this kind can never be done ideally in class.  But every individual student must himself come to realize the necessity of doing technical work without notes as a matter of daily exercise, even though his time be limited.  Perhaps the most difficult of all lessons is learning to hold the violin.  There are pupils to whom holding the instrument presents insurmountable obstacles.  Such pupils, instead of struggling in vain with a physical difficulty, might rather take up the study of the ’cello, whose weight rests on the floor.  That many a student was not intended to be a violin player by nature is proved by the various inventions, chin-rests, braces, intended to supply what nature has not supplied.  The study of the violin should never be allowed if it is going to result in actual physical deformity:  raising of the left shoulder, malformation of the back, or eruptions resulting from chin-rest pressure.  These are all evidences of physical unfitness, or of incorrect teaching.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING

“Class study is for the advanced student, not the beginner.  In the beginning only the closest personal contact between the individual pupil and the teacher is desirable.  To borrow an analogy from nature, the student may be compared to the young bird whose untrained wings will not allow him to take any trial flights unaided by his natural guardian.  For the beginning violinist the principal thing to do is to learn the ’voice placing’ of the violin.  This goes hand in hand with the proper—­which is the easy and natural—­manner of holding the violin, bow study, and an appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument.  The student’s attention should at once be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities of the violin tone, and he should at once familiarize himself with the development of those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and relaxation which are instrumental in its production.  The analogies between the violin voice and the human voice should also be developed.  The violin itself must to all intents become a part of the player himself, just as the vocal chords are part of the human body.  It should not be considered a foreign tone-producing instrument adjusted to the body of the performer; but an extension, a projection of his physical self.  In a way it is easier for the violinist to get at the chords of the violin and make them sound, since they are all exposed, which is not the case with the singer.

“There are two dangerous points in present-day standards of violin teaching.  One is represented by the very efficient European professional standards of technic, which may result in an absolute failure of poetic musical comprehension.  These should not be transplanted here from European soil.  The other is the non-technical, sentimental, formless species of teaching which can only result in emotional enervation.  Yet if forced to choose between the two the former would be preferable since without tools it is impossible to carve anything of beauty.  The final beauty of the violin tone, the pure legato, remains in the beginning as in the end a matter of holding the violin and bow.  Together they ‘place’ the tone just as the physical media in the throat ‘place’ the tone of the voice.