My Violin Journey

It’s been about 3 weeks since I last updated this blog the last 3 lessons have been 2 great ones sandwiched between a not so great lesson. The 1st great lesson was a lesson I wasn’t meant to have my teacher sent me a text early in the week asking if I wanted to have my lesson it was all up to me and I decided to take that opportunity because I have a couple of concerts coming up and I wanted to get as much guidance as I could which I did and even got complimented on my vibrato which is good. The bad lesson was in metaphorical terms a swift kick up the backside I haven’t been doing very well with 3rd position lately and got stuck on a exercise that literally broke me so we spent a whole hr learning that exercise yes I got frustrated and was less then pleasant but my teacher was actually pretty level headed and firm he didn’t raise his voice once or said anything nasty towards me or my playing and wouldn’t let me give up. I’m grateful that I had that lesson no matter how hard it was to take I needed it and learned from it. I felt horrible afterwards though and really questioned if the violin was for me mind you at the time I was highly emotional and just hormonal (ladies would definitely understand the situation.) the other lesson was a great one we started off with the exercise we learnt in the previous lesson and he was happy with it but just need to continue working on intonation. He said my scales were better then what he was expecting but I need to do some serious metronome work with technical exercises. Then finished off with my concert piece which he was very pleased with and has full confidence I’ll be performing them at my best come concert time. He said it’s like this piece came easy to you (it did) because he wasn’t expecting it to sound so good. I guess sometimes you need to have those bad lessons to appreciate the good ones my teacher is the best and is such a encouraging person I just want to make him proud.

This weeks lesson started off with scales, B major slurred in 4 and C Melodic minor hooked stroke which had improved since last week which is good. I just have to make the semi quaver a lot smaller but overall he was pretty happy with it. The C arpeggio sequence was a bit unfamiliar and kinda was all over the place and he has asked me to really isolate each line especially the inversion arpeggio sequence. The d chromatic scale was very much improved and asked me to make it more flowing, which was achievable and sounded pretty good. The 2 exercises he asked me to do were diminished 7ths exercise and the chords preparation we made a few tweaks and it was made a lot better. We finished off on the new concertino which he said was boring and I need to inject more of myself into the piece, how the heck do I do that? I guess it will take some time but he said that I know the notes I just have to work on the character but I’m kinda stuck in what to do. He did say there is a lot of good stuff in the piece and only a few rhythmic issues but it’s fixable.

Finally back into the swing of having lessons , my teacher wasn’t as harsh as what I was expecting him to be. We started off with some scales which lead into some discussion about how to do the hook bow scales which I have been practicing wrong so he tried to explain it but for some reason it didn’t make sense so he drew a picture and made me do the bowing on a open string which meant a lot of experimenting ect. Which after a good 10mins I finally got it and added it into my scale and it sounded good. He is happy with the progress so far. The arpeggio sequence he suggested I do a line individually and then mix and match them so that I can know it inside out as I had a few hesitations but a whole lot better then when he left. He also wanted to hear some of my 3rd position book stuff and that was a mess I tried to cover it in my practice but it never happened because I was getting a sore shoulder and I only focused on what he was likely to cover in a lesson, but he keeps saying how important it is, but I guess I’m struggling to find the time to cover it. Lastly we spent the last half on my new concerto he gave me at my last lesson before he left. He was happy with the piece but said I really need to work on the accents and to make the slow middle section of the concerto have more shape by using vibrato, dynamics, and good quality sound as it was sounding a bit wispy. He did say that my vibrato is coming along nicely and I should use it a lot more because it is nice. Overall he was actually pretty happy with me but he said there are some great parts and not so great parts but I’m glad we are back at it and I’m ready to do my work.

