"I thought about writing [a book], until I realized that students, especially teens, don't read them. But they're always online. So I thought, rather than a book, why not a Web site?"
And just like that, violinmasterclass.com was born.
It took Kurt Sassmannshaus, chairman of the string department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music three years of intensive work to bring it online this past September.
The site uses video to show rather than tell.
Barrymore Laurence Scherer (what a great name), who studied the violin briefly in his youth, raved about the site in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal, noting that among the wonderful things about it is the fact that you can repeat a lesson ad infinitum.
Just try that with your teacher.
Each facet of violin technique forms a separate lesson on the website.
Exercises are provided for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, as well as master-class demonstrations.
Amazingly, the site is free to all visitors.
Sassmannhaus said this was extremely important, "because a 12-year-old in China or Eastern Europe doesn't have a Visa card in his pocket sign up for a subscription."
The site's going to be translated into as many languages as possible.
It's been a smash hit: over four million hits since its September launch.
Here's the article.
- Bowing to Technology: Fiddling in Cyberspace
Of all string instruments in classical music, the violin is king.
Such great composers as Bach, Mozart and Johann Strauss II were violinists, and numerous great violinists were also accomplished composers, from Baroque master Giuseppe Tartini to Nicolo Paganini, Pablo Sarasate and Fritz Kriesler.
In every era, leading violinists wrote instructional treatises that codified the most advanced playing technique of their time - Mozart's father, Leopold, wrote a standard one, and major 20th-century works include volumes by Karl Flesch and Ivan Galamian.
Kurt Sassmannshaus, chairman of the string department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, knows them all.
An internationally revered teacher, he was flying to judge a Texas competition in 2001 when he conceived of launching the venerable art of violin instruction into cyberspace.
"Because progress in the field since Flesch's and Galamian's time warranted a new book, I thought about writing one, until I realized that students, especially teens, don't read them. But they're always online. So I thought, rather than a book, why not a Web site?"
After three years of intensive work - funded by a substantial grant from the Dorothy & Richard Starling Foundation of Houston - www.violinmasterclass.com was launched in September.
This is a compelling application of modern Web technology to a fundamental aspect of music, one that presses that educational hot button, "distance learning." Prof. Sassmannshaus observes that "physical motions involved in violin playing are always difficult to describe in print.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
very nice site - thanks for bringing it to our attention
2 - texasviolinist
Sassmanshaus's contribution is clearly in the mainstream of modern pedagogy. But it is a stream that takes most students over waterfalls and through severe rapids that they cannot survive. In particular his comments on bow grip assure a horrible pressing sound that is altogether too prevalent in modern players. The state of modern violin playing is truly sad.