October 2011

Teacher Talk

A series of teaching-articles in the Strad Magazine

How do you encour­age stu­dents to develop their own musical ideas rather than just copy­ing your phras­ing, or even that of Heifetz?
John Jones, Cardiff, UK
Boris Kuschnir – I would ask a stu­dent such a few questions:

1. Why do people not organ­ize exhib­i­tions of cop­ies of works by Michelan­gelo, Rem­brandt, Raphael, Picasso and other great painters

2. Why do paint­ers by great artists cost mil­lions, whereas cop­ies of those paint­ings are sold for €10 at the supermarket

3. Why did tick­ets for con­certs by great viol­in­ists such as Heifetz, Ois­trakh, Menuhin and Stern sell out a year in advance, whereas per­form­ances by viol­in­ists who try to copy those great musi­cians take place in half-empty halls

4. Why has nobody suc­ceeded in copy­ing Stra­di­vari viol­ins – or other clas­sic Italian viol­ins – in such a way that they sound like the originals

5. When does that stu­dent feel happy? When they put their thoughts, feel­ings, wor­ries, pain or hap­pi­ness into their inter­pret­a­tion? Or when they copy the inter­pret­a­tion of Heifetz?