’s lessons as well as serving them in the future? How could I encourage their curiosity as they figure out a concept of sound that would continue to evolve long after they would leave the lesson environment? And what could I offer them from my personal experience in this nebulous world of artistic imagination mixed with highly technical skills when I found myself constantly questioning my own sound? Methodology “Mann sieht nur, was man weiß”—this famous quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that one only sees what they know describes the phenomenon that one can only start to recognize things if they understand the context. I could only begin to see how to work on this inconsistency in my students’ playing based on my frame of reference for how I worked on this skill in my own playing. Despite many years of expert training with caring and supportive mentors, I was still dissatisfied with arguably the most fundamental aspect of musicianship: my sound quality.

Introduction In reading up on learning how to better handle my toddler’s brief—but frequent—emotional thunderstorms, I came across a statement that accurately portrayed my ever-evolving work on the life-long process of learning to play the viola and learning to teach sound development to viola students: Children don’t need adults to train them to use [X]. They are naturally curious learners and expert imitators. They do need attuned, communicative parents and One could insert the bow and the viola student into this statement, building on Watson Forbes’ approach that sound development is at the core of every musician’s training: At whatever age, the sound of string instruments should be absorbed and daily listening encouraged. Likewise, the interest of the pupil should be concentrated in the early stages on sound, on tone production, and not too intensely on technical matters or the physical aspect of playing. The most important single aspect of learning to play a string instrument is the production of good tone. 1 Motivation for this inquiry Compared to other string instruments, the nature of the viola is such that the proportions will never work for the playability of the instrument. The body will always be too small for the string length if the instrument is to remain playable. Many violists pursue the viola over the violin because of the dark, chocolatey, “purple” richness of the viola sound. Yet, many of my intermediate and advanced students seem to accept that their bow holds just don’t work, or that their instruments maybe just are not capable of making that kind of sound. caregivers to support and facilitate their learning process, a process that is individual to each child.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring 2024

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