In an article written for The Strad, violinist Geneva Lewis, a junior tennis champion when she was growing up in California, writes about the similarities between sports training and playing the violin.
“Growing up with a father who was a Wimbledon finalist, and as someone who competed in junior’s tennis when I was young, the similarities between tennis and violin performance have been a topic of fascination throughout my life. These similarities are characteristics and experiences that are shared in any pursuit of excellence within a craft. In order to be a serious tennis player or violinist, certain things are essential — strong work ethic, hours and hours of dedicated and purposeful practice, talent, access to quality equipment, coaches/teachers, etc. Beyond these fundamentals, I believe the experiences of playing tennis and music can be very alike.
In tennis, you are constantly trying to assess your opponent in order to find and exploit their weaknesses. You need to develop an almost instantaneous reaction time — what strategic patterns do they prefer, where are they going to hit their next ball, and how? Are they more comfortable initiating, or reacting? How do they perform under pressure? What is their emotional state, physical state, mental state? How can you best respond in order to gain the edge on them? In chamber music, I find it to be a very similar process, with the obvious difference being that the goal is to uplift your partner rather than compete against them. There is the same experience of trying to mind-read and follow the most subtle of cues. Where are they going to place their next note? What colour, timbre, pitch, volume, emotional world? How can you support that and predict it before it’s happened? How can you inspire them?
The transition from individual practice to collaborative work is also a similar process…”
Read the full article here
Photographs by Julien Mignot