The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 042 Arnaud Sussman: Fluency & Music Making

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 42. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed last week's conversation with maestro Marin Alsop. And for you today, I have solo violinist Arnaud Sussman. Arnaud is the winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and he's distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura, and profound musicianship.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the globe, Arnaud has appeared as a soloist with several orchestras and performed recitals on world-class stages and at renowned festivals. A dedicated chamber musician, he's been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006 and he has regularly appeared with them in New York and on tour. A frequent recording artist, he's released albums on Deutsch Gramophone, Naxos, Albany Records and SEMA Studio recording labels. His solo debut disc featuring three Brahms Violin Sonatas with pianist Orion West

Starting point is 00:01:25 was released in December 2014 on the Talos music label. He's been featured on multiple PBS Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts alongside Itzhak Perlman and the Perlman Music Program and with musicians of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Born in Strasbourg, France and based now in New York City, Arnaud Sussman trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Juilliard School with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman. Winner of several international competitions,

Starting point is 00:01:53 He was named a Starling Fellow in 2006. Arnaud now teaches at Stony Brook University on Long Island and was recently named co-artistic director of Music at Menlo's International Music Program. In this episode, we discuss mindsets and strategies to adopt when working on sound quality, the importance of having a strong concept of phrasing and of bow distribution and musicality, the importance of creating fluency in his playing and how he achieves it, the importance of purpose in our practice, Warming up during busy periods, the value of recording ourselves when we practice, and why he believes it's important to work hard.

Starting point is 00:02:30 And for the French speakers, stick around at the end. Arnaud et moi continuons la discussion en français aux alentours de la minute 32. On vous offre un retour sur certains points abordés en anglais en ce qui a trait à la production du son et du phrasé, et une conversation sur l'importance de la curiosité dans la pratique et sur comment il aborde une oeuvre nouvelle. It's an information and inspiration-packed episode, and I hope you enjoy and find value in our discussion. And if so, please share the love and tell a friend about the podcast. Let's go to the show.

Starting point is 00:03:11 Arnaud Sussman, thank you so much for being here today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. You and I have never met, but we have many friends in common, including some guests on season one of the podcast like Matthew Lipman. And I saw your name starting to pop up just about everywhere a few years ago. And I've been a follower ever since on social media and also catching your YouTube videos, which are fantastic, by the way. I hope everyone goes to YouTube and catches your performance there. And I'm just so thrilled to be speaking with you today because I'm a huge fan of your wonderful playing. Well, thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:03:48 I'm very happy to be talking to you. There's another reason I'm happy too, is because you're a French speaker like me. So after our English conversation, we're going to switch to French for a little bit and have some fun. So I hope our French listeners stick around for that. First, Arnaud, I'd love for my listeners to get to hear your story in your own words. So can you please tell us a little bit about your musical journey and how you got to where you are today?

Starting point is 00:04:13 OK, well, I was born in France and I grew up there until 2001 when I moved to the U.S. I grew up in the south of France. Sounds like you're in New York City right now. Yes, I'm in New York. Sorry, I can't do anything about this. It just adds to the whole atmosphere. Yes, I'm in my apartment. I just got back last night. but to anyways to go back to my musical journey yeah so I grew up in the south of France in Nice where I did my studies at the conservatory and about 14 years old I went to study in Lyon for

Starting point is 00:04:48 one year then in Paris with a gentleman who is still I consider my mentor and somebody who influenced me tremendously his name is Boris Garlitsky he's a Russian violinist and as a matter of fact i just played on facetime for him uh three days ago before going on to play Brahms's third violin so i call him regularly and we have great musical conversations uh and so i studied with him for a few years and in 2001 i moved to the u.s i had the opportunity to come study at juilliard with it's like perlman uh and i studied with him for six years i did my undergrad and uh my master's with him and uh after that uh i actually while i was still in school i started um playing for the chamber music society of lincoln center which has been basically the the

