James Ehnes
Practice principles
VIOLIN
About the Artist
James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists
on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity,
serene lyricism and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest of many
of the world’s most respected conductors including Ashkenazy, Alsop, Sir Andrew
Davis, Denève, Elder, Ivan Fischer, Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Mena, Noseda, Robertson
and Runnicles. Ehnes’s long list of orchestras includes, amongst others, the
Boston, Chicago, London, NHK and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Los
Angeles, New York, Munich and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras, and the
Cleveland, Philadelphia, Philharmonia and DSO Berlin orchestras.
Recent orchestral highlights include the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with
Noseda, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Shelley, San Francisco Symphony
with Janowski, Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Orozco-Estrada, London
Symphony with Harding, and Munich Philharmonic with van Zweden, as well as
his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Lincoln Center in spring
2019. In 2019/20, Ehnes is Artist in Residence with the Dallas Symphony
Orchestra, which includes performances of the Elgar Concerto with Luisi, a play/
direct programme leg by Ehnes, and a chamber music programme. In 2017,
Ehnes premiered the Aaron-Jay Kernis Violin Concerto with the Toronto, Seattle
and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, and gave further performances of the piece
with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Alongside his concerto work, James Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall,
Symphony Center Chicago, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Ravinia, Montreux, Chaise-Dieu, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, Verbier
Festival, Festival de Pâques in Aix, and in 2018 he undertook a recital tour to the Far East, including performances in Hong Kong, Shanghai,
Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. As part of the Beethoven celebrations, Ehnes has been invited to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven
Sonatas at the Wigmore Hall throughout 2019/20. Elsewhere Ehnes performs the Beethoven Sonatas at Dresden Music Festival, Prague
Spring Festival, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, at Aspen Music Festival (as part of a multi-year residency) and at Bravo Vail Festival during
his residency week also including the Violin Concerto and Triple Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Runnicles. In 2016, Ehnes
undertook a cross-Canada recital tour, performing in each of the country’s provinces and territories, to celebrate his 40th birthday.
As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with leading artists such as Andsnes, Capucon, Lortie, Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Tamestit, Vogler and
Yuja Wang. In 2010, he formally established the Ehnes Quartet, with whom he has performed in Europe at venues including the Wigmore Hall,
Auditorium du Louvre in Paris and Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix, amongst others. Ehnes is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber
Music Society.
Ehnes has an extensive discography and has won many awards for his recordings, including a Grammy Award (2019) for his live recording of
Aaron Jay Kernis’ Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot, and a Gramophone Award for his live recording of the Elgar
Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis. His recording of the Korngold, Barber and Walton violin concertos won a
Grammy Award for ‘Best Instrumental Soloist Performance’ and a JUNO award for ‘Best Classical Album of the Year’. His recording of the
Paganini Caprices earned him universal praise, with Diapason writing of the disc, “Ehnes confirms the predictions of Erick Friedman, eminent
student of Heifetz: ‘there is only one like him born every hundred years’.” Recent releases include sonatas by Beethoven, Debussy, Elgar and
Respighi, and concertos by Walton, Britten, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Strauss, as well as the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze, which was released in October 2017 (Onyx Classics).
Ehnes began violin studies at the age of five, became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin aged nine, and made his
orchestra debut with L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal aged 13. He continued his studies with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School
of Music and The Juilliard School, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music upon his graduation
in 1997. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2010 was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. Ehnes was awarded the
2017 Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Instrumentalist category.
James Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.
Practice Principles
The most important part of practicing is listening to ourselves. Musicians tend to get occupied with their
performance, often ignoring how they sound when practicing. Developing the ability to listen objectively is crucial,
and musicians should always trust their ears over what feels good in their fingers.
Alongside listening, concentration is crucial during practice. Practicing is not about minutes spent; it's about
concentration and efficient work. Certainly, there is something to be said for building strength through repetition,
but this is not how the bulk of our technical development is made (and there are other things in life you might
want to spend your time on!)
“If it feels right but sounds bad, then it’s wrong!”
Mindful practicing
Periods of mindless practice do not mirror concert experiences, when you are hyper-aware of every detail, so it's
essential to position oneself in a concert hall mindset during practice. This way, one gains confidence when
approaching a concert situation. There is a difference between knowing something and knowing that you know it!
Moreover, remember that practicing means first figuring out how to do something correctly, and then repeating it
to build both muscle and mental memory. Therefore, practice should be both about listening carefully and
concentrating effectively.
If you’re practicing mindlessly, you may only be vaguely aware of a mistake or poor technical habit, if you’re aware
at all. When you repeat this mistake over and over, you essentially train this into your muscle memory, and it
becomes a bad habit. Two hours of practicing a bad habit require two more hours of practicing a good habit just
to cancel it out, not to mention building the good habit into muscle memory. Instead, aim for quality practice over
quantity, ensuring you're aware of what is wrong and how it can be improved, instead of mindlessly repeating the
mistake.
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Warming up
Remember to pay attention to your body. Don’t rush into your most demanding tasks right away, but allow your
body to warm up gradually. Stop if anything feels painful or wrong – especially in the smaller, fast-twitch muscles
of the fingers, which take longer to warm up.
It's crucial to differentiate between the feeling of being mentally exhausted and physically strained. Fifteen
minutes of practicing with physical pain is not worth needing to take a month off later (avoid that first injury,
otherwise they compound with time!)
“It's hard enough to play the violin. Don’t make it harder by adding
unnecessary tension.”
