Buzzing comes from not placing cleanly enough or at the wrong moment, unless your fingers are hitting the strings they aren’t playing. That’s corrected by altering position. It helps to put space between the fingers instead of having them smack dab against each other. Try to have some air in between. Depending how painstakingly you want to practice, if you want to learn the notes first, and the fingerings, then make sure you go back and eliminate the buzzes. Listening to yourself play on a recording is a sure way to embarass yourself into doing the extra work.
When I studied with Chalifoux, one of the main things she did was to get me to relax while playing. I was too full of anxiety and trying too hard. Her students tended to have a physical perfection in their playing that was enviable. She was very good at seeing what one was physically doing and if it could be corrected. She also had some ideas of her own, like a low thumb position that could close very quickly, and hooked to compensate for the shortened movement, but I didn’t like how that sounded (or looked). She also used, herself, a lot of wrist movement. I think it gave her a crisper articulation that worked well in playing with the Cleveland Orchestra.
What was most amazing was how, when she taught me Scintillation, she taught me everything about it, especially the moods and how to convey them, right from the first note. We played just the first two bars, until I got them completely and exactly right. Then we proceeded chord by chord. That was a new method of learning for me. It was very much about doing it, and doing it the right way. Miss Lawrence was generally more conceptual and intellecual in her approach, and about powerful and lustrous tone quality, as well as style. I am so glad I got to study with both of them. Two incomparable masters. Except for Lynne Palmer, who was a third.
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