Starting point is 00:05:38 the biggest part of my life for the for more than 10 years now and so it was very nice transition because as i was a student i started to to to play concerts with the society at lincoln center and um and after school yeah i just was playing a lot of concerts uh both solo and chamber music and in recent years about five years ago i started teaching at stony brook university which has been a great addition to my life and uh there are new things coming up in my life which maybe we can talk about later including a new artistic directorship but so my life has been kind of gradually evolving my my musical life uh to where it is now which is i consider a very fulfilling and varied uh place that i have i i'm lucky to be able to do a lot of things that i like to do

Starting point is 00:06:30 and that i want to do in this music world and let's talk about it now what is that new amazing project you just mentioned yes uh well i just signed a contract to be the new artistic director for the chamber music society of palm beach in florida which is very exciting to me it's kind of the next step in in my journey now so i'll be running a series that happens during the year that has been going on for a few years now and i'll just be taking over starting in a few weeks wow congratulations that's amazing thank you thank you and you were just mentioning the chamber music society lincoln center are what is the 1920 season looking like for you what are some fun projects that you're looking forward to uh well we uh i do i go on a lot of tours with the

Starting point is 00:07:23 society uh and so we have a couple fun tours uh to look forward to one we're going back to uh colombia the country of colombia uh to bogota and medellin this time uh we have a tour in asia in December, if I'm not mistaken. We're going to Taiwan and China. I know I'm playing Schubert cello quintet in New York, I think in October maybe. And, you know, I kind of go week by week here, so I don't totally remember everything that's coming on this season,

Starting point is 00:07:57 but there are always very exciting concerts with the Society, so I'm looking forward to it all. And actually, I see that you're playing the Schubert quintet here in Chicago. October 23rd at the Harris Theatre. So I really hope I can catch that because I remember being, you know, like any 14-year-old, this is your dream piece that you want to play.

Starting point is 00:08:17 So it's always been one of my favorite. Oh, same for me. Yeah, absolutely. I should say you have a fantastic website. So I hope everybody goes on the website and check out your dates, read your bio, all of that nice stuff. Yes, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:08:30 I actually just updated it. So it's all up to date. People can see all the concerts I have for the rest of the year. I know you have, as we just talked about, a very busy solo and chamber music career and you have an amazing technique and you're an excellent violinist. But for me, it goes way beyond this in terms of artistry. And one of my favorite thing about your playing. Well, I should say two of my favorite things about your playing are your exceptional sound and your ability to shape wonderful phrases.

Starting point is 00:09:03 So I'd love to talk about this with you a little bit. first if we can talk about maybe sound quality because that's something that I think we're all after regardless of our instrument and that's one of the biggest questions I get from students and from listeners is how to work on sound quality yeah so I'd love to hear about how you work on developing your sound and what are some techniques or some approaches that young musicians could use to develop their sound right uh it's a great question and i get this often and it's a somewhat difficult answer because there are many factors i think uh involved in in working on your sound i think probably first and foremost i would say that the sound is really something that's

Starting point is 00:09:49 within you i often joke joke with my friends because i you know they know that i'm a violin nerd in terms of the equipment the violins the bow the strings all of this but you can give me any violin and i sound like myself and i think it's true of a lot of people and so that really means that at the end of the day your sound is your sound and and an instrument can sort of push you one way or another but your sound is within you and so i think that comes originally from just developing your your your ears and and what you what it is that you love in in a sound And so for me, I just know that as a child, I listened to a million recordings of all the great violinists from the past that I love, Oistra, Heifetz, Milstein, all of them, you know, and I think that helped me develop kind of an old school sound in my head, which I, you know, tried to reproduce then on the violin. So listening to a lot of these musicians that you love, I think, is an important thing.

Starting point is 00:10:53 And then in terms of technically on the instrument, it comes from, first and foremost, your approach to the instrument, the posture, the relaxation that you should have when you play the violin, which is such an awkward instrument. And so I think a lot of people's sound may end up sounding a little tight because they're physically tight. And so one of the biggest aspects of violin playing that I think of all the time is how to be as relaxed as I can, more relaxed. I always want to be more and more relaxed, to have more depth in the string without working hard at all. And I think the biggest concept that came from my teacher Boris Garlitsky in France, and it's a very Russian concept, is to use gravity. Use gravity to your advantage. Never fight gravity. And to use that force to your advantage so that you can create sound and play violin with as little effort as possible. So that's kind of a simple answer as far as the sound. And then, of course, if you go in depth into other technical aspects, one of the things I've been thinking about a ton in recent years is bow distribution

