A-Level Music | Composition | String Techniques With David Alberman

LSO Principal Second Violin David Alberman leads a session for A and AS Level Music students, examining the different tonalities and effects that a stringed instrument can produce.
All of these techniques can be employed in students' own compositions, and identification will also assist in critical listening exercises.
Violin & Presenter: David Alberman
Violin: Tom Norris
Viola: Robert Turner
Cello: Jenny Brown

[@ErnestoJuarezSoto]

I learned more in this 20 minutes than in hours of going through orchestration books.

[@michalachaney]

No literally!!!!

[@AnthonyJohnson-Hud]

Absolutely perfect illustration of string technique with just the right amount of humour to keep me engaged. The added context for each articulations really helped a lot.

[@therestisnoise]

2:36 - Marcato 3:09 - Legato 3:58 - Staccato 4:28 - Tenuto 4:52 - Dolce 5:48 - Sotto voce 6:24 - Flautando 7:09 - Sul tasto 7:45 - Espressivo 8:34 - Sul ponticello 10:08 - Tremolo 10:29 - Col legno - Battuto (beaten) 11:06 - Col legno - Tratto (drawn) 11:44 - Molto vibrato 12:35 - Senza vibrato 13:30 - Con sordino 14:25 - Harmonics, ordinary 15:12 - Harmonics, artificial 16:01 - Pizzicato (Bartok, nail) 17:18 - Naturale 18:03 - Glissando

[@johannesbroemmel6452]

love you for that comment.

[@isaactarasenko2820]

You absolute legend

[@xotocnemo9997]

Thankyou so much

[@BearDimka]

Thank you very much!

[@DenizLeventYalcin]

Thanx

[@Princess4Hvn]

Here is a breakdown of the techniques: marcato - 2:35 legato - 3:08 staccato - 3:55 tenuto - 4:29 dolce - 4:52 sotto voce - 5:47 flautando - 6:20 sul tasto - 7:09 espressivo - 7:45 sul ponticello - 8:34 tremolo - 10:07 col legno (battuto & tratto) - 10:29 vibrato (molto & senza) - 11:45 con sordino - 13:30 harmonics (natural & artificial) - 14:29 pizzicato (natural, bartok, nail) - 16:01 natural - 17:19 glissando - 18:04

[@johnholroyd9790]

Mr. Alberman, you need to make a TV program showing the ordinary listener all this amazing stuff, seriously your humour and no bullshit way of decribing things, might help put some life back into classical music and help the listener better understand 'new music' is not shit but actually often making use of all these amazing techniqes you shared! Thank you so much, if I ever meet you in person Sir, the first 5 pints are on me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@marcelomellado1969]

calla oe pastel

[@heatherreynolds8888]

I was here!! I loved how they spent 30 seconds on the AS piece it really helped, but seriously string techniques was great :)

[@saracen8441]

Absolutely amazing, I can't articulate how helpful this is to me. I'm a Saxophone player trying to compose for strings but I never really realized the number of techniques you could manage. I only learned a little on violin in my free time and struggled to meet the strict posture and bow strokes that my resources emphasized. I always assumed a lot of these techniques were considered 'amateur playing' or 'mistakes'. Again, thank you for the resource.

[@raizupsb6185]

preach

[@Ivan_1791]

That's really cool, what music do you compose?

[@MusicMadtm]

i'm in the exact same position! i'm a saxophonist so i get so little experience of playing with strings. i'm currently writing a piece for a professional string quartet (very exciting!) so i'm brushing up on my string techniques and how best to write idiomatically for them. this such a useful video, so clear and so many effects!

[@Ivan_1791]

@@MusicMadtm That's so cool! Why am I the only one who won't get performed by anyone?

[@MusicMadtm]

@@Ivan_1791 ahahaha i'm a final year BA music student, this is a part of my compositional dissertation! my supervisor is good mates with a pro quartet, we compose for them and they play for us every year :)

[@hildegardkompton5878]

he kind of looks like Hans Zimmer. love his sense of humor!

