Category: Practicing the Violin

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Getting Started on Violin Practicing the Violin

Violin: How to Guarantee Success

Young Violinist masters the Vivaldi concerto

New music students (and their families) often think learning violin is about soaking up the lessons. That the private teacher will give them those mad skills. So get some lessons, then go out into the world and use what you learned. Practice to refine it and to improve retention. All’s well and good, except…

What you can get out of a 30 minute lesson is just a skimpy slice of the pie. Surprisingly, the process of becoming a proficient musician is more like being a combination of an inventor, explorer and planner. Your teacher can only give you the raw ingredients of the  of the recipe; it’s up to you to actually make something of it.

So forget about coming to lessons and mindlessly spitting out what you’ve learned. Or watching videos on the internet and trying to copy other violinists playing your favorite songs. Learning violin requires that you engage your brain and your best powers of observation. It demands a patient attitude and a lot of curiosity.

If you’re proficient at music, it’s because you’ve learned how to solve these progressively more complex problems. But if you’re bored, stuck, frustrated and/or no longer making progress, it’s likely because you don’t have a solid strategy to improve your playing.

Repeating a song or musical passage over and over until you’re bored to tears is an almost certain recipe for failure. Instead let your sense of discomfort or frustration be your guidepost. Your mind is telling you that what you are doing isn’t going to produce the result you want. You need something more.

In my studio, once we get past the basics we kick into our “creative problem solving” mode. I demonstrate some simple strategies to fix a problem passage, and ask the student to do the same.

“Bobby, next week, show me three different ways to improve this weak spot” goes right into the homework assignment. “And playing it over and over until it sounds good doesn’t count.”

Surely a violin newbie will be hard pressed to come up with much of a list. So I supply a menu from which the student can select the most effective and appropriate choice. For example, here are some items from my “take away” menu for young violinists.

TAKE AWAY SOMETHING from a problem to make it simpler

  • Remove the rhythm and play it in quarter notes
  • Remove the bowings
  • Play it in an easier position/fingering
  • Work on a smaller section and expand to surroundings
  • Use a slower tempo, when improved, make a meaningful tempo increase and try again.
  • Use less tone or vibrato
  • Don’t play across syncopated ties (similar to remove bowings)
  • Use pizzicato instead of bow
  • Use the bow without the violin hand
  • Left hand only and bow 2″ above string
  • Left hand only and sing or count
  • Bow only and sing or count
  • Freeze time after every note and take stock of bow position

The concept behind the take away strategy is simple: problems become easy to solve once you’ve isolated them to their most basic components. This enables you to make visible progress in just minutes. That alone is super motivating for a student of any level.

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What are your favorite practice strategies? Please help me grow the list by commenting, sharing or tweeting. Thanks!

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Getting Started on Violin Practicing the Violin Suzuki Violin

How much money are you wasting on violin lessons?

It’s a fair question.

When I was a young student, I wasted my share of family funds in the violin studio. I was unprepared. I didn’t fully understand what the teacher was saying. The subject matter was over my head. The teacher couldn’t explain it in a way I could understand. It could be 1000 things. And over the years, it probably *was* 1000 things..

And it’s not all on the student side; teachers are human… they make mistakes too. They miss things that should be fixed. Or they don’t know how to correct problems that the students brings into the studio.

Enter the real world; distracted parent, exhausted student and frustrated teacher. This is not a recipe for making progress on the violin.

It gets me when people worry about the high cost of private lessons, then turn around and barely put any effort into making good use of the invested time and money. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense.

That’s why Invincible Violinists are always fully prepared. They value their time and money. They want to use their teacher’s expertise in the best possible way. Whether in the studio or at home, they’re embracing the best practices.

The most expensive violin lessons you can ever take, are the ones you have to take over. And over, and over.

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Practicing the Violin Suzuki Violin Violin Lessons for Kids

Violin Lessons, Turn Signals and Intersections

The city where I live took more than a year to approve a stop light at a busy intersection near my home. When crews finally began construction, I saw activity at the site for many weeks. But there was little visible progress. No lights, no stripes, no traffic control at all.