So this weeks lesson was the last one for 3 weeks, and I’m happy to say we both left the lesson in good terms and he was happy with a lot of things regarding my progress. We started off my my scales like every lesson, we started off with B major detache, C major detache in second position, B melodic minor and C melodic minor, scales. My C melodic minor somehow morphed into B melodic minor which my teacher mentioned I need to stay aware while practicing that scale. Other then that he was really happy with the work I’ve put in and said that I only really need to work on refining the tuning of the scales as everything else is there. I had a few issues with B arpeggio sequence it was in tune, but I had a bit of hesitation issues and he didn’t want to add C arpeggio just yet but because he is going away for a few weeks he suggested I add it in once I can play it fluently is the plan to add it in. D chromatic scale was ok but it had its own issues mostly with fingering and shifting because my teacher wants me to shift instead of sliding my finger. With the exercises he got me to play the 2nd position familiarisation exercise and it went well except for the last bar since it’s the same tune as the previous grade but the last grade was 3rd position so I’m still trying to figure it out. since he is leaving for 3 weeks he decided to give me the last 2 exercises to add to my practice which is a chord preparation exercise and a bowing exercise with spiccato. He was pleased with how fast he had introduced the exercises to me because he introduced them pretty slowly for grade 2 and he also said that when I was doing grade 2 the reason why he was so adamant in getting that grade so good so that 3rd grade is easier, which he said he is starting to see the fruits of all that hard work we both did. He then asked me to play Kreutzer 2 and asked if we have started bowing patterns yet? I said no because I couldn’t finish last week, but he did say that once we add the bowing patterns it will get really confusing really fast so I played the study for him and he said afterwards that even though it’s painfully slow I’m glad you adjusted your tuning it shows that you know when your out of tune and that is a positive for me because I know that your ear is getting stronger. He asked to hear Russian fantasy and to his surprise it was really well in tune and he said it’s really starting to sing, and he mentioned that my slide in the cadenza was really good and he loved it and he did suggest that the middle needs to be a little bit faster to make that slide more exciting he said I have a few things to work on like the double stops and just to make it sound more rich at the start. We then had a chat about my concertino in D Major I said I’ve been having issues with it and if it’s possible to put it away and come back to it at a later date? He agreed with me and said that he will get me a new piece to work on that’s a bit easier and in 1st position, it’s called concertino 3 by George Perlman it sounds like fun to play and my teacher wants me to have it at least all learnt by the time he gets back, he wants my Kreutzer at a moderate tempo, and Russian fantasy to also be at a moderate tempo and the double stops a little bit faster.

This weeks lesson was really weird I don’t know what was going on but I wasn’t really focusing as well as I should’ve been. That could’ve possibly even because I had very limited sleep, mix that with a couple of days short of practice (was sick with a migraine over the weekend). My teacher understood though and I did explain to him just a fair warning these might sound a bit of a trainwreak. Which he said it isn’t as bad as what you think it is. We started off the lesson though with scales and B Major in detache he said it was a bit sharp in some places and we tried again for a few goes, after that he said I want you to try C major in second position and to think about the spacing of my fingers and he asked me if I had played that before I said no not in second position only in first. And his response was that was better intonation wise then B Major he then proceeded to ask if I could play D major 2 octave in 3rd position and then he also asked me to do E major in 4th just as a experiment which was in tune as well. He was making a point that the scales are all about equal spacings of fingers and he then said I want you to introduce C major at your own leisure. We did the B arpeggio sequence which was dodgy with intonation, and D chromatic scale which was worse then last week but we both put that down to unfamiliarity and not practicing it. The technical exercises were ok I really struggled with the shifting and had been practicing it in the wrong key......whoops!!! My teacher helped me fix it though and I think it was finally fixed? Intonation is not great but not bad either I just have to refine it during my practice sessions. My teacher mentioned in the lesson that he wanted to add a bowing pattern to my Kreutzer 2 study but it want as good as last week which we also put down to just not practicing it enough and after 10-15minutes of this we decided to just move on as it just wasn’t working and I kept making the same mistakes. Russian fantasy is actually pretty good especially the first page my teacher mentioned the reason why he gave me this particular piece is to help with shifting, he said the intonation is pretty solid he did ask me to attack the double stops with long legato strokes for now to just make sure I’m getting the right intonation between the double stops he also wants me to concentrate on the doing the right Bowings with the legato bows so when I speed the tempo up it will be easier as everything is done. I asked him about ditching the concertino in D major and putting it away for later as I’m really struggling with it he said he wants me to keep at it as it’s a piece I choose but it’s like I’m not getting anywhere with it and I feel stuck it’s like it’s a piece I can’t tackle, I might talk to him about it next week and see if we can attempt it again next year. Overall it was a good lesson and we did tackle some valuable skills that will help in my practice sessions.

