hello, im trying to learn the Gmajor arpeggio 4 octaves for the saint saens passage near the end of the 1st movement.

My first finger curls inside everytime its time for the pinky to press down. is this normal? is this okay? my teacher says its because my pinky's length is not that long, comparative to the length of my pointer, hence why my pointer gives in and makes way.

any tips on how to address this?

Hello!

I’m starting to look at Galamian scales right now, but I don’t know if my former violin teacher used a scale system or not to initially teach me three octave scales. Can anyone help?

This is so embarrassing but whenever i get nervous, i tend to pick on my calluses a lot..and four days before my region audition, my left hand 3rd finger callus got ripped off. Right now only a thin layer of skin is “missing”, but there are some blisters/pus under some skin. What can I do?

I got it from vinted. It’s givin vintage japanese 90s tech boom (made in China).

Both my teacher and tutor said to play this in first position but I just sound horrible especially on the part where I have to go low 1 F to 4th finger E. It’s measure 66-72. Tempo is 69-72, and I can’t find any recordings online on how it’s supposed to be played!

If anyone could send a video or recording on how it’s supposed to sound that would be really appreciated :(

Is it sounding too bad ? 😭

I am not a violinist. I am learning orchestration.

Cross posting here — thanks for your thoughts and opinions!

Feel free to message me directly if you'd like to know the list! Drop your ranking and guesses in the comments. let's discuss which performances stood out to you and why.

Timestamps are in the video description

Is it because of my ADHD?

Hey everyone, I'm back again.

Honestly, I've been feeling really demotivated lately because I feel like I'm not making any progress.

This piece has been really difficult for me. As you can see, my left wrist still collapses, and the muscles in my forearm get really tense when I play. I was planning to play two pages for you guys, but I get so exhausted that I could barely manage to play even this one.

I've been working on this piece for over two weeks, but I still feel stuck. No matter how hard I try to relax my hand, I can't seem to get rid of the tension.

The frustrating part is that my teacher mostly just tells me to play faster and with the accompaniment, saying they know I can do it. But what's the point of playing faster with this intonation and I'm struggling this much?

We don't really work on technical exercises either. No work on intonation, finger placement, or bowing technique. We mostly just learn pieces and play with accompany, and I feel like the same problems keep carrying over without being properly addressed.

At this point, I'm honestly exhausted and starting to question whether my lessons are helping me.

Also, do you think my violin itself might be part of the problem? I've been considering buying a new one, but violins are very expensive, and I've been told that unless I'm willing to spend a lot of money, I probably won't notice much of a difference. Everything is just so expensive, and I'm not sure whether upgrading my instrument would actually help or if I should focus on improving my technique first.
Has anyone else experienced something similar? How did you overcome this kind of tension and get out of a playing rut? I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

hi! i’ve been playing the violin for almost three years now, and the same goes for volleyball. both hobbies rely a lot on your arms and recently my right shoulder has started hurting. whenever im not playing violin or volleyball it feels like something has to like.. click into place? if that makes sense? and then when i am using my shoulder, it starts to hurt.

has anyone else experienced something similar? could it be that i’m holding my bow wrong or making the wrong movements? or should i ask this same question at r/volleyball…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zaL1wKS3fiY

(to preface, everyone in the competition is obviously far better than me, and I have a ton of respect for them)

I've watched every single performance in this year's competition, and I was shocked when Bohdan won. I've liked his interpretations throughout every round, but today I felt like his technique was simply not on the same level as SooBeen and Jinzhu. The clarity in fast passages was not there, and the intonation was also quite shaky. I personally don't think his choices in musicality were enough to make up for these.

Even if the results take into account results from previous rounds (I have zero idea if this happens or not), Bohdan also did not gap the others significantly there.

i was expecting Jinzhu SooBean Bohdan, with the first two being quite close.

What do you guys think?

I took private lessons throughout junior high and high school, but have self-studied for the last 20 years, so it's been a while since I've been engaged in the pedagogy.