[@heavynov]

That was fantastic! Thank you very much! Can we hope for similar demonstrations with other instruments as well? (Loved the humour as well)

[@obinator3486]

This was incredibely informative and a joy to watch. Thank you so much!

[@levigr]

Thank you very much for this! Learn this techniques in theoretical classes is way different to have a high level demonstration with the LSO musicians!

[@amir.nouroozi.composer]

This video is absolutely priceless, Thank you very much.

[@JoshAndresMusic]

This is incredible. What a great demonstration of the different techniques. Thank you!

[@lavendelle_swift]

This is a perfect for beginners in playing a string instrument.

[@WhoIsAlexElliott]

What a fantastic teacher. I’ve been able to understand something that simply felt out of reach to me

[@hpc5768]

You guys are absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for the extremely helpful video!

[@Notmehimorthem]

Just what I was seeking thank you

[@kingjliow]

need more of this!

[@enriquesanchez2001]

Brilliant demonstration! ♥♥♥♥

[@Louise-qk2po]

I find this fascinating. I do glissando on all strings after string changes but I have yet to perfect it as my glissandos sound like a speeding car speeding off with police behind it. I'm still learning!

[@Lily-of1gi]

What a fantastic teacher!

[@F1ddlePlayer]

Great, David! Thanks very much, and bravo, for a great contribution!

[@negar98]

The best way for learning techniques

[@igorverissimo607]

Excellent teaching! Thank you so much!!

[@saminarose80]

Thank you! This is very useful. I wish I watched this earlier. The glissando is called psycho strings on EW sound library! I had no idea how to write it! this video helped me a lot!

[@AhiMeloOfficial]

Thank you for this amazing video! Extremely helpful displaying the various techniques with a slightly comedic style. :) 🎶

[@italia8705]

what a fantastic lecture!

[@shamanbeartwo3819]

What a brilliant teacher.

[@avornication]

Excellent video.

[@thembelandesi3375]

He would make a gr8 comedian, Thank you this was very very helpful

[@onlinetheory5115]

6:13 I wouldn't entirely say I agree, tuba is a very delicate instrument. Just because it is large, it is very capable of playing sotto voce, just as bass, kettle drums, bass drum, etc.

[@edwinwealthman7481]

Magical

[@templemu]

very useful; esp reference to dulce as combining solo violin sample libraries can be tricky because different vibrato and bowings are present; but the idea is just to get an approximation to the real thing. Blending linraries is very efffective, even cheap ones

[@rewIndustry]

sul tasto does not work on the A and D in the higher ranges, because the bow hits the adjacent strings - how do we deal with this?

[@maplefoxx6285]

Would love to see more videos like this one where articulatons and playing styles of instruments are explained. This was very helpful to someone who is writing for violins but does not play violins. thanks. Staccato is the Burger articulation.. i know he said burglars, but i'm going to call it Burgers.

[@markjacksonturner6462]

Extremely helpful

[@LondonSymphonyOrchestra]

Glad it helped

[@leandrusi4533]

I like how "modern" classical music is from 100+ years ago

[@dankleffmann2473]

Thank you for this informative demonstration.

[@loganstrosahl7952]

incredibly helpful. Thank you

[@walkingbassline]

Excellent! Thank you.

[@turkbaycanl504]

Thank you very much!

[@kevkyaw]

Amazing presentation!

[@chronomancer1134]

Great video! Great information! What's the music piece on 1:18? Shazam doesn't seem to know. Thanks in advance!

[@tevbuff]

Did you ever find the name of the piece?

[@chronomancer1134]

@@tevbuff No one told me so far.

[@tevbuff]

It’s called death of maiden by Franz Schubert. It’s also called String Quartet no 14 in D minor.

[@chronomancer1134]

@@tevbuff Thank you, kind creature!

[@bkxt]

love his vegeterian analogy

[@BarbaraKrolOfficial]

Lovely.