Back to lessons this week, after having a week off, and my teacher asked if he could hear some 3rd position stuff from my 3rd and 5th position book. Let’s just say that he was happy with it but it looked as if I was sightreading it, but from what he heard was really good intonation, but it seemed a bit unfamiliar which is right I haven’t looked at in a while. So he asked me to focus on a couple of pages a week he doesn’t need to hear it all the time but he will ask periodically. I said maybe he should hear it about once a month just so that I’m staying accountable. We moved onto scales which were a disaster and In short I have a first finger and 3rd finger sticker back, which I said to him I’m not happy about it and I feel like I’m going backwards, he responded with “you are far from going backwards, actually you have progressed really well but sometimes it’s ok to go back to basics they’ll come off once your consistently in tune. He decided to give me a new technical exercise which is in 2nd position which is basically the same style of tune as my previous grade 2 3rd position exercise which he got me to play and he was pretty happy with it and he was pleased with the tuning for a first time hearing it. So I guess that’s good. He wanted to hear how I went with Kreutzer 2 which I played the first page and he was pleasently surprised and happy and said I exceeded his expectations which he said “I know that may seem bad but I was worried about how you would go with all the shifting in the middle but you did really well and the positions were actually pretty solidly in tune.” We finished off working on Russian fantasy mainly focusing on the musicality of the piece and making it sound more rich and sound more Russian with loads of slides, he also talked through a few things with the piece that he wants me to do. Overall a good lesson and it’s like I just keep getting better and better.

This weeks lesson started with me going through all the scales that my teacher has given me for grade 3. He was reluctant to add the next key as it was a bit to sharp and wasn’t solid enough for him. He said the reason why I’m not going to show you the next key is because it’s the same spacing finger wise and I want your hand frame to be perfect so that the transition is easier for you. He also said that I need to work my my first finger in first position as it’s to sharp and if it isn’t fixed he will put a first finger sticker back on. This was asked like 6 times during my lesson which the 3rd time he said let’s put that first finger fret on your finger board which I kept saying NO! Yes I have a 3rd finger fret sticker but to be honest it isn’t truely in the right spot an the pitch is actually a bit higher then the sticker which I’m wanting to take off but my teacher seems to think it’s helping I think it’s not. He then asked me to play the B arpeggio sequence which was ok, not bad but not good either. D chromatic scale he said I don’t know why you were so concerned about it because it’s pretty much in tune and good. He added a new technical exercise and it’s a new shifting skill which I have been working on separately but this one is different as the grace note needs to be heard and not be non existent like the other exercise. He asked me how I went with the kreutzer 2 study which I think I did ok it was a bit out of tune so my teacher played with me for tuning which I did well and he was happy with the shifting ect. He asked me to continue working on the intonation finally the last thing we worked on was rondeau. My first run through was clean but didn’t sound good for him he said it’s like I’m playing like I don’t want to make a mistake he asked me to play it again with more focused sound and add a little character into the piece. I think what I did worked because he decided to give me a new piece, this new piece is pretty exciting it’s called Russian fantasy no 2 which it sounds like a fun piece to learn as it has a cadenza. Before he gave me this piece he looked through a book and asked if he has given me a piece which he had so he said oh that’s right, then he smiled and walked away and I said what is that smirk for? He said I didn’t smile and walked out and photo copied the piece for me. He then has a chat to me about my weaknesses I need to work on which for him are intonation and rhythm he said these can be worked on and he will help me but I need to work on it. He gave me a ultimatum he said if my first finger isn’t in tune by next lesson in 2 weeks then I will be getting the first position sticker back on my violin. That’s not going to happen because I’m going to try my hardest to play in tune with using tools that I know will work owing time and he has to be patient with me. I actually think this is more of a muscle memory issue regarding new scales and spaces then it being a ear issue as I can tell when I’m out of tune and fix it just not quick enough for him.