Finally, one day almost a year later, the shiny new signal lights stood guard at the intersection. In fact, they were installed in a matter of hours. Then it all became clear: the end was the easy part. But the months of planning, drilling, digging and wiring seemed unrewarded and unnoticed. One morning’s work is what got all the attention.

Your violin journey will likely be much the same. The first months, even the first year of lessons may not produce a result that looks glamorous or exciting. Still, it’s the most crucial period of time in any violinist’s lifetime. Doing things correctly at the start make it possible to reach the Mozart Concerti and beyond.

In the perfect curve of a tiny five year old finger, I see a brilliantly executed concerto passage. In the simple arc of an arm are the seeds of a rich and mature violin tone. It doesn’t look like much, at least to the untrained eye.

In the perfect curve of a tiny five year old finger, I see a brilliantly executed concerto passage.

Patience and vision and resolve are by far the most important virtues for a violin family. Too many folks try to sandwich this long term project into a few remaining slivers between soccer practice and homework.

When your child mounts the stage and plays her first Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, it’s a 90 second reflection of months and hour upon hour of dedication. It’s a celebration of a family’s resolve.

Practice is a pleasurable activity for an Invincible Violinist. He works to make sure that is so. That’s not to say there won’t be some moments that test our mettle.

The decision to begin a violin journey is always easier than the many decisions that follow. There’s a decision point at each intersection of the journey’s path with a busy family schedule. Greet each intersection with care. That’s how to make the journey successful.

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Getting Started on Violin Practicing the Violin

“Learning to play the violin is not what you think!”

 

 

Understanding what I’m about to tell you can make the difference between success and failure in your child’s violin lessons. Between a joyful experience and drudgery.

Picture this scenario:

You are beaming. Your six year old daughter is receiving enthusiastic applause from a full room of admirers. She has just performed beautifully at her first violin recital.

Or this scenario:

Your son is once again complaining about practicing. You’ve already threatened to cut off his lessons entirely if he doesn’t do better. The excitement and enthusiasm you both shared six months ago is long faded away.

[alert]The sad truth is that kids struggle and fail at violin far more often than you might expect. [/alert]

It happens because the “violin is so hard.” Or at least that’s what most people assume.

We start out expecting to suffer through months of squeaks, groans and scratches. And after that, volumes of exercises, scales and music reading are on tap. Months later, you’re still struggling to “play” your first song.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can learn to play, really play well, from the very first note.

When I started violin, I shared many limiting thoughts. And sure enough, I was frustrated by slow progress. I worked hard, but without much focus, and achieved only a fraction of my potential, even after years.

After decades of playing in symphony orchestras and recording studios, I began to teach the violin. That’s when something remarkable happened. I stumbled upon some important people and ideas that turned my violin world upside down.

What shocked me the most is that these ideas worked even better for my students than they did for me. As a teacher who loves the violin dearly, I’d like to share them with you in this course.

After years of teaching violin, and of working with some of the finest string teachers around the nation, with each new day I believe more firmly than ever:

      1. Age 6 or 60, learning the violin becomes simple, once you have mental clarity about what’s most important at any given moment.

 

    2. The most important lessons your child must learn are the first ones. He/she must master only three basic skills.

If you take just this one concept to heart, success is practically guaranteed:

Violin lessons aren’t for learning songs.

Many people, even a few violin teachers, forget this basic fact. They lose sight of what really is crucial: with every note you play during the lesson, with every sound you make, you are focussed on learning the simple movements needed to produce a beautiful tone in the most effortless way possible.

Yes, in my studio students perform songs, and they learn to gain comfort performing them on the stage. When students demonstrate the relevant technical mastery, only then do we begin to discuss artistic interpretation of songs.

Stated another way, the best early lessons and practice sessions are less about what to play and more about how to play. How to hold the instrument and bow. Posture. Tone. Freedom of movement and lack of tension.

Focus on the “how” with your child. Let the “what” come in its own good time. You’ll discover that even playing nursery rhymes becomes joyful and pleasureful. Isn’t that why we play music in the first place?
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