Simon Fischer Violin Lesson

[Carolina Schmalzried]

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Marco BrancalionMay 18, 2023, 11:31 AM In my opinion, "like an encyclopedia".

"Basics" is more progressive and maybe useful.I have both.

Andrew VictorMay 18, 2023, 11:51 AM I agree with Marco and also use Fischer's 'Violin Lesson" as a resource as I previously used Galamian.

I expect that when the 23rd century dawns Fischer's work will stand tall among the classic sources.

jean dubuissonMay 18, 2023, 3:13 PM For me, The Violin Lesson is really a self-study textbook, for someone who can already play the violin, but wants to go through a reboot, while Basics is more of an encyclopedia.

elise stanleyMay 18, 2023, 3:42 PM And I'm with Jean. I did exactly that - I found it the most accessible and the most informative of the series.

Adalberto Valle-RiveraMay 18, 2023, 6:40 PM "Consult as needed", but I have both and ended up preferring the Violin Lesson, as it's more exhaustive. It's excellent.

Paul DeckMay 18, 2023, 7:12 PM Personally I found "Basics" more practical -- a book for the music room, and "The Violin Lesson" more theoretical -- a book for the toilet.

Gabriel SoloffMay 18, 2023, 7:31 PM Paul - to read on the toilet or the book belongs in the toilet?

Adrian HeathEdited: May 21, 2023, 1:01 PM We teachers often transmit least well what is obvious or easy for us.

Simon Fischer kindly assumes that nothing is obvious, but everything can be made easier..

He uses all my own tips 'n' tricks..plus ten times more!(And I find it too enjoyable to be read where Paul suggests.)

elise stanleyMay 20, 2023, 9:27 AM Paul - do you also play the violin there?

All sorts of puns come to mind. But lets not go there....

Roy SonneMay 21, 2023, 9:23 PM The Simon Fischer books are head and shoulders above all the rest -- Galamian, Flesch, Auer, Menuhin, Havas, Gerle, Bronstein. I have studied them all. None comes close to Fischer. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1445120547957-0'); );

Paul DeckEdited: May 22, 2023, 9:25 AM Elise, I don't read books whilst practicing the violin. My multitasking bandwidth is not high enough. I find that "reference texts" like "The Violin Lesson" or "Chemistry of the Elements" by Greenwood and Earnshaw (one of the best chemistry books ever) are well suited for the short intervals of time the one normally has in the john, because you can learn one thing and then ponder it the rest of the day. To say that a book is well suited for the toilet is therefore a mark of considerable respect on my part.I agree with Roy, but of course Fischer had the advantage of having read -- and probably very closely studied -- all the others. Considering the volume of literature available, it was a Herculean effort of scholarship on Fischer's part.

Lydia LeongMay 22, 2023, 10:23 AM I've found Fischer's articles in the Strad to be very consumable, and so it makes sense to read The Violin Lesson in similar bite-sized chunks. I've never read the whole thing, though.I did read Basics cover to cover when I first bought it, years ago when I had more free time. But it's also a smaller book.

Adrian HeathEdited: June 1, 2023, 11:20 AM There is also "Practice", another weighty tome to place on the table near the music stand (rather than where Paul suggested).

Once again, all my own tricks'n'tips plus hundreds more.Warming Up, and Basics, fit on a standard music stand.

Not to mention Scales, and Double Stops.All so intelligently practical.

Tom HolzmanJune 1, 2023, 11:51 AM I assume much of what Fischer says is applicable to viola playing, but has he written anything specifically for us alto clef life forms?

Adrian HeathJune 1, 2023, 12:13 PM I have Warming Up, and Scales in viola editions.

Jake WatsonJune 1, 2023, 12:15 PM Tom, other than his "Scales for Viola" I don't think so. I have been using both Basics and The Violin Lesson exercises in my viola practise to great effect though recently!

Tom HolzmanJune 1, 2023, 5:33 PM @Adrian, @Jake - thanks. I have Warming Up. I don't have Scales in viola although I have Barbara Barber's Scales for Advanced Violists.

Geoff CaplanJune 8, 2023, 7:00 PM Good timing, as I'm doing one of my periodic reboots based on The Violin Lesson.For an adult self-learner, it is far and away the most useful and insightful resource I have found. It's a genuine masterwork that takes a holistic mind and body approach to the instrument while remaining practical and easy to understand.I particularly value his method of reducing all techniques to concrete proportions - it makes the intimidating difficulties of the instrument feel a little more manageable.The Lesson is more systematic than Basics, so better for a root-and-branch review, I feel. Basics is more of a loosely structured anthology.Fischer is actually pretty explicit about how it should be used - identify one or two priority areas of weakness to work on, and then dive into the relevant chapters to problem-solve the issues.Personally, I'm working through the sections on setup and relaxation to ensure I have my fundamentals on track, before digging into more focused areas of weakness such as trills, vibrato and spiccato.I am realising that the book is so dense that at my modest level I will undoubtedly miss much of the value on any one reading. So I plan to work with it pretty much continually on a cyclical basis. As Fisher says, all players have the same fundamental issues - it's just that they become more subtle and tricky to diagnose as you become more advanced.

