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D.C. Dounis's Expressive Technique: Brendan Bordick Lesavage

This document provides an author's statement for a work about D.C. Dounis's expressive violin technique. Dounis made many contributions to violin playing but these were not well documented and his work faded after his death. However, his student George Neikrug helped preserve Dounis's teachings through his own students. There is now renewed interest in the Dounis Method with masterclasses being held and online communities forming. The purpose of this author's work is to provide an accessible guide to the Dounis Method to help preserve it.

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323 views

D.C. Dounis's Expressive Technique: Brendan Bordick Lesavage

This document provides an author's statement for a work about D.C. Dounis's expressive violin technique. Dounis made many contributions to violin playing but these were not well documented and his work faded after his death. However, his student George Neikrug helped preserve Dounis's teachings through his own students. There is now renewed interest in the Dounis Method with masterclasses being held and online communities forming. The purpose of this author's work is to provide an accessible guide to the Dounis Method to help preserve it.

Uploaded by

Brendan Bordick-Lesavage
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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D.C. Dounis’s Expressive Technique 

Brendan Bordick‐Lesavage 

Kutztown University 

BA Music 

 
Author’s Statement 

D.C. Dounis was a man whose many discoveries and contributions to the field of violin 

playing have been left shrouded in mystery. Today, Dounis is best known for his publications on 

violin technic. By analyzing these works collectively, one gets the impression that there is more 

to Dounis’s teachings than what is presented in his studies. Many of Dounis’s ideas and 

exercises were never written down. As an individual, Dounis was extremely humble and never 

sought fame. Consequently, Dounis’s work faded into obscurity following his death. It was 

through the collective efforts of Dounis’s faithful students that his contributions were able to 

survive his death.  

  George Neikrug, a cellist, was one of these faithful pupils. Neikrug had studied with 

Dounis for fifteen years and had perhaps become the closest out of all of his students fully 

understanding Dounis’s paradigm of string playing. Through Neikrug’s students, a new 

generation of string players and teachers trained in Dounis’s methods has started to emerge. 

Today, there is a growing interest in the work of D.C. Dounis. In the late 2010’s, Dounis 

masterclasses have been held in major conservatories throughout the Northeastern United 

States. Teachers from prestigious music schools have received training in the method, and 

there is a growing interest in online communities about the Dounis Method. Individuals trained 

in the method have begun sharing exercises and giving online lessons.  

  The purpose of this work is to provide a well‐organized and accessible guide to the 

Dounis Method so that it may be preserved and offer solutions to those who seek them.  To 

produce this text, the author has received in‐person training from a student of Neikrug, Byron 
Duckwall and has attended his masterclasses on Dounis. Additional pedagogical and biographic 

material has been sourced from numerous rare and out of print publications.  All of the 

exercises included in this book have been written by the author, taking into consideration the 

variations found in other publications, most of which are out of print. A list of these works is 

included in the bibliography under the heading “Pedagogical Resources.”  

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