This weeks lessons started off with a surprise on the piano stool that I usually put my violin on was my new case (my cat decided to pee in my other new case, and couldn’t get the smell out) so that was a lovely surprise seeing that today. My teacher this morning wanted to know how my new technical exercises were going and they were ok I was playing my scales a bit sharp but he said for having them for a week they’re fine and suggested I use a drone to help my tuning. He added a chromatic scale in D major. He didn’t add any other new technical exercises as he said that they’re fine but the other exercises require some new skills that he will gradually introduce rather then overwhelm me with everything at once. Once the technical stuff was done my teacher asked about my study which I said well it sounded good last night but I don’t know if that’s because I was tired or it was a moment of brilliance but he said well I want to hear it and so I did 1 run through but it sounded a bit fluffy so he asked my to just play louder for more focused sound which I did and it was so much better after that run through my teacher got up off his chair went to his bookcase and walked out and came back with 4 pages, 2 pages are my new study and the other 2 pages are for another date but he wants me to hang onto them for now. He wanted to move onto rondeau which I’ve been having issues with so we did a few minor tweaks to my technique and BAM 💥 fixed it now sounds a lot cleaner and add focused sound then it will be a whole lot better. We finished off my lesson with concertino and it is a mess at the moment but it’s getting better but I still have to work on this for a long while but in saying that I am ready to get it done as I think when I started it, i may have not been ready. I’m ready to now conquer this piece properly.

This weeks lesson was such a good week, we started off my lesson as always with scales but first my teacher had a couple of customers so I have about 10-15mins to warm up. Once he was done with that we jumped right into scales and he asked me to do B flat harmonic minor detache, B flat melodic minor slurred. And D major Martele. And d melodic minor slurred. For the arpeggio sequence he asked for B flat sequence slurred, and for the exercises he asked for the 3rd position fluency exercise and double stop exercise. After all that We probably spent less then 10mins on all of this and he said well I’ll give you a B for all that. A B??? That’s better then what I was expecting!!! He did give me a choice to either move on or stay to work on the string crossings and other things or to move on and continue to work on those things with slightly harder exercises. I decided to move on so We spent at least 10mins talking through the next grade of scales, arpeggios and exercises, he has asked me to just focus on key of B scales B Major, B melodic and harmonic minors and the B sequence. And he also asked me to have a go at the dominant and diminished 7th preparation exercises. He wants me to just focus on these for now and he will gradually increase the load over the next few weeks to a month. We then started work on moderato and he asked me if I practiced this piece at all this week? Because it has gone backwards a bit so he has asked for me to practice everyday and making moderato a priority. Rondeau he wasn’t happy with either as my string crossings were not great. So I’ve been asked to do the dreaded play the piece with just open strings. I’ll do that all week and see if it actually works. Lastly he wanted to see where I was at with the kuchler concertino, which I haven’t touched in about at least a month so to see where I was at he asked me to play this piece very slowly focusing on a nice focus sound, evenness of tone and my intonation. I had a few hiccups mainly the passages with a load of semiquavers and the first half of the first page was slightly to sharp but the second half was good. Overall a great lesson with some good vision on what to work on moving forward.

