The inauguration of the first annual Rolland Fiddle Camp held in 2011 coincided with the centennial celebration of Professor Paul Rolland (Peter Rolland's father). Many of his core teaching principles carry over effectively into the fiddling genre. It
is a little known fact that Paul Rolland was a firm believer in the
pedagogical value of fiddling as a means of developing good motion
patterns for young violinists. Before his passing he undertook a
collaboration with his son Peter and violinist/fiddler Norman Burgess to
develop a pedagogical method using folk fiddle tunes to develop playing
skills in a logical sequence. But for his untimely death in 1978, the
current "Alternative Strings" revolution in string teaching might have
started twenty years sooner.
Paul Rolland remains, long after his passing, one of the iconic figures in string teaching. There have been many scholarly articles and several Ph.D theses written about his work. The spring 2011 issue of AMERICAN STRING TEACHER, the ASTA journal for which he served as founding editor, contains a bibliographic summary of Paul Rolland by his biographer, Michael Fanelli, in honor of his 100th birthday. The November 2011 issue of STRAD magazine also showcases Paul Rolland's life and work. Yehudi Menuhin and others considered him the most
influential string pedagogue of the 20th century. Paul was a founder and president of the American String Teacher's
Association, chairman of the string department at the University of Illinois, and he also founded International String Workshop. A virtuoso violinist, during his lifetime, he
did a great deal to revolutionize string teaching in the United States.
His published articles and books, his profound success as a teacher,
his organizational and motivational skills in conjunction with ASTA, the
AST journal for which he was the founding editor, The International
String Workshop that he founded, and his many seminars and clinics
throughout the United States and abroad, all bear testimony to a man
driven to improve the quality of string teaching everywhere.
His
crowning achievement in that quest, "The Teaching of Action in String Playing" film series and book, was the result of years of research and
testing by the Illinois String Research Project which he designed and
directed.
This film
series and the book by the same title represent the pinnacle of his efforts to
improve string teaching methods.
In the last six years of his life he gave over 200 workshops and clinics
throughout the world on the method of string teaching represented by the films.
Many artists and teachers of note have endorsed Paul Rolland’s work,
including Elude Menuhin, Max Rostal, Josef Gingold, Eduard Melkus,
Victor Aitay, George Perlman, Paul Doktor, William Primrose, and Roman
Totenberg.
It has been said that Paul Rolland, more than any other person, knew and
understood the human body as a violin playing machine. His
approach was quite scientific and led to an effective sequencing of
motion skills necessary for good playing. It also led to the
development of teaching games and teaching techniques that he and his
colleagues used to convey these skills to young players. Many of these
are shown in the film series. It is no accident that the children of
the Project classes shown in these films developed into such skilled
players in “less than two and a half years of class instruction,
demonstrating freedom and ease of playing through the use of good motion
patterns, and freedom from excessive tension.”
