DIFFERENTIATION, THE KEY TO AWARENESS AND PERFORMING WITH EASE & TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY (with special thanks to student Eliot for keeping good lesson notes.) Differentiation-Keyword -Change is the goal of differentiation -Differentiation means noticing differences -noticing the sound, accuracy, and the ease or lack of ease -realizing how the body compensates by ease or lack of ease from playing a passage -important to know the distances between the fingers in the left hand -noticing how the body should be after noticing how much easier it was to play in a certain position and remembering that position -Proper Shifting-“don’t walk on egg shells” play boldly even if it means playing your mistakes boldly -in order to correctly shift you must use your torso to elevate your viola and in a sense be able to let go your instrument and catch it once you bring down your torso and in the end shifting properly -differentiate between shoulder and torso moving