fiddling with myself (violin)

[lechat]

can't see how that thread title could be misinterpreted so since i have all the violinists in this thread i need some advise.

picked up the instrument a few months back and i'm slowly getting better but my practice has no other purpose other than playing the same few songs over and over again and slightly improving intonation (maybe) and fingering speed.
my teacher has very little structure to her teaching and seems content to let me play a song a week while she picks it apart critiquing what seems like minor imperfections.

my timing is pretty poor, i only play first position , i only play in two keys and i can feel my fingers wanting to add vibrato but at this point i'm not sure where i should direct my efforts to get the most bang for my buck.

tips?

 

[Rylot]

Lube, lots of lu... oh wait, what? are we? Oh uh, my bad...

Having played a few years back in elementary school I'd recommend going to a music store and finding a beginner's violin book that has a lot of songs you know and try going through that. When I started playing songs that I recognized the timing got a lot easier. Playing other hand positions is tough and takes a lot of practice. For vibrato try putting your middle finger up against your other hand's palm and in a relaxed position and wiggling it back and forth. That helped me get the motion down.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Oh you! XD

As a fellow violinist, I will just say playing with a metronome will help a lot, and as well as taking things slow until you get the timing right. Buying a level 1, or beginners book will help, but I would be very cautious about beginners books since I find they really don't help with fundamentals that well without the help of a tutor. But that's my minor gripe since I've substituted for a friend of mine that does do private lessons and we both tend to not use them that heavily.

Anyways, sight reading will help a lot as well since it forces you to take into account each and every note and rest in each measure. Tapping your foot on the ground will help you keep a steady beat if you don't have a metronome on hand, and there are some great ones that are free for phones.

As for vibrato, I would wait until you have better intonation and a better understanding of timing because if you don't then the piece will suffer. One exercise you can do that don't involve your instrument is to hold your left hand up in position, place your middle finger on your thumb and slowly rock it back and forth. You keep doing that until you get a good grasp of it and then go faster until your wrist can handle the new technique.

With your violin, you can transfer that over and practice it that way with either your first finger, then second finger, third finger, and then fourth finger. Fourth finger might take some time depending on how strong of a fourth finger you have. Do keep in mind that there's a difference between a fast vibrato and slow vibrato. For now, learning how to vibrato first will be the first step before you learn the speeds of it.

All that said, the violin is just one of those bastard instruments where if you don't have the fundamentals down then the rest will be hard. :/

I hope that helps, and good luck!

 

[renegade7]

Oh, the fiddling jokes never get old...

Anyway, this is normal. I spent nearly half a year only playing pieces from level 1 books in D and G. Unlike other instruments, bowed stringed instruments are so dependent on good quality technique. In learning most other instruments, improvements to technique directly accompany expansions to repertoire, but with violin you want to perfect your technique before you go expanding your repertoire.

I don't think a few months is ready for vibrato yet, though. I didn't even start vibrato until I was a year and a half in, and by that point I'd gone from a private tutor to applied lessons with a music professor at college. It's hard. However, Fiz's recommendations for those hand exercises will get you well prepared. But you really, really want to get your intonation perfect before that point.

 

[lechat]

might add some more detail and hopefully get some more tips.

I consider myself a slow learner with a very poor memory but have very high levels of coordination and my hands easily operate independently (violin is still fucking hard!!) I started learning a couple months before taking lessons focusing on music theory, timing, intonation and listening to as many pieces as i could.

bought myself a cheap electric violin off ebay for "silent" practice which is actually passable and spent a few weeks doing some open string stuff before i got worried i might develop bad habits and started lessons. after a month of lessons i spent a couple weeks wages and bought myself a good quality acoustic violin.

teacher started me on "A tune a day book 1" and i worked through that while toying with some other easy pieces by myself:
swan lake
brahms lullaby
over the rainbow
ode to joy
autumn in beijing
amazing grace
and a bunch more, any more suggestions greatly appreciated.

I usually play through about 10 pieces from the beginners book as a sort of intonation warmup then start focusing on improving some of the harder stuff. i seem to have a set time i expect each note to last so i have a hard time slowing down pieces to zero in on tricky parts. I can usually play something pretty well if i hear it or know it but if you give me some sheet music i don't know it's a crap shoot on how i'm gonna play it :/

my goal was to play a passable version of pachelbel's canon within a certain time frame including vibrato, i should be on track to play the piece but am pretty sure i won't manage a decent vibrato within that time line.

my favorite piece is the fugue from sonata no.1:

but i'm not naive enough to try and attempt it now and am not ambitious enough to set it as one of my goals.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well you can always teach yourself if you think the schooling isn't working out.
They standard system is just a very slow and steady route where you first learn to do one thing as good as it gets and then move on. Which is a good way of doing things but people are the problem, if things get monotonous we loose interest and then give up on everything before it's done.

So I would suggest you do both, keep rolling with the steady schooling and then do something you find fun to play on top. That should keep you on track and interested, obviously this means extra work.