Jason Vieaux presented a Master Class at the Darlington Fine Arts Center on U.S. Rt. 1, in Wawa, on Sunday, November 8, the first of a series that will include Arthur Greene, piano, on March 14, and Judith Ingolfsson, violin, on May 22. This series is supported in part by the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society and is presented in cooperation with Astral Artistic Services. Seven players participated, drawn from the guitar programs at Darlington, Wilmington, and West Chester. The performance skills ranged from beginner to quite advanced, and Vieaux worked skillfully and patiently with them all. As I watched him, I was puzzled at first by how much he appeared to have aged in the year since I had seen him last. Then I recalled that as we chatted after his concert, I had been equally surprised by the youth he acquired by stepping off the stage. He brings a maturity to his professional roles beyond the youth of his twenty odd years. His maturity was in full evidence as he worked perceptively and gently with the students, particularly the young ones.

      First up was twelve-year-old Kurt, whose memory lapse in the anonymous Italiana gave Vieaux the opportunity to advise the player to approach his "loss-of-memory points" with three practice tools: hear the next note; remember the note's name, and visualize the page and the finger-movements (OK, four), and discussed minimalization of movement and efficiency in fingering.

      The second player's back-bent right thumb struck a familiar chord for Vieaux as he enthusiastically took the opportunity afforded by the performer's choice of Villa Lobos' Prelude #1 to show the use of that formidable tool to present a melodic line in the bass. He also emphasized that the playing of chords uses the top knuckle joint, rather than by pulling off the hand, allowing the fingers to relax between chords; and advocated the formula "plant-relax-play-relax".

      I was surprised to find that the third player, though he handled the rather advanced Bulerias and Boceto Andaluz of Calatuyud quite well, was not taking advantage of alternating right-hand fingerings, at least not what Vieaux considered optimum; Vieaux confessed to using all four (i, m, a, c) to avoid cross-fingerings (Elliot Fisk mentioned training the fourth finger at his master class last year, but didn't advocate performing with it), and predicted that the time is coming when editions limited to m-i alternations will look outdated.

      Predictably, the third player of seven was just finishing at 3:45, with the schedule having called for 2:00 to 4:00 o'clock, but Jason didn't flinch. As the performance level increased, I tried to extract the "Gems" of his instructions:

      Start practicing slowly, and by this he means slower than I suspect most people are comfortable with. The aim is to get all the elements of technique; left-hand fingertips, legato, ease, efficiency and relaxation in both hands all working from the outset, then repeating this same slow, complete and relaxed motion over and over; rather than "learning the notes" and then working in your good technique. It is very hard to improve technique in a piece you have learned badly; start over with a new one. Omit using a metronome in the beginning so as to allow time for contemplation of technical issues without feeling pressed to play in rhythm. Segovia's "right-angle right hand" strains tendons by bending the wrist, results in a thin sound, and fosters injury. Segovia was gifted enough to play as he did in spite of his technique. The preferred position approaches the string with a straighter right wrist, with the nails filed at a compensating angle.

      The right hand plucking movement should include enough middle joint action to minimize the travel of the fingertip; too much top-joint slows the playing.

      Center the left hand at the fourth finger to expedite landing on the fingertip. The final player gave a quite polished performance of Ponce's "Sonatina Meridional", which gave Vieaux the chance to work on matters of musicality and expression in the manner of a rehearsal conductor, which topped off an extremely enjoyable and educational Sunday afternoon.