Love Life: Learn The Viola

Here is fact number one. I decided to learn the viola as an adult. Violin lessons as a kid were the beginning of it all, with a hankering later in life to start playing the bigger relative of my childhood four stringed instrument. For years, I looked forward to taking up the viola when my own children were grown up. So now for the last few years i’ve been having lessons and playing with Innominato Strings. I’m far from being a professional musician, but music is very much not just for fun. It’s an essential part of my love-life retirement plan.

Here is fact number two. Not many people in Sydney know what a viola is. I started to ask people about it. My scientifically-done survey had just one question – what’s the difference between a violin and a viola? There were good-humored but puzzled answers. Yes, it’s a flower and a very pretty one at that.  And yes, it’s some kind of musical instrument perhaps. Fully, twelve out of twenty of my random sample said they’re not sure about the difference between a violin and a viola. Even if you played the piano as a child, I suppose you still may not know.

Fact number three: I’ve just had a really lovely family dinner and my brother-in-law played his new violin for us. I’m really impressed by his enthusiasm. He approaches the violin with gusto and has owned it for only a year. He’s an adult beginner, so bravo he gets the thumbs up. He’s one of the lucky ones who acts like he never heard the message that you ‘should’ start violin lessons at three years old, otherwise forget it. He’s 58 years old and has just started. It’s part of his retirement plan. But guess what? I have to add him to my statistics because he asked me: “Well, what is the difference between a violin and a viola?” You can own a violin and still not know what a viola looks like or sounds like. Which brings me to fact four: I’m on a mission to inform, recruit and maybe seduce people over to the secret world of the viola.

Even our well-loved former ABC radio announcer, Emma Ayres said “We have to accept that the viola is not an attention-grabbing instrument like the violin, cello or piano. And that’s alright because the instrument is a bit of a secret.” Emma was a professional viola player for twelve years.

Berlin Instrument Of The Year: Viola

Apparently this lack of viola recognition is world wide. There are a lot of misconceptions about the viola and there are some pretty stupid viola jokes (which no-one seems to throw my way but they take up a lot of space on the internet). This whole phenomenon was taken seriously enough in Europe. So much that Berlin made the viola, the focus of their very unusual festival. They call their festival ‘Instrument of the Year’. During a whole year, they shine a light on a musical instrument which is little known and has been ignored by the general public. In 2013, they chose the baglama – a stringed instrument used in Turkish folk music. Great choice, I’ve never heard of that one, so I agree it’s been ignored. Then, for the whole of 2014, they chose the viola! So it’s probably not just in Sydney, that people don’t know much about the viola.

“The festival looks to challenge some common prejudices and misconceptions made about the instrument by showcasing its diversity, repertoire and range. The project is aimed at bringing certain instruments into the public consciousness, through a series of events,” said Carlos María Solare, president of the International Viola Society. ‘These include luthier demonstrations, open classes, concerts featuring the viola and its literature – within an orchestra, as a recital instrument and as a chamber music participant.” Fantastic.

The difference between a violin and a viola

The viola is larger than the violin

• They look the same in shape, so the main difference is that the viola is bigger and longer.

What does the viola sound like?

Just for fun I made a table about this, because it’s sooo important. After all people don’t really take up learning the viola just so they can help fill in the harmonies of a group. They want to learn the viola because it sounds so damn good.

The viola as a solo instrument

My all time favourite remains the classic Telemann work: Viola Concerto in G major. Though mostly, the viola has been under-represented as a solo instrument through history, in recent times this is changing. This began with pioneers such as William Primrose and Lionel Tertis who wrote books called My Viola and I, so the viola is rising to prominence as a solo instrument in its own right. There are the famous Walton and Bartok Viola Concertos, and works by Britten, Vaughan Williams, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Clarke and York Bowen.

Lawrence Power, Paganini, Mozart and Jimi Hendrix?

Lawrence Power has been declared as one of the best six viola players in the world. He throws so much feeling into his playing. “I just love the viola,” he said in an interview with The Guardian. “I find its sound very touching, because it’s very close to the sound and the range of the human speaking voice. It can sing, or be dramatic, and it has a lot of emotion in it when it’s played well.” His playing has been called imaginative both as a soloist and a chamber musician.

Many famous violinists also play (or played) the viola, such as Nigel Kennedy, Maxim Vengerov, David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin and even Paganini, so it was not nearly as neglected an instrument as most people think!  And it’s no secret that the composers Bach, Haydn, Schubert, Dvorak, Mozart and Beethoven all played the viola.

Here’s a very cool hidden fact – apparently Jimi Hendrix began his musical career on the viola. It sounds unlikely but it may just be true – if you believe everything you read on the internet. I came across a wonderful version of Jimi’s Voodoo Child played on the viola. Check it out http://youtu.be/7Vn1QbvMnV0

Why learn the viola?

It’s a bit more like: Why wouldn’t you want to learn the viola? It sounds like velvet, all smokey and mellow. So methinks lately, my favourite instrument is experiencing an explosion of interest. From being ignored to being loved. All of a sudden everyone wants to learn it. Well maybe not everyone, but I’m a viola player so I’m allowed to exaggerate. It’s one of the privileges of playing an instrument that kind of hides away in the middle of the orchestra between the violins and the cellos.

I’m also allowed to tell you secrets. Our group Innominato Strings, now has half of the violins secretly wanting to cross over. We even had a sub-group for a while called SVS (Secret Viola Society) kind of like being part of one of those secret clubs when you’re eight years old in the playground and you are sworn to secrecy.

My love-life retirement plan

I’m sure it’s true that it’s easier to learn a second language when you’re young but it’s never too late to take up another language or a musical instrument and it’s just rubbish that you can only start young. With age, the plasticity that allows experience to mold the brain declines somewhat but it doesn’t disappear! As an adult, learning an instrument means that you look forward to playing music and that can be a far more effective motivator to practice than nagging parents are to younger musicians.

To finish off – here is fact number five. For the mature brain, even listening to beloved music may have what scientists call a neuroprotective effect. According to Dr. Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute, “Even if music did little more than lift our spirits, it would be a powerful force in maintaining physical and mental health. The pleasure that results from playing and listening to music we love stimulates the release of neural growth factors that promote the vigor, growth and replacement of brain cells.”

In that way, Damasio says, just the simple act of absorbing music may help keep older minds healthy, active and resilient against injury and illness. That means, every time I sit in the viola section and I’m listening to the orchestra surrounding me I am absorbing a dose of something more important than vitamins.