Starting point is 00:12:11 because that really affects how you're going to shape a phrase and how you're going to produce what you want to do musically. Because at the end of the day, if it's just a gorgeous sound without the music behind it, I don't think it really comes across as beautifully. So you want to make sure always that your sound is there to serve the music. In order to do that, you have to use all the tools that you have, including bow distribution and pressure and weight and all of the things in order to create the most beautiful music you can.

Starting point is 00:12:45 So I think I've covered kind of the different aspects of this. Again, just making sure you develop your sound through listening to musicians that you love and and their sounds and then on the technical aspects making sure that you're never working against your instrument but with the instrument with gravity and just being as relaxed as possible yeah these are such important concepts that you mentioned and i don't know i mean you being from france i'm guessing that maybe you went through a similar system that we have in quebec which is the conservatoire system where we have a pretty substantial background in ear training from a very young age of solfege and dictation and even elements of music theory and

Starting point is 00:13:31 history and I feel that for me it made such a big difference in how I develop my sound because from a young age you are really encouraged to listen and that's something I would encourage students we we see them you know roll their eyes so often that the idea of going to ear training but it is so closely related to how we play so i'm so happy that you mentioned all of those things absolutely and i totally agree with you in terms of the the bow management you know the bow distribution and all of these elements and it's really crazy to think how to express a phrase you know a concept that we have in our ear we really have to put it through a um how could i say a um a sound plan we really need to plan those things so efficiently how how does it go for you between

Starting point is 00:14:31 the concept of a phrase that you have in your head and how you execute it yeah well uh as we just discussed this this bow distribution business i think it's one of the most under explored concept with especially with young players but to be honest with even much more experienced players i think i don't know if it's from people's trainings or or whatnot but you know often people put the bow down on the string and just pull full bows or or don't really think about you know the impact that your bow distribution has on on a on a phrase um but it's not just that it's also as of late i've been thinking a lot about fingerings and bowings because really it's a it's a art and and it really is also what helps you

Starting point is 00:15:21 create the most beautiful beautiful phrases i i used to think that you know up bow down bow doesn't matter e string a string doesn't matter you should be able to create the most beautiful phrase and in uh as an idea it's true you should be able to do you know left right up down doesn't matter but but at the end of the day I think that everybody should be spending so much time in the practice room figuring out all these little details because that's really what creates your phrase and of course you want to be you want to leave a little bit of room for inspiration and freedom in your playing you know you don't want to practice to the point that you're just repeating exactly what you do in the practice room but you also need to figure out all the little details and

Starting point is 00:16:06 And that starts with bowing, fingerings, and your bow distribution. It's so true. Very true. And I find that sometimes when we really develop what I could maybe call a precise choreography for a phrase. At first, I remember my teacher was really big on bow distribution. And sometimes I would sit down and write through a phrase exactly the distribution of my bow and where I would play. And then I would practice it a few times. And then the body starts to assimilate and really kind of associate different sounds and different colors, different dynamics to gestures. And then this bow distribution starts to happen automatically.

Starting point is 00:16:52 So the idea comes to your head and you can start to execute it without having to plan it. I don't know if that makes sense. No, no, I agree with you. And that's one thing I was thinking about. Maybe the most important thing that I can share today is the, you know, because the idea of practicing is people can take it in so many different ways. And at the end of the day, I think that what I try to do when I practice, and I do practice a lot on a daily basis or when I can. It's not every day. But I think the most important thing that I try to do in my practicing is to develop a certain fluency in my playing.

