THE ARTIST’S TECHNIQUE
General Remarks on Technique
It is not scientific. This method
will explain the violinist:
the arm, the fingers, the brain and memory,
the “ ”; the intention to master.
Fingers and arm obey memory,
reproduced under the impulsiveness of performance.
With exercise the brain and memory lie,
building up a logical whole— technique-psychology,
the picture preceding reason.
•
Complete mastery means to scale the vertical.
On four strings, violinists oppose
rationale; practice shifting the absurd.
Errors are committed.
Thousands are taxed to the utmost, exhausted at times,
ruining their health; incapable of purity.
Their tone presents itself
as part of this work.
THE ARTIST’S TECHNIQUE
Typical Exercises
All violinists should be used.
The simplest may be executed.
Though it apparently never leaves, the guide
touches the variants of all parts.
In simple and accentuated “ ” the typical
is stopped and the practice developed
to the highest degree. The parts
should be first the brain and the memory;
later, the fingers, the arm
eventually the parts in the lower half.
Clare Louise Harmon is the author of The Thingbody (2015/2018 forthcoming, Instar Books) and the chapbook, If Wishes Were Horses the Poor Would Ride (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her work has appeared in Sixth Finch, Tammy, PANK, The Feminist Wire, Bone Bouquet, and the Cider Press Review, among others. She lives and works in New Orleans.
*These poems borrow language from The Artist’s Technique of Violin Playing, Op. 12 by D.C. Dounis. Dounis is said to have taught supplemental lessons in extended violin technique to the greatest violin virtuosi of the twentieth century, including, among others, Nathan Milstein and Jascha Heifetz.