Horace KiangJune 8, 2023, 9:15 PM The Violin lesson is an excellent book... however I don't think beginners could get a lot from it.

joel quiveyEdited: June 9, 2023, 1:06 AM Thanks to the positive reviews from you guys, I just received my copy in the mail ($$). After a quick glance, I already feel better about my teaching and playing.

Richard PairaudeauJune 9, 2023, 3:40 AM I'm interested, Joel. In what particular ways? I don't own either of Simon Fisher's books: maybe I should!

joel quiveyJune 9, 2023, 10:48 AM @-R.P. -- I should probably actually read some of it before replying, but it looks like his approach emphasizes mechanics, posture, ergonomics, which I like. For intonation he is clearly in the Casals/"expressive/Pythagorean/leading tone camp, which in my opinion can cause trouble sometimes.

Geoff CaplanEdited: June 9, 2023, 2:17 PM Richard - he's written a number of books. They are all truly excellent, as is his DVD on tone production.Basics, The Lesson, the scales book and the tone production DVD are valuable for players of all levels past raw beginner. I have them and use them regularly.The books on double stops, practice and warm-up seem to be aimed more at advanced players - they are still in the future for me...

Richard PairaudeauJune 9, 2023, 4:04 PM Thanks for the replies, Joel and Geoff. I shall look into this. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548883144385-0'); ); This discussion has been archived and is no longer accepting responses.

I'm an amateur violinist, and I have a professor that guide me using repertories from Solo for Young Violinists, Suzuki books up to 5, Wohlfahrt violin books 1 and 2, and other related materials such as Tone by Simon Fischer. However sometimes I want to do systematic study on my own that follows some kind of structured and/or progressive idea. When I got Basic, Practice, and Violin Lesson; I realized that there is a lot of overlapping in its content. In my opinion and my level some of the content in these books are too much explanation and/or examples that are to advance or to short to make a study session. I asked my professor as everyone recommend in other posts but he does not have experience teaching with these books so he can look and choose things in the books on the flight that I can work on but that is not what I am looking for. I am looking for the opinion of people that have experience using these books can prescribe a recommend on where to start or how use this books by an student on its own. Simon fisher have very useless descriptions on how to use the books and its relation in his websites(See a copy down)-(pardon me Simon you are still the best) and the "How use it" on some books is too general that can apply to almost every violin's books in the world. If you have a recommendation, advice, or guide based on experience using these great books I will appreciated it.Thank youSimon Fischer website extract:

Basics gives all the fundamental technique.

Practice shows how to merge technique with music-making.

The Violin Lesson goes beyond the headings of the previous books into other essential areas of music-making and violin playing. Tweet !function(d,s,id)var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id))js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1445120298060-0'); ); Replies (12)

Lydia LeongJanuary 2, 2019, 8:41 AM Why are you wanting to structure your own learning, if you are taking lessons with someone competent?

Adrian HeathJanuary 2, 2019, 11:18 AM - Fischer's books are not methods, they are resource books.

- Short exercises are to be repeated with continual improvement (often much more beneficial than grinding through pages of studies, in my experience).

- We have to be conscious of whywe are learning, or repeating, an exercise, scale or study.

Paul DeckEdited: January 2, 2019, 11:28 AM Acknowledging the useful comments already made, let's get to the heart of your question. You see that there is a lot of redundancy ("overlap") among Fischer's books, and you're wondering whether there's one book that's "central" (one ring to rule them all). This question has been asked in several other threads, and the general consensus is that "The Violin Lesson" is the "master" book. It is actually intended partly for self-teaching.One thing you need to understand about Simon Fischer is that he is not immune to the forces of capitalism. If he thinks writing another book will be a significantly worthwhile (i.e., profitable) enterprise, then he will likely write one even if doing so causes him to cover a lot of the same ground. Kind of like Art Tatum records. After a while you realize that you're buying a lot of tracks you already have on other albums...

Adrian HeathJanuary 2, 2019, 12:42 PM In a few words:Basics: how to do stuff;

Practice: how to practice stuff;

The Lesson: how to learn, or teach oneself stuff.Of course they overlap!!

