...from this months "Strad":

"The endless study of viola at music college until one's late 20s is baffling. The truth is it takes 20 mins to learn the alto clef and a few months for a musically intelligent violinist to become an expert of viola colour, sonority, and musical function. It seems that there is some unintentional conspiracy among viola players and music institutions to discourage violinists from their natural dual role."

...discuss.


Hmmmm...so if its a natural dual role, why am I fighting it? *looks at violas again*.

Utter bilge and piffle!

ah what do you know, boo. You're part of the conspiracy aren't you?

You know what? I reckon cellists are phoney too. Any decent violinist could stick an overgrown fiddle between their knees, learn the bass and tenor clef in 10 minutes, and voila! The next Pablo Casals.

Precisely. I would have no problem with the cello of course because at least twice I have put my viola between my knees and done cello vibrato. *stuck-up smiley*

I speak as testimony to it - been there, done it, read the book, got the t-shirt......

It is only a matter of time...

Because everywhere I go there is a glut of viola players and a shortage of violinists?

I'm finding this thread a little bit depressing...

W

I think it's hard if I had to learn the middle clef.(the one you use for cello)

What a load of ######!

The viola is a different instrument, it requires different playing techniques and some people are naturally better at viola than violin.

To turn that argument on its head, why do people bother learning violin. After all, if it's so similar to viola, why don't people learn the viola first and then spend a few months becoming acquainted with the distinctive colour, sonority and musical function of the violin.

I wondered that

And if they're so similar, why do I find viola much easier than violin?

My total novice's opinion is that all the bowed strings are similar. If you learn one, of course you're gonna find the 2nd, 3rd etc easy. It's just doing more or less the same thing on a different size scale and clef. I reckon the first one is the challenge and, after that, it's more of an adaptation. The idea that the viola is just an off-shoot of the violin is, of course, a load of poop!

Who cares which is better/easier/more or less commonly played? If you like it, learn it! That's my take on the whole matter.

Although the clef is the C clef it sits on a different line to when it is used for cello. For cello the C is the next to the top line (tenor clef), for viola the middle line (alto clef).

Anyway I am campaigning for a new clef...it sits on the next to the bottom line and is called "the violinist's easy-peasy viola clef". That way you can just pretend it is treble clef and you have a violin in your hands. So it shows where you put your third finger on the G string for a C on the viola, but is coincidentally where you would put your third finger on the D string for a G on the violin. Oh if only life was so simple.

*goes off to see if she can transpose viola music to new invented clef on Sibelius*

I'm sure it's possible but I guess in the long run it's easier to go from violin to viola than vice versa. For a start, you'll have treble clef pretty much worked out so playing in high positions on the viola is perhaps not as much of a problem as it is on the violin when you're starting out.

Also, because it is harder to get truly accurate intonation on violin than it is on viola (and it is, on account of the smaller physical gaps between the notes), if you have a good grasp of violin it's going to be easier transferring your knowledge of intonation over.

I only know one person who started off on viola then tried violin (she went back to viola) and a lot who did it the other way, including many fabulous viola players. I think the debate as to whether viola-playing is ultimately an extension of violin-playing has been had before on here. Although it does require different physical nuances, I'm still inclined to think that this is pretty much the case.

*runs away from shower of bullets from non-violin-playing violists*

Yes, I think it's easier to learn the violin first and then transfer to the viola. Much of the techniques will be similiar and you only need to get used to the clef and slightly bigger instrument.

Isn't that what Maxim Vengerov did: learning the viola and to play the Britten concerto for it in around 9 months?

He is rather exceptional though...

I didn't know there was a Britten viola concerto! I must have it at once!

*logs on to appropriate CD-selling site*

That did make me laugh!

Not quite. He learnt viola in 6 weeks then played the viola part of K364. He than polished it up over the remainder of th 9 months to play the WALTON viola concerto.


See above...it was the Walton. Unfortunately Britten didn't write a viola concerto *sigh*

Ah. Yet he was a violist himself!

Maybe nobody asked him to.

I blame William Primrose! (and Lionel Tertis come to that!)

Yep, my bad; mis-read the ordering of Britten and Walton on that CD .

Thinking about what might have led them to make that statement, any comments gratefully receieved... From what I gather, more people learn the violin than viola. As such, music colleges have more violinists to choose from than viola players. With more people to choose from, the quality of the intake is likely to be higher: there will be twice as many people in the top 10% of people of that age, or whatever. As such, it could be that the average standard of the first-study violinists in music colleges is higher than that of the first-study viola players.

With this in mind, the first-study violinists are likely to be very good, and hence more likely to be able to learn the viola quickly. However, this is probably only at the top end amongst some of the best violinists: for mere mortals, the task is certainly non-trivial.

Yep, for those of us at the other end of the scale that Maxim heads up

Thus the qualification of violists being failed violinists??

What about failed violists?

Someone (cant remember who) described orchestral violists as 'mostly horn-players who have lost their teeth'...

W

On second thoughts, a horn player I know IS actually starting to learn viola for when she can no longer play the horn...

Why would she not be able to play the horn?

Deterioration of the lip muscles. I'm told it happens...

then I'd better learn any wind instruments since I'm not getting any younger! I won't have many years left for it after the piano and the violin.

oh my dear meerkat, you are quite wrong, you could never make a cellist out of a violin player they just don't have the same mentality! they're too highly strung!!!!!

True enough for me, because I'm short and too small, not because I'm too highly strung! The cello would overwhelm me just by resting on me!

I would just like to point out that I haven't played the violin since I was about 11. Yesterday, I bought a viola that is 14 and a 1/2 inches long (it's absoloutly gorgeous and has a much more violay tone than myprevious and larger viola) and found that I just needed about half an hour to get used to it and my intonation is just fine after playing on a 15 and 3/8's viola and transferring to a significantly smaller viola, in fact, it's better.

Actually, I did some quick calculations of the accuracy of finger positions required for a violin and a viola. I did the calculations for the D strings as this is on both instruments and based them on vibrating string lengths of 330mm (for an average full-sized violin) and 362 mm (for my 16 1/2" viola).

I assumed that a decent string player can detect an error in frequency of about 0.05% (musicians in general can detect a 1% error).

I calculated that for this frequency error the E (first finger, first position) could be out by plus or minus 1.5mm for the violin and plus or minus 1.6mm for the viola before another player would notice. This is a difference in error in finger position between the two instruments of just 0.1mm to get the same accuracy of intonation. This is an insignificant amount, and much less than the variation caused by vibrato which is sometimes used to disguise poor intonation. The difference in accuracy gets smaller the higher up the fingerboard you go.

Obviously for a smaller viola the differences are even less.