Summer School 2019: Heather MacIntyre

Heather MacIntyre

ESTA SS Report 2019

I was extremely lucky to have been given a Nannie Jamieson Nutshell bursary to help with the cost of attending the ESTA Summer School 2019. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the course in Chichester particularly as there was such a variety of speakers and sessions.

Every morning began with yoga and although I have to admit I wasn’t quite up early enough to attend every morning… I thoroughly enjoyed the classes I went to. Jane Fenton is a fantastic yoga teacher and I really enjoyed her style of teaching and approach to yoga.

The main session of the morning was the upper strings technique classes – based on Paul Rolland’s teaching method – taken by Joanne May. These were hugely inspiring and gave me revision on some ideas which I already use and other exciting new approaches and ideas for my teaching. Some of these included the case walk - walking on the spot or around the room holding the violin/viola case up high and a fun way of strengthening those arm muscles! Left finger tapping on the fingerboard to encourage strength and independence of the fingers was also useful. Joanne talked about Introducing vibrato in a relaxed way to avoid tension. In order to do this she mentioned the idea of using the vibrato movement holding the violin in ‘banjo style’ then moving up to the right shoulder, then in front between your collar bones, then finally onto ‘playing position’.

Next we had sessions by American fiddle player Mark O’Connor. He has books full of great American folk tunes and as I am always keen on using folk repertoire in my teaching, this was of particular interest to me. Mark had a lot of interesting ideas of how to incorporate simple improvising and chords into the string orchestra setting using these melodies. These included a) playing simple pizzicato chords either in ‘guitar style’ under your right arm or in conventional ‘playing position’ and b) choosing any notes of the written chord along with improvised rhythms to add your own part to the melody. We were then treated to a fantastic introduction to the technique of chopping by his wife Maggie. This is also available on their website.

In the afternoons there was a mix of fascinating presentations by other visiting speakers on topics such as practising, making mistakes and preventing injury. I found it very interesting and useful to reflect on these topics myself before thinking about how to put their ideas into practice in my own teaching. For example, how much practice am I doing on my own instrument? How much do I want to do or feel is realistic to do? What do or should I focus on when I practise? Preventing injury is obviously a very important subject to consider in the early stages of learning, as it will then help to avoid any long term damage. As a tall upper strings player, I am constantly aware that equipment which may suit others may not suit myself. Therefore, I find it is always important to look at the dimensions of the individual child in order to address the correct setup of the instrument, especially when considering the chinrest and shoulder rest.

I feel it is important to pause and think about the philosophy behind aspects of our teaching, as so often our schedules can be so busy there is no time to do this. Each evening we had a variety of fantastic and inspiring concerts. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new ones and a huge thank to Sheila and the team at ESTA for putting on such a great Summer School!