As a string player you generally always play as part of a section. That is, you are one small cog in a much larger machine. Each member of the section has to blend, in terms of intonation, use of the bow, dynamic and colour of sound, in order to ensure the section has a good, well rounded ensemble sound.
This is all fine and good, and also, fairly obvious, but the upshot of playing in a symphony orchestra is that a lot of the time, as a string player, you can't really hear yourself all that terribly well! It is only now that I have really realised the importance of all the technical exercises one is forced to endure in college and while starting out with an instrument.
While you are a student, locked in a practice room wondering if it's too early to have a Gregg's pizza bread slice (what? what do you mean that was just me?), the thought of trawling through pages upon pages of Sevcik bowing exercises is about as appealing as the thought of sitting through a three hour tutorial on Schenkerian analysis. The thing is, you really do need to have the complete arsenal of bowing techniques at your disposal and you need to be able to produce any required of you at a moment's notice.
It's the same with scales. When I was younger, I hated them with a passion. They were boring and the tunes were where the action was at. In all honesty, I simply could not see the point of them and did my best to avoid them at every opportunity. The fact is, my playing did not improve until I really knuckled down and started paying real attention to my intonation.
Even the seemingly stupid scales, like ones in harmonics, are important, because a surprising amount of music, in particular, new music, utilises this technique and there is nothing worse than feeling you aren't quite hitting the right notes! When you are in the middle of the orchestra you need to be able to rely upon your ability to hit a note, even when you can't really hear yourself.
When I was in youth orchestra, we had a wonderful viola tutor called Michael Cookson. I remember him taking our little viola section for coffee after rehearsal one day, and as he was regaling us with tales from his career and the musical world 'back in the day', he told us a saying that I have heard many times since: "If you don't practice for one day, you will notice, if you don't practice for one week your desk partner will notice, but if you don't practice for a month everyone notices."
I, and I know a lot of my colleagues, try to do a little maintenance practice each day. We have so much music to get through every month, I feel like I spend a lot of my time listening to works I'm not familiar with and learning a squillion notes, and it would be so easy to neglect technique. For me, it is important to not just keep technique sharp, but to continue trying to improve it.
I like to be able to enjoy the music I play, not stress about whether my staccato has gone flabby or if my intonation is wonky. I have learnt to love scales and technical work. Well, maybe not love. In a way, they're like foul tasting medicine - pretty grim at the time, but ultimately, very good for you.