Starting point is 00:17:30 It's not necessarily to repeat things over and over so that I can try and do exactly that in the concert hall. But it's just to develop some sort of freedom and fluency so that under any situation, it all feels as natural and as easy as possible. I don't know if that makes sense. And that's why every day I force myself to do etudes, and I try to have a full regimen of varied repertoire, some Bach and some Esai, if I can, and maybe just play through a movement of a concerto or something, just to keep a diet that pushes me in different directions technically, but mostly it's just so that there is that fluency, just kind of trying to every day feel more and more comfortable on the violin. Now, it doesn't work every single day. There are some days where the violin feels very foreign. I think everybody experiences that. But I think the goal is just to try and make that instrument that at first

Starting point is 00:18:34 is just such an awkward instrument to play. The position of your arms is just so silly. and uh and so it's just to develop a way to play that that um feels the most natural possible that's i think the most important thing for me about practicing is just to get get a flow in my playing uh from um all the practicing that i do you mentioned earlier how important mr garlitsky was for your development and and what a precious mentor he was for you would you say that you got most of your maybe i could call it the foundational practicing habits from him yes 100 percent uh i i would say most of the biggest concepts when it comes to the approach of the violin comes

Starting point is 00:19:21 come directly from mr galsky both from watching him play he he is such a beautiful effortless violinist uh and so elegant in in his approach to the instrument um and also just from yeah what all he taught me we uh a lot of the technique was built on don't etudes so that's why i have a particular affinity for these etudes and what one thing that i remember him doing was always correlating the work that we would do on an etude with uh how it will apply in the real world so you know pointing out the fact that maybe don't etude number one the chords is gonna hopefully be helpful when you play a Bach fugue and you have three or four note chords etc you know and so it was not just to practice an etude but in order you know in order to serve the music later on

Starting point is 00:20:15 I'm so glad you brought this up because it's so true how often I would say students feel like you know maybe they don't always understand the importance of practicing etudes but it's this correlation that you mentioned that really the etude is in their service of the repertoire that we are also eager to get to but absolutely you it it should always feel like it's serving you know for the real music that you're going to be playing later on and again for me that's that's what i'm talking about about this fluency on the instrument is you know on it quite often i will just open my don't etude book or my road etude book and kind of read through a bunch of etudes you know for an hour i just read maybe eight or nine or ten and and you know you you should hopefully get to

Starting point is 00:21:07 a point in your violin playing where none of this feels like work and you know the intonation is good and the sound is good and you're phrasing and and you're just playing violin but at the same time you're practicing but you're you're practicing for that fluency that i'm talking but i hope that makes sense people understand what i mean by that that makes total sense How do you feel like your practice has evolved throughout the years? I can't say I've always practiced very well. That's a fact. And I think maybe a lot of people can relate to that.

Starting point is 00:21:38 But I think as you get older, of course, you start to be a little bit more conscious about the time that you have and you can't waste as much time playing the instrument. There's also an element of I just love playing the violin. So often it's just a lot of playing just because I enjoy that relationship with the instrument. But nowadays it's, you know, I've got to make sure that the practicing has a real purpose. And also nowadays I feel like a lot of the practicing, for example, this morning I was practicing Dohnani Serenade, which I have to play in about 10 days. And in a way, the practicing that I have to do nowadays is to undo some of the bad habits

Starting point is 00:22:22 or the bad fingerings or bad bowings that I practiced in the past. Or maybe at the time they weren't all that bad, but now I'm rethinking better fingerings, better bowings, things that are going to make the music speak better. So a lot of the practicing nowadays is to try and it's just fine details. It's fine tuning. It's just trying to bring music to the next level. And that's something that's very important

Starting point is 00:22:49 because I think people can get to a high level and sort of stay at that level and be content with it. And that's one thing that I learned from Mr. Garlitsky also is always searching, always. It can always be done differently, better, and you should never settle for if you feel like you've practiced a piece well enough and you're playing it very well And there's, you know, you don't need to do anything else in the piece that you should never feel that way. And so nowadays, the practicing is for either undoing some of the bad habits or, or trying to improve the fine details.

