I brought my daughter for her first ever violin recital (that wasn’t mine) at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music sometime last month.
As I am doing some research for my upcoming book, this is thus far one of the most useful articles from string magazine about some common bow problems. In the years of playing the violin, I have encountered at least half of these problems with my bows and had no idea what the prognosis would be.
This is a must read article for all string players as prevention is always better than cure!
Three experts give their opinion in this article from The Strad magazine and all are in agreement that it is means to an end. Etudes must be practised with technical precision and brilliance as that is what the objective is – a study piece which improves one’s technique. Through these pieces, one develops the skills and confidence to emote necessarily especially during performance pieces with large technical showcase sections i.e. Concertos.
In my last blog post on selecting a violin, I did not cover this. Yes it is definitely important when choosing a violin to be able to get a sizable violin that fits you well. Just like getting the right glove to fit your hand when playing a sport like golf, you most certainly will not want it to fly off together with your swing!
At Belcanto Violins, we price our instruments based on 2 factors: 1) maker’s experience & 2) wood quality. Of course, the longer the maker’s experience and better the wood quality and aging of the wood, the better the sound.
This work from Johann Sebastian Bach is a staple for every violinist. I have been playing and learning these pieces since I can remember.
Here is a very useful article on teaching the violin – Dorothy DeLay is one of the most renowned teachers of the Juilliard School. She is responsible for the successes of well known recording violinists out there like Gil Shaham, Midori, Sarah Chang, Shlomo Mintz just to name a few.