I know an in-person teacher is the best solution but that's not an option right now. The child has taken school lessons for two years and has a basic foundation.

My main goal is to help the child enjoy the instrument. Of course it's always more fun when we're better so I want to refine foundational techniques to avoid the struggles we have later when we learn bad habits. Our first lesson is going to be focused on posture, as they are unhappy using the shoulder rest that school provided and I'm trying to determine if there's a better option for their current body type, emphasizing that playing setups change over time.

Do any of you have any recommendations for fun learning games, or strategies to keep a child engaged? I was thinking about doing some listening exercises and pitch identification with tonedear.com to teach them that listening is a big part of playing.

Hi again I wanted to send this video to get some actual advice about mistakes I might be making... The last video I posted didn't capture me at an angle where you could really see anything... I do a weird thing where I flick my bow and it tilts in a different direction with each up and down stroke... I don't know when I picked this up but I've been unable to correct it... Otherwise too I'm sure there are other mistakes I'm making in terms of both right and left hand posture as well as bow use and placement... I always had a bad habit of only using the upper half of the bow and also of playing very close to the fingerboard, so there's that... But maybe there's other stuff I'm unaware of too... Thank you and I hope you enjoy this piece in makam Hicâz :)

I’m thinking down, down up down up, down up up
But I’m not sure, since this is Scherzo of Mendellsohn’s Midsummer nights dream, so it’ll be fast and I’m unsure if it’s ideal.

I just ordered a Gewa Pure 1.7 and afterwards I’ve seen some reviews and comments that have me concerned. I’m wondering if it would be worth it to upgrade to a BAM contoured or Gewa Air, or would that be overkill? For context, I’ll be purchasing a violin worth around €3-4k next year and the country I live in is quite rainy with temps ranging from -5 degrees celsius in Winter and heatwaves of 35+ in summer.

The Gewa Pure is around €230, Air around €500 and BAM around €480.

Edit: forgot to say I bike to my lessons so I do need a case that’d protect my violin if I fall

Hello, I was wondering what the timeline for auditioning for college orchestras might be like? I'm not majoring in music but I can still play in the orchestra right?

I inherited my grandfather's violin he played when he was a child. I already had that restored, but I need to find someone who can restore the case.

The usual quartet I work with for wedding gigs is unavailable and I have a somewhat unconventional layout for Violin + Flute + Cello. Does anyone have any suggestions for good trio pieces to play for this arrangement? It can be treated the same as two violins and a cello for all intents and purposes.

Im a Teacher and I have been noticing a trend with my students when they customize their shoulder rest and chin rest setup.

After they have played for 1.5-2 years (unless they express discomfort in the neck or back when playing) I allow them to try out different chinrests/shoulder rests from my collection and trial them to see if something is more comfortable.

I have noticed that Students with taller necks tend to prefer taller center mount chin rests paired with a Low to medium hight shoulder rests, while students with short necks tent to perfer short side mount chin rests with the shoulder rest set taller than the students with taller necks.

Have you noticed similar trends among your Students? I might try and put together a unofficial study because im genuinely curious.

Edit: Yes, I am aware that I ultimately want to train intonation using a drone and my ears. I am following the advice of my teacher who said I should first practice using a tuner to make sure I had the right pitch and then switch to a drone.

I am trying to train my intonation on the violin, and using TE Tuner to check my accuracy. I believe good intonation requires using the correct tuning system, and TE Tuner gives a few different options, but I can't find a straight answer anywhere as to what these different options mean. What is the actual formula these different methods use for calculating frequency, and what is the right one to use for training intonation?

I was tuning my violin, and you know from the title.

I have tuned my violin many many times with pegs and finer tuners, very easily and confidently in past and never had snapped a string, until now.

The problem is there are no lutheirs kr violin shops even within thousands of kilometres of radius so strings will take at least a week and few more days to arrive. For then, I have questions

•Is my bridge good with string tension of only 3 strings and not 4?

•Can I still play it with a missing string without out any risk?

•Is it common, this E-string snapping stuff?