Starting point is 00:23:32 I love that you, what you said about practicing with purpose, it makes such a big difference. Absolutely. It's really the secret sauce behind it all, isn't it? Yes, I think so. Everything you do should be with purpose in life, you know. But certainly you're practicing when you have limited hours in the day. It really has to be done with a clear goal in mind. Arnaud, I'd love to keep talking all day, but I want to be mindful of your time. And before I take you through the rapid fire questions, I have a few listener questions. Yes. First, that's a very down to earth question. Mondo wants to know what kind of strings you use. uh i i try different strings every so often i've been playing the pies by the peter infeld strings

Starting point is 00:24:19 for the last few years and recently i've been trying the rondos also by tomastic and it it varies you know i often have a different set in my case and so i'll try something else but i usually play tomastic strings on on my instrument bella was curious to know about a specific warm-up routine and you already mentioned many elements earlier in our conversation and another aspect of your career is how busy you are you mentioned that you know we want to maintain good playing shape while juggling a very busy schedule so what would be maybe um condensed warm-up routine for you during a really busy time yes okay well there's only one uh etude if I have very limited time don't etude number eight it's the one in thirds and that will warm

Starting point is 00:25:11 you up very fast you have to be careful you know not to hurt yourself because it can at times you know get your hand a little tired but that is the perfect etude if you have limited time to to warm up but I should point out that my friend and mentor Pamela Frank often talks about warming up and she she often says that if you have limited time you can also just run around the block because really what warming up is is just getting your blood flowing and your heart rate up a little bit and so uh sometimes when i have to play concerto backstage and i'm getting cold because i you know i'm waiting to get on stage i do jumping jacks i kind of run back and forth whatever it is i can get my heart rate up that's another way to warm up but but if i just

Starting point is 00:25:57 have a few minutes donate to number eight that that would be my go-to etude and you could play don't aid while running around the block for just maximum effect now exactly that would be the perfect warm-up um nick wanted to know how you approached learning the score as a whole and what he meant by that i think is that going beyond your solo line and getting a grasp of the harmony and the core structure? Yes, that's a great, great question. That's another thing that as a younger musician, I wouldn't necessarily do.

Starting point is 00:26:31 And I think a lot of people can relate to that, but it just makes no sense. It's like if you learn a play, but you only learn your lines, so you don't know what the rest of the story is about. And it's the same thing for any piece of music that has more than just the violin. So I find, you know, you've got to buy the score or download it on IMSLP.

Starting point is 00:26:55 I've got, you know, I've got an iPad with me when I travel. And so I'm always practicing off of the score. And you can ask all my students at Stony Brook. We always have the score in front of us, you know, in order to know what the rest of the orchestra or the piano, the pianist is doing. So that's a very important thing. because at the end of the day of course we're talking about you know the technique and you're practicing and all this stuff but it's also incredibly important to delve into the music everything that we do on the technical side is to serve the music that is something that people

Starting point is 00:27:33 really have to remember is to serve the music so if you play technically perfectly but you don't know what you're doing musically then there is no reason to play music really such a great answer thank you so much all right ready for rapid fire questions okay so what's your favorite tool in the practice room maybe it's my phone with the the the tuner on it so i can you know check the either intonation if i can put a drone on uh with that that application or it also does metronome and and then just you know gives me the 440 441a so i can tune my violin properly and you know i always uh ruin the rapid aspect of the the round of questions by asking additional questions but i was wondering about uh recording yourself when you practice we

Starting point is 00:28:23 were talking about phrasing and sound earlier and you post these fantastic capsules on instagram where you show how you practice and you work through passages and things like this what do you think about recording ourselves when we practice oh it's it's incredibly important and it's partly the reason why i started doing the whole social media thing a few years ago it was in order to push myself because you know I to be honest I hate recording myself I hate having to listen to myself it's just the hardest thing I think a lot of people can relate to that it's like hearing your own voice you know when you when you hear a recording of your own voice and but it's it's incredibly important because there's nothing like hearing how you sound from

Starting point is 00:29:04 the outside you know there's one thing about you know feeling what we're feeling when we play but whenever you listen from the outside there are always things that you hear that you may not have heard uh with you know within your own playing so it's very important and people should not be lazy about this force yourself you can just record you know short phrases nowadays we we have our phones which are totally fine for audio quality and video quality of course you can practice in front of a mirror in terms of looking at your posture and you know your bow and all this stuff but but recording yourself and hearing back is also very important what skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments well um i

