Event Details

This workshop could be interesting for musicians and Alexander Technique teachers who work a lot with violinists and viola players. As you might have noticed, a lot of violinists openly or secretly have the wish to be able to play their instrument without the use of a shoulder rest. Most string players agree that a violin or a viola sounds fuller, freer, opener and more beautiful when not using a shoulder rest. There is less need to ‘clamp’ the violin with the neck or shoulder muscles, and as a result the neck can be much more free (!), and the head can go forward and up (!) easier, than while using a shoulder rest.

However, it seems a ‘lost art’ how to do that. The skill how to balance a violin in a free and healthy way seems almost to be ‘forgotten’ since the invention of the shoulder rest around 1920. It is easier (but not better?) to teach children to hold the violin using a shoulder rest and even for adults this solution is easier than acquiring a skill that needs balance and poise. During the last 100 years we went to a situation where most modern violinist use a shoulder rest, having no idea anymore how on earth they could play without using this tool. But all centuries before that (1500-1920), violinists have managed beautifully without using it and for long time a lot of top violinists refused to use it (Perlman, Oistrach, Menuhin, Anne Sophie Mutter etc). Paganini for example played his caprices without using shoulder rest or chin rest.

In his book “Six lessons with Yehudi Menuhin” he writes about balancing the violin: “We speak of holding the violin, but the word ‘hold’, with its implication of a firm and static grip, can be misleading. We should remember that the violinist, unlike the pianist or cellist whose instruments rest on the floor, must support his instrument unaided… Here, as with the bow, the development of a sense of balance and flexibility will form a far freer and healthier basis on which later to apply strength and effort, than would clamping the violin between shoulder and head, or clutching it between the thumb and first finger of the left hand… It is preferable to do without a shoulder-pad or a shoulder-rest. If used as a support, the shoulder is restricted in its freedom of movement, and if actively ‘clamped’, the shoulder is ‘frozen’.” As an Alexander Technique teacher I very much agree with this. The question remains: How to develop this balance and flexibility, and how to teach it to others?

I am a professional violinist (specialized in historical performance practice) and certified Alexander Technique teacher for 7 years (specialized in working with musicians), living in The Netherlands. In 2019, I won a full-time scholarship at Canterbury Christchurch University (UK) to perform a PhD study about the different ways violinists supported their violin before the invention of the shoulder rest and the implications of that on performance practice and health in our time, in combination with applying Alexander Technique to the balancing of the violin. I am researching how violinists back in their time balanced the violin without the help from a shoulder rest and how we can apply these skill in modern performance, to avoid the many injuries there are nowadays (that is why I won a scholarship – as it potentially could save a lot of pain and costs).  By researching old treatises on violin playing and combining it with Alexander principles I am searching for the best way how to teach this skill to violinists. I love to play without using shoulder rest myself. At the moment, I am in the final stages of this research.

From next October I will run an international experiment in which I will teach professional violin/viola players how to play without using a shoulder rest while applying Alexander Technique principles, during a series of 12 weekly online lessons. So it’s a free 3 month training. In this workshop I will tell more about my research, this experiment and the background for it. It might be interesting for you or your students to join this experiment starting in October and you will have the chance to ask me all about it. Would be very nice to discuss ideas, starting from the Alexander Technique. I would love to involve more international Alexander Technique teachers in my project. You can read more about the experiment on my website www.esthervisser.com, if you like.

If you have your violin with you, please do bring it to the workshop! Non-musicians are welcome too, of course.