I've been playing the Wohlfahrt etudes for quite some time now. My teacher started me on Op.45 #13 today. He told me to play it at a moderate speed but my fingers just seems not to be fast enough. He has told me I have to learn to speed up my fingers but how do I do that? I do know that when I speed up or when I play f or ff, my fingers tends to get tense. Any suggestions on how to be less tense with these and how to speed up? Any exercises I can do?

Unfortunately, the only certain way of speeding up passages accurately is the frustrating way - start slow, with a metronome if needed, and work your way up gradually. Aim to increase your speed by two or three clicks on the metronome each day, starting at a speed which you're comfortable and secure at, and not going onto the next speed until you can play it correctly more than once in a row. Frustrating, yet - but you'll be amazed at the difference it will make to the piece if you do it properly! Good luck.

I'm not a strings player, so don't know if this will work, but on my woodwind instrument, I make some notes by putting down more fingers, and others by taking them off, and when I'm fumbly or slow, it's because a finger isn't going as fast as one of the others. My teacher taught me to break up the rhythm, so playing quavers quickly, I would turn them into dotted-quaver-semi-quaver patterns, then turn it about to play the same set of notes semi-quaver-dotted-quaver. This trains individual fingers to go more quickly, without the rest of the sequence getting in the way. Similarly, playing trills he'd get me to concentrate on the taking-finger-off bit only first, so long note with finger down, and briefly lift up and let it drop again as quickly as possible...then the other way, long note with trilling finger up, then dropping the finger down as quickly as possible whilst still making a reasonable sound.

With time, this will loosen the weaker/stiffer fingers up and let them play more evenly at a greater speed, at any rate on a woodwind instrument. Anyone do this on strings?

Yes, my teacher has taught me to do something similar. The rhythms I use are a bit different and are called Galamian rhythms (I think). It is a very effective way of speeding up a passage. It also sorts out any coordination problems between the bow and the fingers.

Is there any website to explain these Galamian rhythms? Or at least some examples?

There are some good fast finger exercises in Simon Fischer's book called 'Basics'. I don't suggest you buy it as it is very expensive but your library may have it.

There is also a web site that looks at the Galamian approach. The URL is:

http://www.theviolinsite.com/lefthand.html

Good luck
Jon

Galamian rhythms are explained in the book 'Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching' by Ivan Galamian. They are basically introduced as a way of practicing scales, but with an explanation of how to use them to solve various technical problems (eg intonation, shifting, rhythm, speed, bowing, coordination etc). There are lots of different rhythms, based on different patterns of slurred and separate bows, and on shifting accents. The idea is that you use the appropriate rhythm(s) to solve a particular problem.

When I am practicing fast passages of quavers or semi-quavers I tend to use the rhythm quaver semiquaver semiquaver semiquaver. Once I can get that correct I repeat the rhythm but with the quaver shifted along one note, then shifted along by another noted, then by another note. Sorry if this isn't very clear but it is much easier to explain by demonstating than by using words. Once I have worked on a passage in this way I find that I can play it faster than before without problems.

Ivan Galamian was one of the great violin teachers. Simon Fischer (mentioned earlier in this thread) was a pupil of Dorothy De Lay who was teaching assistant to Galamian, so it wouldn't be surprising if some of his exercises were influenced by Galamian's methods.

Oh, you mean from quaver semiquaver semiquaver semiquaver to semiquaver quaver semiquaver semiquaver then to semiquaver semiquaver quaver semiquaver then semiquaver semiquaver semiquaver quaver?? Hehe...it's soo long!