Starting point is 00:29:49 don't know if it's a skill but but it's not good enough to just be a great player you have to be a great person also especially if you play a lot of chamber music but even as a soloist or whatever you end up doing in the music world you you have to make sure that you're a great colleague uh i always say this it's not enough to just be a great player and but on top of that i think um you know we have so many amazing tools nowadays with the with the this everything that happens on social media uh in order to share your music with the world so if that's something you feel like doing that's a nice thing to do in your life and in order to you know publicize yourself that's one of my favorite things about about this social media experiment is is the fact that it creates

Starting point is 00:30:34 a community and I've met so many people around the world really that have discovered me just through the online thing so that would that's an important thing nowadays for young musicians but um but really before that they should just be practicing and uh and developing their their art what's a habit that you have that you think has contributed to your success Oh, well, I'm a tireless worker. There's not a day when I don't want to practice. It's just something that I love to do. And, you know, people often ask, so how did you get to where you are? And, well, I had, of course, great support from my parents, which is very important. and there's always a little bit of luck involved with uh where people end up but uh i um i also i've just i feel like i've put in the work and uh and that's very important there there are no shortcuts you know you have to put in the work um in order to get the results thanks so much for

Starting point is 00:31:40 that answer i think it's really important to hear yep how about a quick actionable tip listeners can implement today in their musical lives open a book of etudes or download like for if you're violinist you go and download the rode etudes and kind of just try to read through them i make some of my students do this at stony brook because that's that fluency i'm talking about it's not for detailed practicing it's so that you can ideally if you want to consider yourself a great violinist or musician you should be able able to open most pieces of music and and kind of play them you know i mean not maybe not necessarily perfectly but it should all kind of flow naturally and so that's that's what i recommend doing and in order to do that you you have to practice that

Starting point is 00:32:28 you have to practice being able to open um you know any piece of music and and and and read through it and so the best way to do this i think is just through uh etudes that's the best thing so that's what i would recommend go open a book of etudes and kind of read a couple of them and see how fluent you can be with them i absolutely love this one thank you so much okay arnaud i want to thank you we're going to switch to french now but for the english listeners who are leaving us i want to you know just say i appreciate so much taking the you taking the time to talk with me today it's so great it's my pleasure Thank you guys so much for listening

Starting point is 00:33:14 and I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Arnaud Sussman I personally loved his approach to fluency and how he cultivates artistry through a thorough regimen, finding this fluency that he talks about and ease in his playing by maintaining a strong

Starting point is 00:33:30 technique. I also love that he admits to working really hard because there's no choice in music or anything else for that matter. If you want to reach higher levels of playing, you have to put in serious and dedicated work. As always, you can find the show notes for this episode and more information about Arnaud Sussman

Starting point is 00:33:48 as well as resources on mindful and deliberate practice at mindoverfinger.com. I would love to connect with you and know what your favorite takeaway from today's show is. So join the conversation on social media. you can find me everywhere as Mind Over Finger. If you're looking for a community of mindful practice enthusiasts, join the Mind Over Finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger tribe. There you'll find inspiration, motivation and support as well as information and

Starting point is 00:34:20 discussions on how to take your practice to the next level and enjoy the process. Next week, I'll be talking to Frank Rosenwein, Principal Oboe of the Cleveland Orchestra, about life as a principal wind player in a top orchestra. Again, thank you, and à bientôt! Arnaud Sassman, on vient de finir une super conversation en anglais, et j'espère que nos amis francophones qui parlent anglais ont apprécié autant que moi.

Starting point is 00:34:54 Comme je disais plus tôt, j'ai découvert il y a plusieurs années via YouTube et les réseaux sociaux et j'adore ton jeu. Alors, c'est vraiment un très grand plaisir pour moi d'avoir la chance de discuter avec toi aujourd'hui. Merci, c'est un plaisir pour moi de te parler. Arnaud, j'ai beaucoup aimé ce que tu as mentionné par rapport à la qualité du son et à comment aborder, travailler sur notre son et notre phrasé dans notre discussion en anglais un petit peu plus tôt, pourrais-tu s'il te plaît nous faire revisiter un peu les concepts que tu nous as exposés un petit peu plus tôt pour l'auditoire francophone?

