Separate and alternate bowing It’s time! It’s time to practice changing strings. The main lesson will be in the video provided, but I want to lay out what you will be doing. Remember that all of your bows will be separate and alternating. In other words, your first bow will be down, your next will […]
Open String Exercises Read More »
Science behind the fun Welcome back, friends! Now we get to talk about string levels! It’s exciting. There’s some geometry and science that goes into it, dealing with angles. So let’s dive right in! Levels Each string has it’s own angle at which you can place the bow and not hit other strings. There’s some
Playing Violin: Moving From String To String Read More »
Arco This is going to be a simple guide to playing the A string on your violin. I want you to experiment with both methods of sound production: pizzicato and arco. Make sure you are familiar with the proper technique and form for this, because we’re about to put it to use! Now that you’ve
Let’s Play A!(Arco and Pizzicato) Read More »
Pluck it up Next in our journey we are going to learn how to pizzicato. This one is pretty simple, so this article won’t be long. Remember that Pizzicato is when you pluck the violin strings with your bow hand instead of using the bow. In practical applications, most songs you will play will not
How To Pizzicato On The Violin Read More »
The two main ways of playing your violin Next in our journey, we come to the basics of sound and the violin. Specifically, the two main ways we make sound on the instrument. In simple terms, we bow the strings, and we pluck the strings. We covered this in another article but here I focus
Violin Sounds: Bowing(Arco) vs. Plucking(Pizzicato) Read More »
Use to improve To follow our last article on how to bow, we want to learn a few bow games to hep us practice and improve. These are just a few of the games we play in my private lessons, but they each do something different and beneficial to your technique. Flip it and fix
Violin Bow Games For Arco Practice Read More »
The stroke starts here Welcome back friends! In this article we are going to discuss the form and action required to perform a good bow stroke. I’m going to give you an in-depth analysis and some fun ways to remember the key points of bowing. Let’s go! The elbow The elbow does the lion’s share
How To Bow(Arco) On The Violin Read More »
Commit the violin strings to memory Learning and memorizing the names of the strings on the violin is an important step in our learning process. It’s simple, its fun, and it’s absolutely necessary to our ability to tune, our ability to play, and our ability to improve our skills on the violin. Whether you’re playing
The Names Of The Strings On The Violin Read More »
“You feel like you’re going to drop your bow, but you don’t” Now it’s time for us to get started on the bow hold. First, take a good look at your bow, your frog, and your screw. I’ll be referencing these parts by name to help you know where to place your fingers. Before we
How To Hold The Violin Bow: Posture Read More »
For the violin, it all starts here Step 1, day 1. This is where it all begins, friends! If you’re a right handed violinist, you will hold your instrument with your left hand, on the left side of your body. It is going to sit on top of your shoulder and your chin will sit
How To Hold The Violin: Posture Read More »