When I got to the ballpark today, I wasn't expecting to witness history. I was just excited that we had seats in right field, next to the Washington Nationals bullpen. As game time drew nearer, I went down to the railing to watch the pitcher, Jordan Zimmermann, go through his warmup routine. I had no idea just how significant or special the game would turn out to be.

My students will probably be surprised to learn that in a former life, I was a fast pitch softball pitcher. My career didn't progress beyond one season on high school varsity -it was impossible to be both a serious softball player and a serious violinist, so I chose violin - but I love the game. Baseball was always on in my house when I was a kid, and my own (admittedly limited) pitching experience gives me a little extra insight. The focus required to stay in control on the mound is incredible. It takes physical endurance and training, certainly, but it is also a mind game. The pitcher always has to stay one step ahead of the hitter.

Earlier today, I had a vague idea of writing a blog tying in an athlete's warmup routine with a musician's. If you're at the ballpark early enough, you'll see the athletes on the field beforehand. Because of where we were sitting, I was able to watch most of Jordan Zimmermann's routine.

He started with stretches and arm circles, slowly loosening his muscles. Only after several minutes of this while he chatted with his coaches and catcher did he start throwing - and he didn't start pitching right away. He started throwing overhand at a short distance at a fraction of his pitching velocity. 

You can see him above in the corner of right field. After every couple of throws, he would back up a few feet, until he was fully extended in his throwing motion and throwing from the left-center field wall. 

He slowly worked his way back in, throwing harder but at shorter and shorter distances. Once he was finished, only then did he head into the bullpen with Wilson Ramos, who was catching this game, and start pitching at full velocity. 

It was fascinating for me to watch him move through this warmup routine with ease. I'm sure he does this before every single game. I was also thinking about my violin students, and realized that I haven't emphasized the importance of a warmup routine enough in their lessons.

Yes, I promise - there's a musical connection in this blog. You see, playing the violin takes just as much physical endurance and mental concentration as playing a sport at a high level. It requires all the muscles in your body to work together. The muscles that aren't actively playing the instrument need to be relaxed and loose so no excessive tension will limit your sound. The muscles that ARE playing the instrument need to move in the most efficient way possible.

Warming up is incredibly important for musicians. Before you play, arm, shoulder, and neck circles are a good idea to get the circulation in your body going. When you start playing, start with slow, deliberate motions. Do some slow bow circles using a full bow or play a scale using long bows to warm up your bow arm. Notice how you're holding the bow, how your arm is working, and if it feels smooth or if there are any bumps in your motion or the sound. For the left hand, slide up and down the fingerboard slowly to warm up your arm, or try some tapping exercises to get the fingers going.

Just like Jordan Zimmermann did, start with stretching for your body and then switch to slow, easy, basic motions. Gradually increase the speed and complexity of your playing. Add some different bow strokes or play shifting exercises that take you through a variety of positions.

Once you are thoroughly warmed up, then launch into the rest of your practice.

Did Jordan Zimmermann's warm up pay off, you ask? He pitched a complete game, which was the first no-hitter in Nationals history. He struck out 10 hitters and gave up one walk. He also made some great plays on the field and even got two hits of his own. It was an incredible final game of the regular baseball season and the perfect prelude to the postseason. Read more about his historic game in the Washington Post.

(And to my students, if you have any doubt on what your warmup exercises should be, take a look at your practice charts. The first two boxes are your warmup exercises. Feel free to add others, but use the ones I recommend as a starting point.)

Oh, and as for rookie Steven Souza Jr's amazing catch that ended the game? He warmed up for that, too. I didn't have a great view of left field from my seat, but the article by Thomas Boswell linked above mentions it. 

"In the top of the ninth inning, defensive replacement Steven Souza Jr. began practicing explosive sprints in left field, not the usual “get-loose” running of baseball. "

I'd say that warmup paid off. 

Time for the post-season! Let's go, Nats!

