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  How Scales and Sympathetic Strings Teach the Ear to Play Before we talk about scales, we should talk about listening. Most people are introduced to scales as ladders — up, down, repeat — something to conquer with the fingers. But the original purpose of a scale was never speed or accuracy. It was orientation . A way of placing the body inside a sound world and letting the ear learn where it belongs. When you play slowly inside a scale — especially one built around open strings — something subtle happens. The instrument begins to answer you. Certain notes bloom. Others resist. Some feel inevitable, while others feel like questions. This isn’t theory. It’s acoustics teaching the ear. Sympathetic strings make this process impossible to ignore. Unlike stopped strings, sympathetic strings do not respond to effort or intention. They only respond to truth. When a pitch aligns clearly enough with the harmonic field of the instrument, the sympathetic strings vibrate. When it doesn’t,...

🌿 Continuum Studio — Personalised Online Music Sessions I offer one-to-one online music sessions using the Continuum Method — a personalised, pressure-free approach to learning and creative development. Sessions adapt to individual learning styles, personalities, and creative temperaments, with a strong focus on confidence, curiosity, and long-term musical wellbeing. Alongside teaching, I’m developing this work as part of my wider creative and educational practice, including my books and research-based projects. 📚 Related books and resources are available via my author catalogue. www.sarniadelamare@gmail.com 🌿 Book a Continuum Session (£10) 📅 Choose a time: Google Calendar Sessions are delivered internationally online. Private, supportive, and not recorded. 🌿 Continuum Studio — Online Pilot Session (30 Minutes)  These one-to-one sessions introduce students to the Continuum Method: a personalised, pressure-free approach to learning strings and pi...

  The Undulating Practice Method How Modular Exploration Builds a Lifelong Creative Continuum By Sarnia de la Maré Introduction: Practice as Living Research Across disciplines, serious creative work rarely develops in straight lines. It evolves through cycles of curiosity, immersion, refinement, and return. Within the Continuum Approach, this process can be understood as undulating practice : a method of sustained, modular exploration in which ideas are entered deeply, developed fully, and temporarily set aside — not abandoned, but archived — for future reactivation. This essay outlines how undulating practice functions as a self-directed learning system, a creative research methodology, and a foundation for long-term artistic resilience. 1. The Undulating Cycle Undulating practice moves through recurring phases: Attraction — An idea, material, or question generates sustained interest. Immersion — Focused exploration of technique, language, and context. Expansion — Testing varia...

  Why Strings Wear Out — and How to Make Them Last Longer Every string player reaches the same quiet moment: the instrument is still in tune, technique feels fine — but the sound has lost its sparkle. The string hasn’t broken. It’s simply worn out. Strings don’t fail suddenly. They deteriorate slowly, for very practical reasons. 1. Constant Tension and Metal Fatigue All string instruments rely on metal strings held under continuous high tension . From the moment a string is fitted, it begins ageing. Over time: The metal core stretches microscopically Elasticity decreases The string vibrates less freely This is normal wear, not a fault — even in the most expensive strings. 2. Vibration and Playing Wear Every note flexes the string thousands of times. This repeated movement causes metal fatigue , especially in the core. As this builds up: Overtones disappear first The sound becomes dull or flat Response feels slower and less reliable A string can look fine...

The Continuum Framework™ — A Manifesto The Continuum Framework™ is a non-linear approach to musical learning that understands sound not as a series of achievements to be climbed, but as a field to be entered, explored, and returned to across a lifetime. Rather than separating technique, theory, improvisation, composition, and listening into hierarchical stages, the Continuum recognises them as interdependent behaviours that emerge at different intensities depending on context, nervous system, age, and intention. Musical development is not a ladder of progress, but a living relationship with sound. At its core, the Continuum privileges resonance over correctness, agency over compliance, and time over urgency. It rejects the idea of “beginner” and “advanced” music as fixed categories, acknowledging instead that the same material can serve radically different depths of experience. An open string, a single gesture, or a sustained field of sound can hold as much musical truth for a pro...