Pedagogical Family Tree
For centuries professional musicians have passed their knowledge down from one generation to the next by word of mouth. More recently, this information has been recorded, allowing for its consumption by a much broader populous. Through careful review of many writings, it appears that the level of expected performance of, in this case, classical musicians has gradually risen. Recently, this increase seems to have skyrocketed due in part to sudden advances in audio equipment. Combined with newly produced transcriptions of violin music for viola, this increased level of playing ability has helped cause an emergence of the viola as an instrument of great import, no longer to sit in the shadow of such instruments as the violin.
Transcendence
Development, or transcendence, of violin technique can be traced all the way back to Vivaldi and Corelli. Below is a brief illustration of how that line was passed to the 20th century and is revolutionizing viola technique today.
Viola technique was not standardized prior to the 20th Century. Part of the reason it was not standardized is that before the 20th Century the viola was considered “secondary” to the violin; an instrument considered to be meant for incompetent violinists. Violists who stood out in the 20th Century were originally violinists who applied their violin technique to the viola. Examples include: William Primrose, Lionel Tertis, Paul Hindemith, etc.
The latter part of the 20th Century witnessed a rise in the technical level of violists. Before the 20th Century there was no “traditional” viola school of playing. In the mid-20 century we saw a rise in efforts to develop a standardized school of playing. Pedagogues such as Karen Tuttle, Paul Doktor, Milton Katims, and William Lincer contributed greatly to this effort. Masao Kawasaki has made an enormously significant difference in this area at CCM and then those that looked to the violin and adapted the standardized violin method developed by Ivan Galamian/Dorothy DeLay to viola.
At CCM we utilize the Galamian/DeLay system on the viola. We use transcriptions of materials used to develop violinists, such as Kreutzer, Rode, Flesch, and Paganini. Our physical approach to the instrument coincides with that of the Alexander Technique, Pilates, and the principles of physics involving symmetry and balance.
Today’s Market
It is a well-known statistic that the majority of violists in professional orchestras both in the United States and abroad were originally violinists who transferred their well honed skills to the viola. Violists are not necessarily competing with other violists in the audition circuit, but rather with highly skilled, well trained violinists. Our philosophy at CCM is to develop the technical level of our students to match that of a well trained violinist. We accomplish this by utilizing the same materials, such as etudes and caprices of Kreutzer, Rode, Dont, and Paganini violinists use to achieve that level.