The études so far

Each PDF is two pages: the instruction page in English and Japanese, then the score. Fingering is written on every note and the string is marked in a circle wherever it changes, so the page carries the whole instruction.

The model

Sogny's 48 Études de perfectionnement (Premier Niveau), published by Éditions Musicales Artchipel in 2020, is unusual among technical books in that it refuses to be a drill. Every étude is a short character piece with a tempo and an affect marking, built from a single cell. It is preceded by a page with three fixed fields: what progress to expect, technical advice for the preparatory work with the practice variants written out in notation, and a recommended minimum time in weeks, footnoted as indicative. The first days of every étude are spent away from the sounding instrument, on the closed lid. And the book states a principle that runs through all of it: tone comes from weight and release, and any technique that rests on the strength of the finger is excluded.

Almost none of the piano content transfers. Finger independence, hand balance and chord release have no violin equivalent at this level. What transfers is the architecture, and the architecture is the valuable part: one target, a piece rather than a pattern, prescribed silent work first, cells isolated and stopped on the next beat, a rhythmic variant, and a stated duration that stops the student rushing. The violin equivalent of the closed lid is the left hand alone without the bow, or the bow alone on open strings.

Principles carried over

1. One target per étude, named on the page. Secondary aims are listed, never more than three.
2. Every étude is a piece: a tempo, an affect marking, a repeat structure, a dynamic shape. The student is asked to find the musical sense before working the mechanics.
3. Preparatory work in a fixed order: silent first (left hand without the bow, or the bow on open strings), then each cell isolated and stopped on the next beat, then a rhythmic variant, then the text.
4. A minimum duration in weeks, footnoted as indicative. Nothing is to be got through in a lesson.
5. Weight, not force. Intonation is corrected by sliding the finger, never by pressing; tone is bow speed and arm weight, never pressure.
6. Fingering on every note and the string circled wherever it changes, so no teacher is needed to decode the page.

Two rules of my own for writing the next ones. The first half of each étude states the target in its simplest form; the second half puts it under a mild secondary load, a crossing or a rhythm, so the student learns to hold the target while attention is elsewhere. And the snippets on the instruction page are the actual practice variants, notated, never described in words alone.