30 - I Still Care For You

“There are perceptions of legato that we can create using this slow reverberation and horizontal nature,” our conducting professor, Professor Ward Leighton, says as he sways his baton left and right. A dozen of us are holding violins in the studio performance room. “It is light in the sense of floating through time without any resistance or shift in speed,” the professor continues. “Play the second stanza.”

My gaze automatically goes to the score. We’re performing the Salut d’Amour.

I rest the violin on my left shoulder, my face angled against the chinrest, and my fingers gently resting on the fingerboard. I tune to the first string and float the horsehair over the A string with the bow. While our Professor swings his baton and left hand in delicate, careful waves, my fellow undergraduates and I play in unison, producing a soft, melodious, incessant sound.

He cuts the play after four staff lines and continues with his lesson.

“Perhaps we can go for a denser legato with tension on eac