Starting point is 00:35:33 Parce que je pense que ce sont des éléments vraiment importants. Comme je disais, il y a plusieurs éléments en ce qui concerne le son. L'une des premières choses qui est importante, c'est de développer son son. Ton son, c'est ce qui est en toi. Ce que j'ai dit en anglais plus tôt, c'est qu'avec mes amis, on rigole parce que tu peux me donner n'importe quel violon, n'importe quel archet et au bout du compte, je sonne comme je sonne moi-même. C'est parce que le son vient au fond de toi.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Et je crois qu'au départ, c'est quelque chose que j'ai développé quand j'étais jeune parce que j'écoutais des centaines d'enregistrements de violonistes et de musiciens du passé, la plupart. Oistrakh, Perlman, Milstein, Heifetz, all these great violonists who each have a really particular sound and who touched me each with their different sounds. And so I think that at the beginning, it's something that influenced me a lot when I was young. And then what I was saying, it's also the tenor of the violin.

Starting point is 00:36:39 How do you play your violin? you have to be as free as possible when you play the violin that's what will allow you to enter the chord and to have a sound as deep as possible and so that's a very important concept to have a position as free as possible because at the beginning the violin is a bizarre instrument you have your two arms

Starting point is 00:36:59 which are put in really impossible positions and you have to do everything to try to be as free as possible because what I learned from my professor when I was in Lyon and Paris, Boris Garlitsky, is to use all the forces we have to our advantage, and in particular gravity, it's an extremely important concept, it's really not to fight against gravity, but to work with gravity, and to use it to be able to produce the sound as profound as possible. Et d'autre part, je disais aussi que la distribution de l'arché est quelque chose d'extrêmement important

Starting point is 00:37:38 parce que c'est aussi ça qui te permet de construire tes phrases musicales. Ça ne suffit pas non plus d'avoir juste un son magnifique, mais qui ne change pas. Il faut pouvoir adapter le son, il faut pouvoir le changer. Il faut aussi pouvoir construire ta phrase et en partie, c'est grâce à ce que tu fais avec ton arché. C'est tout à fait vrai. Il y a quelque chose que tu disais plus tôt dans la conversation en anglais qui me faisait vraiment penser au fait que je crois qu'une des choses que les élèves devraient passer plus de temps à faire, c'est vraiment une exploration. Toutes ces choses dont tu parles, le poids du bras, la relaxation, c'est des choses qu'il faut vraiment prendre le temps d'explorer et de devenir confortable avec ces concepts-là dans la salle de pratique. Et je pense que ce n'est pas quelque chose qu'on fait assez.

Starting point is 00:38:26 C'est pas quelque chose qu'on fait assez, et puis ça dépend aussi de ton ou tes professeurs, de quelles méthodes ils vont employer pour t'apprendre le violon. Je dois dire que j'ai beaucoup de chance, parce que, surtout grâce à ce monsieur Garliski à Paris, qui, venant de la grande école russe de violon, m'a appris beaucoup de concepts qui m'ont vraiment aidé. but it's really small details, the position of the elbow, the wrist, the right arm, your fingers, everything is really, it's tiny details, and so you really need a teacher who teaches you the right things.

Starting point is 00:39:04 Of course, there are different techniques, and I also find that I have the chance to come to the United States and to see another perspective, because there is a sound production a little bit different, for example, with what I learned with Mr. Perlman, But it's true that you have to have a little bit of luck to come across a teacher who will teach you the right techniques and then also to explore by yourself to see what works. Because one thing that is very important, I always try to remember when I teach myself,

Starting point is 00:39:33 is that we are all built in a different way. There is no one who has the same body as you. There are people who have the same morphology, but for the most part, everyone is a little bit different and so you have to adapt all the techniques that you learn according to your body. For example, I have a long neck, I have very long arms, and so I often tell my students,

Starting point is 00:39:54 don't try too hard to look at how I do things myself because it won't be the same for you. If we have different length of arms, your elbow will look a little bit higher, lower, it doesn't matter, but you have to always think that we are all a little bit different. You should never try to copy the others. Often, people ask me, what do you wear as a cushion?

