Lara St. John - View on Scales and Technical Exercises

Lara’s views on scales and technical exercises at a young age

Lara’s teacher and mentor from 1986 to the continuous present, is a teacher originally from the Philippines named Jorge (Joey) Corpus. As Lara has been known to say often, "he has taught me everything I know about actually playing the violin."

Following are excerpts from a speech she once gave to young musicians and parents in Canada.

" As a very young musician, it is very hard to understand the concept of why we are forced to practice all these scales, practice slowly or to learn ugly etudes which we will never perform, when it seems to a youthful mind to go against the whole reason we wanted to play an instrument in the first place. Especially to those many who are inundated with raw talent in the beginning, it seems a living nightmare, since the natural impulse is to play, perform, and share with a public what we feel coursing through our veins; the voice of music, the wishes (hopefully) of the great composers, and the feeling of being a vessel between them and the public.

I have vivid memories as a child of feeling trapped within a never-ending daily grind of scales, arpeggios and etudes for what purpose I could not fathom. I thought it was a punishment for something I had done wrong, and the reason for this total incomprehension was that no one ever bothered to explain it to me in a way that I could understand. I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me. In my mind it was the equivalent of clipping the wings of a swan (or at least a cute little duck).

The main mistake made by grownups in this matter is, in my opinion, the underestimation of children’s capacity to understand. It was only when I was thirteen years old, after having played for eleven years, (and meanwhile doing all these exercises with no care at all - only wishing to get them over with - and thereby wrecking the whole point) that it was finally explained to me in a way that I could understand by Joey Corpus.

Until the age of 13 or so, (sometimes later) most children with any talent at all can ride on only that, until it clicks in their minds that what they are actually doing technically is virtually impossible. At a certain point, the mind thinks "How on earth can I get up on stage in front of thousands and play this difficult concerto when I have no idea how I am doing it??" At this turning point, it is easy to feel abject despair, the nerves kick in, and then these kids (who everyone was happy and excited to call "prodigies" for all those years) will have their world slowly turning upside down.

This very nearly happened to me, and would have if it had not been for Joey, who explained the reason for all the exercises - that it is a base that will never fail you under even the worst circumstances. If I remember rightly, he likened it to walking on a solid and thick brick wall, as opposed to walking on a tightrope. He also made me realize that intonation is in the ear, and that it has little to do with the fingers, as I previously had thought. Since I had come to the turning point, I must have realized that this new concept was my salvation. I had already, for a year or so, felt the prick of nerves on stage, which to me is equivalent to having bad vertigo, and was willing to do anything to get rid of this.

The concept is basically; that the pieces we know and love are made up of scales, arpeggios, and the like. If one works on these with this idea in mind - that it will give newfound freedom to the music itself, and therefore the mind on stage - it is easy to practice them for hours with great care and thought. It is not, of course, the magical and all-powerful answer to the problems and tribulations of a young musician, and for me, there have been many more and perhaps greater hurdles, but this one was the beginning of a conscious understanding into the totally strange and wonderful world of music making.