I am a perfectionist. I have been one for as long as I can remember. My mother often tells me the story of how my second-grade teacher told her that I would always be harder on myself than anyone else would. And it's true.

Perfectionists get a bad rap in society. Sure, our work is praised, but as people we get a reputation for not being very fun to be around. We're easily upset if we or our work isn't up to our impossible standards. We're always stressed. Our fear of not being perfect sometimes paralyzes us from even trying something new.

"Just relax," people say. "All you have to do is be yourself." "It doesn't matter what anyone else does." "I love you just the way you are." "You can do anything you put your mind to."

You know what? None of that helps. I know. I've had all of that said to me and more. And none of that made me feel a single bit better when I could hear that my violin sound was vastly inferior to the people around me.

Here's the thing: People know when you're lying to them. So, every time that someone praised my violin playing, I was comparing myself to Hilary Hahn in my mind. I was comparing myself to the students seated higher than me in my orchestra. I know that I'm not the best violinist in the world, or even close to being world-class. So telling me that "Yes, you are that good," is a lie, and I know that. It made me feel worse.

I was in a pretty bad place, both with my emotional health and with my violin playing, when I met Burton Kaplan. It's only a slight exaggeration to say he saved my violin life. In one of my very first lessons with him, he told me something that I still remember. He said, "It's good that you're a perfectionist. It means you won't give up until you get it right."


This was the first time that anyone had ever told me it was a good thing that I was the way I was. People were always telling me not to be so hard on myself, to do yoga, to do deep breathing, to just relax. 

What actually made me relax was Burton telling me that it was good that I was the way I was. 

You can't stop being a perfectionist. At least, not in my experience. But you can channel it into something productive and use it to your advantage, rather than letting it destroy your peace of mind.

Here are six things that have helped me channel my perfectionism into a force for good.

1. Stop all negative self-talk immediately. "I suck." "I'll never get better at this." "I'll never be the best." "I'll never be good enough." All these thoughts need to stop immediately. These are general thoughts of negativity. They are not helpful, they are not productive, and while you may never be the best violinist in the world (after all, that title can only go to one person, and even then it probably depends on the day), you can certainly make leaps and bounds of improvement. 

2. Adopt an analytical mindset. Treat yourself as a scientist and your playing as your experiment. Rather than say "Oh, gosh, I sound so bad," remove yourself a level. You're reacting to something in the sound; therefore, the logical conclusion is that something about your tone is off. Specifically describe what it is you don't like about the tone. And do refer to it as "the tone" rather than "my sound." Taking personal pronouns out of it makes it less personal. 

So, "The tone is scratchy." Now, be even more specific. Is the tone uniformly scratchy? Is it scratchy all the time or are there some notes that sound more scratchy then others? If so, what is happening in the music when your tone scratches?

Let's say that your tone is the most scratchy when you cross to the E-string. Here's where you go back to your fundamentals. Observe yourself (you may need a mirror or a video recording to do this). You might notice that when you cross strings, your elbow neglects to move with your hand, or that your bow slides close to the bridge.

Now, take your information and try something new: Focus on keeping your bow on the middle sound point and using your elbow to cross strings. 

Evaluate: Was the sound better, worse, or the same? In what specific ways? 

3. Be specific about what you don't like. Maybe your intonation is good but your rhythm is unsteady.  Pick one aspect of your playing to improve at a time, rather than just repeating something over and over and hoping that it'll get better.

4. Listen to yourself. For real. We perfectionists have a tendency to get lost in our heads. All that thinking sometimes drowns out the actual sounds we're making on our violins. Shift your focus to the actual sounds coming out of your violin at the present moment. If this is hard to do while playing, this is where a video recording of yourself comes in. Spend the first part of your practice playing and videoing yourself, then spend the second half watching that video, taking notes, and observing your sound. Again - be specific.

