What the body knows: embodied violin technique, voice, and learning

I was about 15 years old when I noticed. On the body of my violin, between the tailpiece and the purfling, a small puddle of dried sea water, the size of a quarter. 

I don’t remember crying while practicing. But there, holding on to 250-year-old varnish, was the evidence, quiet and indisputable. An emotional testament commemorating the beginning of years of suffering. 

From the age of about 12 to 22, violin slowly became an instrument of torture. At age 19, simply placing the violin on my shoulder before playing would immediately send a wave of extreme discomfort throughout my body. It was like lifting the leg of a grand piano, except with a dense aversion that permeated every cell of my being. 

This hominid has been a resident of my violin case for 33 years.

Through years of experimentation, avant-garde music making, and sometimes reckless spontaneity (like improvising a piece at my Juilliard audition and pretending to have written it), I slowly, very slowly, emerged from the abyss. Later, working with Mauricio Fuks for two weeks, and Mark Steinberg for a year and a half laid the foundation for my violinistic revolution. Encountering Ivry Gitlis along the way, his way of thinking and living, supplied a buoy of oxygen and the ability to breathe — finally. 

"Listen to your inner ear, which is connected directly to your heart and spirit, the one that tells you what you feel is you! And the one you don't feel isn't you." –Ivry Gitlis

Now, a quarter of a century later, the reason behind dried tears and struggle is clear and twofold: 1. Detachment from my body (a type of disembodiment); and 2. A silenced individual voice. 

The idea that the body has its own preference, its own ergonomic inclinations, its natural ways, ways that need to be respected, heard, listened — this idea, along with the work required to study it, came late. I learned by imitation, that silent devil. Silent because there’s value in it. Devil because it’s dishonest. 

Moreover, it turns out that every body is different, although living in the same physical reality. And so yes, there are “universal principles” — impossible to escape the physics of string vibrations, the human anatomy, gravity — but embodied violin technique cannot be programmed from the outside. It needs to be felt. Experience cannot be passed on to someone else, Tarkovsky said.

I believe in non-linearity. The way forward is both simpler and more complex. What seems like a shortcut is often the longer path, and vice versa, the counterintuitive, strange, squiggly road is often the fastest. 

Throughout this blog, I will explore artistic practice through the meeting point of technique, imagination, and lived experience. I will share every “secret” I know about violin and viola playing, each one filtered through the sieve of a resistant mind—for I have been a terrible student throughout my life, and much of what is commonly taught did not work for me. I will also address questions without answers, journeys without endings, and the strange business of becoming oneself.

Notes from masterclasses with Mauricio Fuks.