[@Cazcanhazvideos]

Very useful video, good job. :)

[@themastersstrings]

How I really wish i can play like them. I never had the chance to go to a conservatory :'(

[@shahediqbal1954]

Nice

[@amirul1978x]

was he the gypsy violinist in the red violin?

[@BromeliadBro]

I appreciate when he gave the students shit for laughing at "modern"

[@tempusestiocundum3549]

What a pity that the audio, when he speaks, is so bad! Nevertheless, excellent lesson 👍

[@hogyndrwg6253]

That wins the internet in perpetuity IMHO.

[@yeleukenov]

Ok, so what's confusing is that according to Endre Granat in this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/a2qpqJWVg9mppq8 3:09 - The legato shown in the image is written as notes slured. A slur means on one direction of the bow, but legato can be done with different directions of the bow. 3:58 - Staccato shown is done "off" the bow, but can be done on the bow. Staccato is notes being separated by bow which starts the sound and kills the sound.

[@jonathanwingmusic]

String player here. A vast majority of the time we perceive legato and slurred as one in the same - and the slur does tell us to play all those notes in a single bow. However, there are times when you can not have a slur but still want the notes to sound as smoothly connected as possible, in which case the composer can write simply "legato" / "leg." which without the slur, we would change bowing direction but try to smoothly connect. To reset this bowing to normal, you could write detaché which is kind of the default bowing in a way, where notes are slightly detached. With staccato, many string players will argue the right interpretation of this haha. It also depends on the speed of the passage and string crossings among other things - certain passages marked staccato, such as 16th notes and above, will be played off the string (as we usually say), which at that speed is more a matter of physics than anything (the bow rebounds off the string regardless). At slower speeds, a player can make the decision to play on or off the string. Some of this comes down to preference and interpretation, but if a composer wants to be very exact about it to leave no room for interpretation, they could say "spiccato" for off the string. I don't often see the opposite, I suppose you could say senza spiccato or simply "on the string" to ensure players really choke the sound, but martele is another way to achieve that choked on the string sound too.

[@Orf]

5:48 - Sotto voce "Below the voice" - very soft

[@mycosys]

I'm so glad people like you spend liefetimes learning to play properly so weirdos like me can score a kontakt library well. Truly

[@rewIndustry]

"mister legato"? give me strength, how old are his students?

[@empyreansmusic8766]

The tutorial is very glissando...

[@bordeauxcolor]

You could make this video with a string orchestra

[@authenticbaguette6673]

3:58 does anyone think this looks more like spiccato?

[@AndiGundlach]

Thänk You! for this Video!

[@ErtywekPL]

love con sordino

[@chemacorredoiradecora839]

This is gorgeous, thanks! 👏👏

[@Moviepreviewer92]

Too smooth means can't be trusted! =))

[@atu4965]

this is excellent

[@nilsfrederking62]

Thanks for this very informative Video. His violin has a fantastic rich warm and beautiful sound. I wanted to ask if it is a Guarneri and found it with a search, he plays a Guarneri del Gesù from 1736. This instrument not only looks stunningly beautiful it sounds as it looks!

[@q3santile]

Thank you so much for this

[@retop56]

People like David make learning fun. This guy is awesome!

[@evrenhalavut9207]

Excellent, thank you!

[@ras5999]

Fantastic Thank so much!

[@kristofwynants]

this is fantastic!

[@moonjunsu]

6:34

[@PrinceWesterburg]

Correction: They are called 'artificial harmonics' because they are not played on an open string. Open string harmonics are called 'natural harmonics'.

[@thewolfgangensemble4378]

Eric Silberger presents bowing techniques more oriented towards playing solos in a very direct presentation you can find here on KZbin. This plod through various gimmicks presented by Alberman reminds me of why I did not attend conservatory, because it alternates between boring pedantry and odd circus tricks that make me seasick.

[@sweatynevets]

Brilliant. More of these please. I've learned so much.