Denis OlivaEdited: January 2, 2019, 10:03 PM Thank you Paul and Adrian for taking time answering my question with positive content direct related to my post. I am getting an opinion and an understanding for answers I got on different places and posts I have read that everybody like Fisher books but very few people use the books in a daily basis or deeper. I have not be able to get concrete answers on the used of these books based on specific content. Is like everybody ends shelving these books. As a contrast if you ask questions for any other book people are very specific and can contrasts etudes from a method to the other method, or order of use, or repertory books against other books, etc. Maybe is just because as Adrian mentioned these are not method books... however, I am leaning more that is because they are not commonly use. My argument to think that is based own my experience as professor in other area not related to music there I can recommend books that I have used not matter if they are Theory books and Practice books if I have used those books I can give specific instruction to students of where to look, there order and how to look on those books, but if I know the books content but have not use I ended saying just general things or just saying I have not use those. Thank you anyway for you answers. These books still looks very nice in my book shelve and Tone and Warming Up are very useful

Lydia LeongJanuary 2, 2019, 10:21 PM I find that Fischer's books are basically the equivalent of encyclopedias on my shelf -- a reference. They are useful when I am looking for something specific -- for instance, when I know I want an exercise for some specific thing, and somewhere in his tomes will be a useful one, more readily found than if I were to search through volumes of Sevcik or other etude books myself.But in general I know what I'm looking for in the books. I'm not sure how useful they really are to a student who doesn't know what they are trying to find within.

jean dubuissonJanuary 3, 2019, 2:33 AM Denis just one anecdote. When I started playing again some ten years ago I had difficulties with a passage that involved string crossings. I had just bought the Basics book. I looked up "string crossing" in the index: it had a subentry that said "bumpy string crossing". I went to that exercise and Simon Fischer explains exactly what causes bumpy string crossings, along with exercises for string crossing the proper way. That book compiled for the first time the large body of technical knowledge that previously was only communicated from teacher to student to student's student etc, a bit like in medieval times with handcrafts. If that book is not useful then I do not know what is useful.

Adrian HeathEdited: January 3, 2019, 7:52 AM Indeed, study books like Sevcik's do not tell us how to do things.

Neither do a great many teachers!

And Fischer's books are even less dogmatic than the excellent treatises of Flesch and Galamian...Edit: I have found all of my own "tips & tricks" (developed over half a century..) in Fischer's books, plus a whole lot more!

Jeewon KimJanuary 3, 2019, 7:57 AM I don't know whether Fischer is dogmatic or not in his teaching (I've only met one former student,) but he is definitely rooted in a tradition and writes from that perspective. He also has a large person bias.I agree with Lydia, and would add, it's not necessarily a good thing to try and understand what you must do physically. Such mental understanding is an added, mediating layer which must eventually be forgotten in performance, which is sometimes hard to do when you become conscious of it, especially if you've developed a phobia. Don't get me wrong, I spent a decade teaching such intermediate ways of achieving desired results, but I do think it is a round about way to performance, which is always better if it's immediate.

Adrian HeathEdited: January 3, 2019, 12:39 PM Jeewon, (nice to read you again!) I find that if the mental-spacial-kinetic aspects are treated attentively, they can indeed be "forgotten" in performance. And when such preparation needs subsequent renewal, it goes much faster and better than the first time.But I agree that Mr Fischer's enormous hands make him less clear about the needs of my slender-handed young ladies (or indeed their stubby-fingered teacher!) googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1445120547957-0'); );

Gordon ShumwayJanuary 3, 2019, 1:19 PM I asked similar questions a couple of months ago when I only had Basics. Since then I've read Galamian and bought the Violin Lesson, but, as Lydia says, they are now on my shelf for reference, and I hardly open them at all.

Jeewon KimEdited: January 3, 2019, 2:07 PM (Thanks Adrian! :)"I find that if the mental-spacial-kinetic aspects are treated attentively, they can indeed be "forgotten" in performance."I absolutely agree. But tough for students to do without a teacher like you getting them to constantly attend to what they hear, feel and do. Re. jean's experience, I'd wager beginners are not going to be able to understand, implement, and keep focus on what they need to as they try to embody the new information they read in the same way a returner could. Also, sometimes it can be counterproductive to get ahead of oneself, to go off the teacher's program.Edit: E.g. I wouldn't give students string crossing exercises before they were able to play on each string cleanly, which entails clearly feeling the level and plane of each string, plus each double stop level, and the 3 'edges' of each string, and the ability to feel weight sinking into each level. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548883144385-0'); ); This discussion has been archived and is no longer accepting responses.

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