Maintaining good posture and staying relaxed helps optimize your playing. Avoid unnecessary tension in the body,
especially in areas not directly involved in playing your instrument, and focus on creating a more harmonious and
comfortable physical stance. Tension or strange positions in the body are not conducive to playing, and often
introduce tension into the entire playing mechanism. Areas to pay attention to include the jaw, shoulders, back,
hips, knees, and feet. A relaxed lower body leads to a relaxed upper body.
During warm-ups, focus on the quality of the sounds you create and strive for beauty in every note. Start with
something slow, and make it beautiful.
Imitating other players’ sounds is a tremendously helpful way of constructing your own sound concept. Always
reflect on the sound you want to create to build your distinct musical interpretation. This is akin to a painter
adding more colors to their palette. To develop your unique sound, listen to other musicians, imitate their style,
and incorporate elements that resonate with you. Take every opportunity to play on different instruments, such as
a high-quality violin, as this opens up new possibilities and shades of sound you might not have considered
possible.
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Part of developing one’s sound is knowing what you sound like. Make use of technology to record yourself
practicing. This allows you to hear what you actually sound like, from an objective standpoint, which can
sometimes be very different from how you think you sound. Regular self-recording highlights areas that need
improvement, such as timbre, rhythmic stability, or pacing.
This focused listening helps you set realistic goals for each practice session. Rather than try to master a new piece
in a single day, pick a manageable chunk – a few staves, or even just a couple of notes. Hold yourself accountable
and be efficient with your time.
Be goal oriented
Goal-oriented practice requires us to create our own goals by breaking a passage into chunks. It's important to
break a passage all the way down to specific technical issues; locate the specific problem. Is it a shift? A string
crossing? Then, isolate those spots and break down and practice them individually. Work on these areas chunk by
chunk, breaking it down then stitch it together.
Identifying the key problem in a piece is often the most challenging part. Ehnes often speaks with students who
encounter the second page of Saint-Saëns Concerto no. 3 and struggle with the dense passages. Often, they
haven’t thought about the specific technical limitation they're encountering. Simplify any complex process into the
shifts, string crossings, hand positions, and other simple technical movements that make it up. With this process,
something that seems impossible becomes a collection of quite solvable puzzles. This is how you can accomplish
your practice goal.
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Leaps and shifts
Violinists often find a shift to be difficult because their hand position is inconsistent each time they play it. We
need to have a clear understanding of our hand shape before we can expect to play it consistently. Begin by
identifying certain notes that you know well on the fingerboard, and these may be different for everyone. Consider
the shape your hand makes on those notes, and which notes the other fingers want to land on. If you consistently
miss notes, it's often not only due to finger placement but inconsistencies in your hand's overall position and
shape.
Sometimes, our goal or point of arrival in a passage may not be the final note. In a passage like the one on the first
page of Sibelius Concerto Mvt. 3, Ehnes aims for the A, not the top F-sharp, and simply drops the additional
fingers when he gets there. Of course, this is a highly individualized solution that might only work for some.
Nevertheless, we should all routinely experiment with fingerings and bowing in our practice. Often, simple
changes can unlock passages that might otherwise seem impossible. To study hand shape, let’s look at this
passage from the 1st movement of the Tchaikovsky Concerto:
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In this passage, the left hand shouldn’t need to move that much. It should be quick, efficient, and correctly timed
with the bowing hand. Slow practice and creating pauses or 'holes' can greatly enhance your overall hand
coordination.
Synchronization of the hands can be achieved by timing the bow's lift-off with the left-hand shift. It's important to
understand your instrument's geography, which includes knowing the relationship and position of the notes
relative to each other. By being methodical, goal-oriented, and understanding these relationships, accurate
playing becomes more effortless.
Let’s use Op. 77 No. 1 (Devotion) by Sibelius as a final example of hand shape:
In the first measure of this second stave, we must shift from a high B-flat to a C on the G string. These notes are
related across the strings by three perfect fifths and one half step, an intervallic relationship we can easily find
with the fingers.
Bow & intonation
On the other hand, an often overlooked aspect is the influence of the right arm and bow on the clarity of
intonation. Pitch and clarity can dramatically change with different bow applications, even if the left-hand
positioning is correct. Experimentation, therefore, plays a significant role in unlocking creative sounds, colors, and
approaches. Simply changing a bowing can sometimes help solve an intonation issue. Observing and learning
sonic techniques from your favorite classical musicians can also add to your expressive toolkit.
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Staccato bow is a rather uncommon technique, but some players tend to be naturally quite good at it, while
others aren’t. As a result of frustrations during his youth with this technique, Ehnes began experimenting with
what he saw other players doing. He realized that drastically changing the angle of his wrist unlocked the
technique, despite the resulting position appearing somewhat unorthodox! Despite what many professors say,
there are many different ways of doing things!
“If it sounds right, it’s right. If it sounds wrong, it’s wrong!”
Music is as much logic as it is an art form. It is key to analyze and understand why a certain technique works. Your
knowledge of the workings of a technique allows you to reproduce it consistently and with control. As a
performer, your main aim should be to create special experiences for the audience. Your distinct technique,
developed through experimentation, aids in delivering this experience. Keep in mind that what matters is not the
approval of others but the authenticity of your expression and the depth of your audience's experience.
In every performance, strive to be at your best. Each performance is a chance to make an everlasting impression.
Practicing with intention will help deliver the sound exactly the way you want it to be. Remember, each
performance should convey a clear message to the listeners. Focused and concentrated practice brings you
closer to this goal, enhancing your musical communication.
If you have any corrections, comments, or critiques relating to this workbook, please send them to
[email protected]. We strive to deliver the highest quality enrichment experience. Thank you!
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