“Playing in tune.” This ominous, restricting phrase. The moment I think of it, I think of that game with sand bags, where you need to toss them and it's either hit or miss (cornhole?). Or a game of darts, where there is a definite center and you need to get as close to it as possible. A Lego set where you can't veer off track, where you absolutely need to build the model on the box. This is not creating, building, or designing. This is all along the lines of following a scrip

Thirty-three years of playing the violin — experimenting, studying, observing, and performing — brought me to a simple conclusion: There are only three types of left hand technique. Vertical movements (lifting/pressing fingers on the string without shifting — e.g. trills) Horizontal movements (shifting) Hand frames (chords) That's it. And the fastest way to improve your left hand technique is to practice each movement meticulously, without combining it with another. Even at o

It’s July 2, 2026. I have now performed 200 Masquerade shows. With six pulses (groups of sixty audience members) at each show, six preludes each show, that’s 1200 performances of the exact same Prelude, 1200 bows, 1200 cadenzas. Five E strings broken mid-performance. Tens of horse hairs ripped. Someone asked me once: "Do you get sick of it, playing the same thing over and over again?" I don’t. I truly don’t. If anything, I enjoy it more and more. And being particularly attrac

I start my warmup by doing everything I was taught not to do. The purpose is not flexibility — it's not a sport. Nor is it to get to the point where you sound as good as yesterday — we're not machines. I think a warmup, at least as I use it on the violin, is the act of crossing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable while listening to gravity, the body, breath, nature. Here is how I do it. With loose arms, I put the full weight of my right arm into the string through

Un, deux, trois, quatre, un, deux, trois, quatre. The eight clicks before I begin to play I count in French, the language I grew up speaking. Soon the room will fill. The first guests are directed to within a few feet of me. I don't look up. The click track is already there in my right ear. I listen past it. The first measures are for the violin as much as for the audience. Wood, string, horsehair. The sound is still finding its shape. For a moment it feels unfamiliar, then s

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