Starting point is 00:40:12 qu'est-ce que tu fais avec la manteaunière, tout ça. Il ne faut jamais regarder ce que les autres font. Il faut juste essayer de trouver ce qui marche pour toi. Ça, c'est tellement vrai. Arnaud, tu as mentionné M. Garlitsky dans notre conversation en anglais et on a la nette impression que c'est une grande influence dans ta vie.

Starting point is 00:40:29 Quels sont les concepts les plus importants que tu penses que tu as retenus de lui? Comme je disais, c'était en partie la gravité d'avoir une élégance et une liberté when you play the violin, especially with the bow, because I think that there are a lot of high-level violinists who will tell you that the bow is really one of the most important things. The left hand, of course, is very important, but the bow is a little bit what really allows you to build everything on a musical level. And so we worked a lot

Starting point is 00:41:03 on that. But also something I have to say that is very important, apart from the technique with That's what I respect the most about this man, he's a curious musician, he never stops wanting to learn more, he never feels like he's finished learning a song. Et par exemple, l'autre jour, comme je te dis en anglais, je l'ai appelé sur FaceTime parce que je jouais la troisième sonate de Brahms et on en a discuté pendant une heure, ses concepts, mes concepts, qu'est-ce qu'il en pense, qu'est-ce que j'en pense. Et je vois que c'est quelqu'un qui sent que ce ne sera jamais la fin de l'exploration musicale. Et ça, c'est très important parce qu'on peut parler autant de techniques qu'on veut, mais au bout du compte, comme je disais aussi en anglais, la technique, ça ne fait que pour servir la musique. Extremely important, this curiosity that you mention. Arnaud, in closing, I think that one of the questions that comes up the most often is how to learn a piece. I think that for several young musicians, sometimes it's a bit scary to get started in the approach of a new work.

Starting point is 00:42:10 We don't always know where to start. And obviously, it's certain that it's going to be different from one work to the other. Mais j'aimerais beaucoup savoir si tu as peut-être une façon générale d'aborder une nouvelle pièce ou un processus que tu pourrais recommander qui t'amène, toi, dès tout début jusqu'au concert et peut-être quelque chose que les jeunes musiciens qui nous écoutent pourraient peut-être essayer la prochaine fois qu'ils ont à apprendre un morceau. L'une des choses les plus importantes, bien évidemment, c'est d'avoir le score de ce que tu vas jouer. the orchestra score if it's a concerto

Starting point is 00:42:49 or the piano score if it's a sonata or the chamber music score you always have to start with that there are several ways to do things if you want to listen to a recording with the score it's possible I don't always recommend it

Starting point is 00:43:07 because it can influence you when you learn a song you hear a recording and you try to copy it right away so it's not necessary to listen to a recording But if you promise that you won't copy what you hear in the instrument, it's possible to do that so that you have an idea of how the piece sounds. And then you have to take things slowly. You don't have to try to play everything empty from the start.

Starting point is 00:43:29 You have to start very slowly and then you have to explore. You have to explore the fingering and the arching immediately. I said it in English, but I would like to say it in French too. One of the most important things that really allows you to play a piece really the way you want to play the piece, it's by trying to discover your fingers and your arches that will really allow you to make the music that you want to make. Very often, there are teachers who give their fingers, give their arches,

Starting point is 00:44:00 and it's good to start with that because it can maybe help you a little bit, but in the end, that's something that's very important. Et honnêtement, je le fais de plus en plus que j'avance dans le monde de la musique. C'est ce que je passe le plus de temps à faire quand je travaille. C'est de chercher un meilleur doigté, un meilleur codarché qui va me permettre de jouer la musique de la meilleure façon. Donc, c'est ça que je recommande. C'est vraiment de prendre les choses lentement et puis d'essayer.

Starting point is 00:44:25 T'essaies pousser, t'essaies tirer, t'essaies sur la cordelette, t'essaies sur la cordemille, tout pour te servir, pour servir la musique. Hmm. Arnaud Sassman, un merci énorme pour cette mine d'informations et d'inspiration. Merci à toi.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 042 Arnaud Sussman: Fluency & Music Making

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