All Focus articles
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Focus‘I can see good tone’ - Suzuki’s tonalisation exercises
With musical examples, Helen Brunner examines how Suzuki’s tonalisation exercises are used to create a beautiful sound on the violin. From the September 2021 issue
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How can violinists create a personal sound?
Once upon a time, violinists just wanted to get as close to Heifetz's sound as they possibly could. But now that golden standard no longer applies, Jessica Duchen asks, how do the stars of today mark themselves out as special?
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My Experience: violinist Oliver Neubauer, Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute
Flexibility and adaptability are essential traits for a professional chamber musician, says violinist Oliver Neubauer on his time at the San Francisco Bay Area festival
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Should vibrato exercises be practised separately from the repertoire?
Teacher Talk: your string teaching questions answered by our panel of experts. From 2011
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10 things you need to know about vibrato
The following quotes, taken from the pages of The Strad over the past 100 years, offer a fascinating glimpse of the changing attitudes and approaches towards this most subjective and controversial area of a string player's technique
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The Strad Podcast Episode #55: Time For Three on triple concertos
Violinists Nick Kendall and Charles Yang, and double bassist Ranaan Meyer speak about triple concerto commissions, plus their favourite string techniques
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‘Every day there is something new’: Pekka Kuusisto on the c.1709 ‘Scotta’ Stradivari violin
Recently loaned the instrument by a patron through Tarisio, the violinist shares his thoughts on playing this ’golden period’ Strad
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How to make scales enjoyable
Encouraging students to practise scales needn't be an uphill struggle, says Paul Harris - in fact, it can even be fun!
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6 ways to improve shifting for string players
Advice on how to shift smoothly and cleanly from The Strad archives
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The Strad Podcast Episode #54: Timothy Chooi on playing Strads
The violinist has been lucky enough to play two Stradivari violins since 2015: the 1717 ’Windsor-Weinstein’ and the 1709 ‘Engelman’
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8 ways to teach cello students how to shift confidently
Top teachers speak to Laurinel Owen about their methods in The Strad’s September 2001 issue
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The art of the violin slide: Exploring shifts in different musical styles
Julie Lyonn Lieberman describes how different slides can enhance your string playing, from oozing your way in the true blues style to the Klezmer 'bend'
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Bach and me: Thomas Demenga on the Cello Suites
This article appeared in The Strad October 2012 issue For me, Bach is the greatest musical genius who has ever lived. His music is pure, sublime, and devoid of the melodrama of his own life’s experiences: it possesses something divine and each musician has a lifetime in which ...
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Sentimental work: David Finckel on Myaskovsky’s Cello Concerto
The Myaskovsky Cello Concerto remains a private pleasure for the US cellist, whose memories of Rostropovich remain an inspiration half a century later
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The Strad Podcast Episode #53: David Finckel and Wu Han on creating inspiration
‘It’s not only making music together, but also contributing your life to the common good of society’
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The Strad Podcast Episode #52: Carolin Widmann on 1000 years of violin repertoire
Repertoire covering over a millennium by a diverse set of composers has more in common than at first glance, says violinist Carolin Widmann
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From the Archive: Andrea Amati, 1564 ‘Charles IX’ violin from the Ashmolean Museum collection
In this extract from an article from the December 1991 issue of The Strad, Roger Hargrave discusses the ‘Charles IX’ Andrea Amati instruments with particular reference to this 1564 example from the Hill collection at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford
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The Strad Podcast Episode #51: John-Henry Crawford on Latin American music
The cellist speaks about the parallels between language and music, as well as exploring new sound worlds in his new album Corazón
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In focus: the ‘Sachs’ Stradivari violin of c.1666
John Dilworth takes a close look at one of the very earliest violins attributable to Stradivari