This weeks lesson started out with my teacher asking about my scales and I said I feel like I’m starting to get the D in tune a lot faster then previous and so with that he asked if he could hear D Major Slurred scale and sure enough he was surprised at how in tune it was but there’s always a bit isn’t there! He said the sound quality wasn’t great and what he means by that is the sound wasn’t in the strings and it wasn’t a focused sound but sounded quite wispy and floaty so he wants me to play louder and without hitting other strings. So I attempted to do that with a couple string dings but not many at all. He then asked to hear Bflat Melodic Minor Martelé now this one was ok pitch wise but it was the sound quality again, he said it was far to close to the bridge causing it to sound scratchy and also to hit other strings so he asked me to bring the bow more centre and to really get into the string to make a nice crisp sound which turned out to be a whole lot better. Overall he was pretty happy with how consistent the scales are getting and He also wanted to hear the b flat arpeggio sequence and he was happy with the tuning mostly but wanted me to fix a few issues with a couple of notes with the minor sequence and then with the major sequence but overall he was happy. The technical exercises he asked me to do 2b which was the shifting exercise and he was pretty much happy with it he just said to work on my quality of sound making it more focused. And he also wanted to hear the double stops and he said the double stops were fractionally out by a little bit so he asked me to play it again and only moving on until the double stops were perfectly in tune after I did that he said you know all of those were in tune by the second shot and I didn’t have to tell you they were out you fixed it on your own not many people can do that, so I was happy. He is convinced that if I put in the work this week that I’ll be done with this grade and I’ll move on to the next grade next week, so he set me a challenge to really work on them and get this grade done so we can move on. We also covered moderato and we talked a little about tension as I have been having issues with speeding this etude up and getting tension issues associated with that it’s like it’s a wall that I can’t breakdown. He said that the run through got a bit to sharp and he didn’t want to hear anymore of it today. We worked on rondeau fur the remainder of the lesson and spent so much time on playing the open strings but my right hand was struggling with the rhythms away from the notes. So we did clapping and isolating the issue and for some reason none of that stuff worked because I defaulted back to a different rhythm which got us both frustrated I have no idea how to fix this issue of hitting the other strings for this piece and it only happens in one bar I think it’s actually my left hand more then my right but my teacher is certain it’s my right not my left. And it’s only when I increase the tempo. He also wants me to work on my sound quality across everything I play. Overall it was a good lesson even though he got stern and really wanted things to get done. He is happy with how I’m going but he said I have a lot of stuff to work on and the more I focus on it the better it will get.

This weeks lesson wasn’t as good as last week, but still productive. We started off my lesson with my teacher checking my violin as I mentioned that it was sounding a bit muffled and didn’t sound right. I said I think it’s either my strings, bow or technique. Whichje decided to check my violin and bow and Lo and behold it was in fact my bow and the amount of rosin on my bow as it was way too much and so he cleaned it. After my teacher cleaned my strings we started off with B flat Major Slurred, which started out a little bit of a tangent of sound quality which is because of my bow hold so my teacher decided to talk me through fixing that but it was to a point where it took longer then what he wanted but it definitely was a whole lot better then when I started the lesson. My teacher was happy he said the sound quality was much improved and my bow was a lot straighter too. He wanted to hear my D arpeggio sequence and it was very sketchy so he grabbed his violin and said that it’s my semi tones the F natural and F sharp he said it’s a lot smaller then what you think it is so we did some work on that and then he got me to play it on my own which was massively better. We then moved onto moderato which he was happy about he said that it’s a whole lot more even and more in tune and will be finished with it soon as soon as I get it up to tempo. Rondeau he was happy with as well he wants me to play louder and more into the string to make the sound more focused he was happy with the tuning. He also suggested at the end of my lesson that I seem like I need a more structured practice schedule which I agree with but have no idea what to do to implement that and to be disciplined enough to make progress.