5. Set specific, attainable goals. "I want to be the best." "I want to be first chair." These are things that you can't control. The only thing you can control is what you do and how you sound. You can't control that about anyone else, and you can't control what judges will say or do in a competition setting. Your goals should be about your playing. For example, "I want to play this piece and hold my violin up the whole time." "I want to listen to the way each note connects to the next." "I want to start my crescendos softer and get louder more gradually." These are all things that you can achieve in your practice session and that will make your playing better.

6. Confront your weaknesses head on. I've always been afraid of doublestops. My hands tense up, my heart starts pounding, and I panic. So, for years, I avoided them. Now, I've created a Doublestop Bootcamp practice regimen for myself to tackle them head on. Don't avoid things that you don't think you're good at. Give them a try, and use the rest of the tips in this blog to make them better. Do them first in your practice session so you are freshest and get it over with. 

One last thing: Remember that you are deserving of love and good things because you are a human being with a beautiful soul. You are worthy of love because you are you. Your violin playing doesn't determine your value or worth as a human being. 

Love yourself, love your perfectionism, and use that perfectionism to make yourself a better violinist.

One of the things I love the most about my job is getting to introduce people to different pieces of music. I've gotten a little jaded about certain pieces. The ones that are so ubiquitous in our culture that they are remixed, beatboxed, and have terrible cuts used in tv commercials. Sometimes I forget to sit down and really listen to the piece and appreciate it. Listening to music with my students and seeing the joy and excitement in their faces as they hear the music, excited to know what comes next, helps me remember just how special  music is. If you do anything enough, I suppose it can become ordinary, and I want to try and guard against that.

I've decided that my second blog of the month this school year is going to share a piece of music that I love and talk a little about why I love it and why I love this particular recording.

This time, it's the Debussy Violin Sonata. I personally haven't played a great deal of French music, but I love listening to it and it's something I want to explore more in my playing. Claude Debussy was a composer who lived in the early 20th century and is to classical music what Claude Monet was to visual art. His compositions are lush, colorful, and imaginative. 

I love how quietly and simply this movement starts, almost calmly, before it takes on a greater sense of urgency and sweeps us into a beautiful world of color and rapidly changing sound textures.  The sheer variety of sounds and characters produced by the performers is incredible, as is the speed with which they transition from one to another.

Around the 2-minute mark, I imagine that there's a conversation between two characters as the violin switches from the low register to the high register. Soon after, the opening theme comes back in a nod to traditional ternary form.

I think my favorite moment in the piece, however, is at 3:57 in this recording. It's exultant, exotic, and just perfectly gorgeous as the climax of the movement. 

I love this recording of Joseph Szigeti and Bela Bartok. Bartok is better known these days as a composer than a pianist, but I find his interpretations powerful and always interesting. I love Szigeti's violin playing. He can change moods faster than the blink of an eye, and his energy is always on the edge of bursting out into wildness. I never get tired of listening to these two play together.

I hope you enjoy this short movement from Debussy!

Fall is upon us and so it is back to school and back to a regular practice routine! I have a few tips for setting up your new fall practice routine and a few links to previous blogs for some inspiration.

1. Schedule practicing like you schedule all of your other activities. When you take violin lessons, it's not just about fitting in time for a lesson. Make sure you look at your schedule for the whole week and include practice time when you consider what other activities you will be participating in.  Make a calendar appointment for your practicing just as you would your violin lesson.

2. Practice violin before you do your homework. In talking to parents in my studio, I've found that families who try to practice last thing in the day - that is, after homework, dinner, and bath - have a really hard time getting their students motivated. Practice as soon as you get home from school so you're fresh and ready to go. It's a lot easier to do homework later at night than it is to practice.

3. Put upcoming recitals and performances on your calendar well in advance and plan your work backwards. If your next recital is in December, plan on having your piece memorized and well-prepared by early November. Use what you know about your playing and your work style to plan backwards so that you are always prepare and never taken by surprise when a performance comes up.

Previous posts you may enjoy:
The Art of Practicing
Starting the Journey : A Guide for New Violinists and Their Parents
Kick it Up A Notch!
Hacks for Your Violin Lessons