Learning and Practicing the Violin
Posts tagged as:
There is one part left in our selection of scales across all four strings. After our dominant seventh chord we go on: Similar to the first page we have got thirds, just across four strings this time. The published fingering is excellent, so we won’t change that. If you have a copy with two options [...]
{ 1 comment }
Let’s shift to the second gear. Or better: the second page. If you turn the page you’ll stumble upon the three octave scales on all four strings. The pattern used for practicing those scales is similar to the scales on one string. We work on every scale, every triad seperately and we carry on to [...]
{ 0 comments }
I hope you made good progress with your scales, which are a little dry, I must admit. But they are excellent exercises to improve speed, precision and intonation. Today we have a look at the remaining part of the scales on one string. Let’s start with the thirds: This time we have four notes on [...]
{ 0 comments }
Actually I planned to post an article about the bow hold. But in the past weeks there have been several questions about practicing scales. So, here we go. A couple of years ago one of my teachers told me something like this: Everybody who wants to have at least a little success on the violin [...]
{ 12 comments }
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 [...]
{ 1 comment }
Sometimes we have to play differently than we are accustomed to, concerning our shifts as we talked about previously. That happens occasionally when we look at pieces from the Romantic period. Sometimes we come across things like this: This is measure 13 from Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs. The “II” and the “III” beneath the notes indicate [...]
{ 0 comments }
In Part 6 we looked upon our almost standard shift, sliding upwards on our last played finger. Obviously, as I already wrote here, there is an exception to this rule. Today we’ll apply this in our Mendelssohn Concerto. For our example I chose the second movement, measures 31 and 32. I left the original fingering [...]
{ 0 comments }
Before we proceed with our shifting techniques I’d like to provide some photos how to cope with higher positions on the violin because there are some significant differences between lower (1. to 4.) and higher (>5.) positions. Perhaps you remember our left hand geometry we talked about in part 3. Our hand should look like [...]
{ 0 comments }
Today we’ll have a look into the first measures of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in e Minor. I took the original fingering by Igor Oistrach. Sometimes his fingering is a bit difficult to play because he had huge hands, but in this case it’s absolutely playable by people with normal sized fingers. We begin with the [...]
{ 0 comments }
A weblog created for people who are keen on playing the violin - of course not only for Canadians! Written for people who want to improve their skills on this great instrument.
If you have any comments or questions feel free to contact me!
Have fun!