This weeks lesson was really good content wise we covered a lot of stuff. My teacher actually was pretty happy with how I was doing and if I could always come with that attitude of just getting it done then we will cover a lot. We started off with B flat Melodic Minor Martelé, which was quite messy first up but after a few corrections that were suggested it suddenly was a whole lot better. The second scale he asked me to do was D Major Detache high he was happy with but did mention that some of my spaces on my fingers were to wide so some notes were to sharp so he asked me to really listen to my intervals and my intonation was so much better. He also asked me to do the D arpeggio sequence 3rd and that was just plain messy. So he suggested that each note that has a open string or adjacent octave to check it against it and we did that for about 5 mins and it was quite fast finding the notes. The final technical exercise we covered was the shifting exercise the only thing he asked me work on was relaxing during the shift but overall it was perfectly in tune and he was pretty happy with it. We covered all my pieces so the first one was moderato, he asked how I went with increasing the tempo and I told him that I haven’t got it up to tempo yet but I did get it to 45bpm comfortably without tension, and he was actually happy because it was so much more even and the intonation was more solid so he asked me to keep on doing what I’m doing with the piece. Rondeau he is happy with as well and has asked me to perform it for next week as it’s 95% accurate I just need to play it without stopping next week and I’ll be moving on with it. The küchler Concertino has a whole lot of work before I will ever be able to get it even to correct tempo, I basically said to him I know this is far from perfect and please forgive me that it will be horrendously messy, and I’m working on it. He then said wait you expect this to be perfect? You expect that I want perfection? I said well yeah! He said no fat from it, all I expect from you is progress which you have significantly improved from last week and you really have done so well this week. He also said you know you play better when you think I’m not paying attention rather then really staring at you every second you play. It’s all about perception and every movement I make is intentional, which I said the foot movement I see and it actually helps me stay in time, he said I know, it’s because your a visual learner. My teacher was pretty happy with my lesson, and I was really happy that even though I had a tough week with family stuff and I felt so unprepared I somehow showed a lot of progress. Overall it was a fantastic lesson, and if I could have a lesson like that more often I would be happy.

This is the phrase my teacher has said multiple times while I start my lesson, especially the last couple of months, as I’m so close to passing this grade but I always do a few mistakes which makes it harder to pass the whole grade. Todays lesson he wanted me to start with B Flat Harmonic Minor Slurred In 4, for some reason I was particularly very nervous and went completely blank and my teacher had to talk me through it and I got there in the end finally and then he asked for D Major Martelé which was ok I just need to work on my contact point and refine the intonation. I had another lecture with not using the metronome effectively as I was unsure of what tempo I ended at and I was increasing the tempo way to fast so my moderato etude was too messy and not even enough. So I guess this week I’ll have to work on the tempo only increasing the tempo once I’ve mastered the current tempo and only increasing the tempo by a few beats per minute. Finished off my lesson with my concert piece rondeau and he is pretty happy with the tempo it’s at but I have a few spots where I lose contact with my bow so he suggested that instead of using a lot of bow to use only a little bit as it will be easier to control the bow and boy once I made that change the sound was so much better and it was just lot more nicer. After that he was pretty happy with it.

Today’s lesson my teacher started off with scales B flat Major Slurred, D Harmonic Minor Martelé which he informed me was meant to be in 1st position but I have been doing the scale in 3rd position which he was pretty pleased about withas my intonation was pretty good, the whole passing my grade was looking really good until he asked me to do the D arpeggio sequence it got good at the end but the minor arpeggio was severely out of tune but my major sequence was really good so I didn’t pass the grade but he is hopeful for next week I will for sure get it right. We moved onto my pieces and he wanted me to play moderato which he stopped me halfway and said I was playing a bit too sharp once I was made aware of it I was playing more in tune, he was happy with the run through that I played and suggested to bring the tempo up gradually and work on the overall fluency of the piece. The last piece he wanted to listen to was my Concertino and let’s just say I had a little lecture about not practicing with a metronome he suggested I attack this piece methodically because the rhythm is a bit all over the place so I need to break it down and play it all at one tempo. He didn’t want to hear rondeau because he knows that piece would be solid as it has been at pretty good standard for the last 2 months it’s just about polishing the piece up a bit more to make it performance standard which we will start off doing in a week or 2.