The Secret of Practicing Part 11

Up to now I’ve been a little hesitant when it came to hints and tips concerning fingering and bowing since they are very personal and depend to a certain extent on our personal taste.
But I was asked about a particular passage in Bruch’s Violin Concerto that is much easier to handle with a different fingering [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

The Secret of Practicing Part 10

Today we’ll focus on the chords in Bruch’s violin concerto. We often come across those kind of chords in violin literature, so basically we can apply our practicing pattern there as well, no matter if we play Bruch, Vieuxtemps or Waxman.
Now let’s have a look at this:

At first glance a tohubohu of notes waiting to [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

The Secret of Practicing Part 9

Some weeks ago I was asked if I could provide some kind of operating instructions for Bruch’s violin concerto.
Well, it’s hard to do this, first because of the amount of information. If I wanted to write such an operating manual I would have to publish an entire book.
Second, because every violinist has different problems. Ideally [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

Shifting Techniques Part 9

In the past weeks I got several questions about shifts, correct positions and exercises to improve shifts generally.
So let’s take a short break from our practicing series and let’s focus on shifts again.
In this article I’ve already mentioned Sevick’s “Op. 8″. A particularly amazing work when it comes to shifts. In that post I chose [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all of you folks!
Enjoy the time with your family and – of course – your violin!

Share and Enjoy:

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

The Secret of Practicing Part 8

Shortly before the Easter week let us come to the question “how much time should we invest for practicing?” Or, to be more precise, how should we arrange our practicing time?
As a teacher I’m tempted to say “as long and as often as possible”. But this is only partly true. Our concentration will upset this [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

The Secret of Practicing Part 7

In technically more sophisticated pieces we often come across double stops that are really difficult to play.
Today I’ll show you an example how we can practice them very efficiently without wasting too much time. For this example I chose Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1, first movement, letter E:

This is really hard to play unless we [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

The Secret of Practicing Part 6

Recently I was asked if I could provide some example how to practice fast ascending passages. Well, sure I can.
Today we’ll have a look at some measures in Bruch’s Violin Concerto in g-Minor:

A few bars later we find a corresponding passage which we’ll have to deal with today:

A rather difficult part of the piece. The [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

The Secret of Practicing Part 5

In measure 246 in the Brahms Concerto we find a particularly interesting passage for the solo violin. We’ll have a look at this because today we will concentrate on practicing double stops or, in our case, even triple stops.

I did without fingering because first of all I want to show you a possible way of [...]

Share and Enjoy:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Print this article!
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • blogmarks
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →