The Fallacy of "Relax"

For string players, few instructions are more common than "relax." While there are times when one needs to be aware of where excessive tension lies, the cue to relax can do more harm than good. The instinctive reaction to this word usually produces at worst something close to a wet noodle, and at best a haphazard effort to disengage different parts chaotically — rather than the active, cohesive engagement that we need for all the parts to work as one.

On a purely psychological level: to relax while executing a complicated craft that requires such intense concentration and physical precision is an oxymoron. Add performance nerves on top — how can a nervous system reconcile the two?

While I don't necessarily agree that musicians are "small-muscle athletes," the analogy does expose the fallacy of "relaxation" as well. No one would ever tell an athlete to relax on the field. How would it make sense for us?

I recently saw a post from a very good violinist — a video of himself playing, demonstrating that he doesn't "hold" the violin with his thumb, but rather "caresses" it. Yes, he's clearly not gripping with the distal end of his thumb, but he is just as clearly moving efficiently from the base joint, thus utilizing the whole thumb and strongly engaging its pad, which in turn connects all his fingers with the arches of the hand, and the hand to the arm. All this is why his thumb can be light and look as if it's simply caressing the instrument. But only trying to relax the thumb will never get one to do what he can do.

This is the kind of instruction, passed down for generations, that does real damage: a great, natural player does something instinctively well, communicates what he *thinks* he's doing — and it is factually not what he's doing. The string world is full of instructions like this. Two more examples come to mind. A violinist and teacher as great as Aaron Rosand: I've seen footage of him in a masterclass demonstrating how one should hold the violin high — and the next shot shows Mr. Rosand playing with his violin at exactly the height he had just dismissed as too low. Another contemporary violinist talks about the importance of a "straight" bow when playing spiccato. He demonstrates with a single-note spiccato and gives two versions — one with a straight bow, one with a not-so-straight bow. First, I think his less-straight-bow spiccato actually sounds better! The tone is more resonant and there's more control. Then, three seconds later, he demonstrates with an actual musical passage, brilliantly — and while it's subtle, it's not the "straight" bow version he had just demonstrated at all.

So many well-trained players get used to repeating the same dogma, not even aware that they do not play the way they think they're playing.

This is why working from first principles matters. The internet and AI age gives us the benefit of so much information — but one must filter it with first-principles discernment. And part of that discernment means questioning preconceived notions and investigating anything we don't actually understand. Take the bow thumb: one of my teachers, Glenn Dicterow, used to say that he thought it was impossible for the bow thumb to always stay bent — he had dismissed this dogma through his own experience. But more often than not, what one hears is the mantra "the thumb must be bent," over and over again.

Going back to the left-hand thumb — and by extension, to every part of the body cued to "relax": as a point of entry to technical puzzles, it is far more efficient to understand and learn how to properly engage the body for the motion we need, rather than trying to vaguely "relax." After all, what creates unnecessary tension is usually compensation for something else in the body that should be working but isn't. When the right parts are finally able to work properly, the unnecessary bits actually have a chance to let go, because they no longer need to take up a responsibility that was never theirs. Seen this way, letting go of tension is no longer "relaxing," but a far more organized form of release.