Greetings,
This week a young student was playing an etude in her lesson
which had lots of trills and nachschläge. She was having the usual difficulty
with placing the nachschlag in graceful relationship to the resolution.
This student is a visual learner, and an image popped into
my mind! I went to the computer and found a video to show her what I had
thought of—a video of the famous Lipizzaner Stallions performing.
The ease of predicting when the hoof will reach the ground
while the horse is in motion provided the perfect model for this student
to understand the graceful placement of the nachschlag while her breath
sustained the ending of the trill. Check out the clip at 3:00-3:07 and 4:52-4:54. Simply beautiful.
The results: natural, elegant musical gesture,
delighted student, and joyful teacher. Smiles all around.
Hope you find this analogy helpful!
Best,
Catherine
