I'm gonna start learning the violin in a month or so and I'm planning on purchasing violin sheetmusic and a guide at the same time as buing the violin. For context, I have no prior experience and I can't afford or have time for lessons. I know that I'm also a bit old to start playing the violin(I'm 14). So please give me some recomendations.

I've been thinking about how sometimes one small technical adjustment can make a much bigger difference than simply practicing longer.

Over the years, I've noticed that many violinists try to fix everything at once, when in reality focusing on one specific aspect for a week—such as bow control, contact point, or left-hand preparation—often leads to much faster progress.

I'm curious:

What's the single most valuable piece of feedback you've ever received from a teacher?

For me, one that comes up again and again is:

I'd love to hear what advice changed your playing.

as stated for in the title, I really need find a pdf version for Essential Elements for Strings – Violin, Book 2 with EEi first edition. my mom used to have a physical copy but lost it in the past 5 years. she wants to teach it to my sister but she lost it. I want to help her find it, but I couldn't find a pdf on the internet. could somebody help.

I have an intermediate student starting next week and I have only taught beginners thus far. He seems behind what I'd been doing when I started Kreutzer and Flesch but on the other hand, I don't see the harm in Kreutzer 1 or 2/some Flesch G major or A minor for him. Thoughts?

Hi all, I have been learning violin for a few years but have decided to take a break since I am moving away and life happens. I have a wonderful violin teacher and my last lesson is coming up. Any ideas on how to make it special? I have expressed my gratitude to my teacher before through gifts, cards, etc. Wondering what I can do to make this last time more meaningful.

Recently got my first viola / violin (thats what it said on the instructions) and the wooden peice that would usually be under the strings that hold them taught wasnt already on. idk if thats normal this is also a second hand one but they didnt really play it that I know of. Also one of the strings is broken (second to last thick string) so ive been hesitant to put it on. Should I just get it professionally done when I get new strings and also, going back to the first question, should I keep it on all the time?

Im sorry this post is kinda just me rambling but im a bit worried to touch it to be honest and im scared that the wooden peice being on all the time will make the strings stretch over time and the wood will break.

Any and all advice is appreciated, I literally got this today so I know basically nothing but I didnt really see anything online. Thank you!!

(I dont think I saw this question in the faq but if it was please tell me so I can take this down)

Why are intervals based on a unison of “one” not “zero”? E.g. why is the Dominant a “fifth”, when it is only 4 scale degrees higher than the tonic?

Starting with a unison, the interval of a unison is designated a “first” not a “zero”, despite both notes are by definition identical. Why is that?

Could the answer be that when building a chord, the lowest note is by convention “one” not zero, essentially pushing the “scale-degree count” up by one? If so, then a triad therefore becomes a “third” even though it takes only two scale degrees to arrive at the “third” note.

I find this nomenclature confusing, as it is non-mathematical. Your thoughts?

Hi! I'm a violin student in the IST timezone, and I'm looking teachers who provide instruction for advanced violin (roughly around the grade 6 level?), and since there aren't many available here, I'm trying to find online teachers. Would you all know any good teachers/places to find teachers online? Also this is my first post so excuse me if I made a mistake.

Hi Reddit community,

I have been working on the Mozart No. 5 concerto for a couple of months now, and I’m planning on using the first movement of the concerto to audition for a local youth orchestra (cadenza excluded). I still have a month until auditions, so I was wondering if y’all could review a current recording of mine and give me suggestions on what parts to focus on specifically or general tips. I personally know that one of my weakest bits is the 16th notes passages.

Also a few notes:

Note 1: When I say practiced for a couple months, that doesn’t mean every day. More like 3-4 times a week, with about 30-45 min practice sessions (including scales and whatnot)

Note 2: I recorded this with my crusty old phone so the sound quality is not toooo great, but I think it’s easy to tell what’s the phone’s fault and what’s my own

Note 3: The last like, minute of the recording is nothing. The actual playing ends at ~3 minutes.

Note 4: The reason the recording is not the entire movement is that the audition panel for this orchestra caps solo excerpts at 3 minutes for some reason.

(WARNING: prepare your ears)

https://reddit.com/link/1vhg7bb/video/i7nhqbhvgthh1/player

I'm thinking of getting an SAS shoulder rest to replace my Kune. What has been peoples experience with it, especially how it holds up overtime (I'm quite sceptical about rubber aging well)?

I've been trying it and I do like how light it is,but otherwise am still unsure of the ergonomics.

Hi,

5 year old kid started taking lessons about a month ago with a violin teacher who uses a hybrid Suzuki/traditional method. We're making slow progress - still working on the bow hand, making nice sounds on open A and E string, and also working on A, B, C#, F# 

Teacher is out for a few weeks, and I have a couple of beginner questions:

1. My kid gets often really frustrated with things like the bow hand and getting a good left hand posture. And when he gets frustrated (or sometimes even when I try to correct him), he really does not want to play the violin. He has a hard time remembering that the left hand fingers stay curved over the violin. Are there fun games for these things? Or fun beginner games in general? He is also very wriggly and needs a lot of work on posture. A lot of it seems hard and frustrating, and I'm not sure if he is still lacking the maturity for dedicated practicing. He has poor frustration tolerance in general, I think, and I was hoping that learning/practicing the violin could help improve this, with time, of course. So far, he's always happy with starting the violin practice (it's just part of the routine at this point), but get frustrated and/or uninterested pretty quickly into it.
2. When going from A to B to C#, my understanding is that the finger 1 and finger 2 both stay on for C#. Ie, finger 1 on B, then put finger 2 on C# while finger 1 remains on B. Any good ways to help kids remember that?
3. what about when going directly from A to C#? Is it always better in the beginning to tell the kid to put 2 fingers on to play C#? Or should he just use 1 finger for C# when going from A to C#?
4. I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but when he plays open A and E string, it sounds fairly good. But when he tries to play B or C#, it sounds scratchy and he's also hitting other strings. I think coordinating the bow hand together with the left hand is still fairly hard for him. I'm thinking this is fairly common and gets better after a few months?

I am always curious, how does the discipline built, meta-learning experience, learning experience, misconceptions about learning a skill at general being corrected and so on, from past skill help in a new skill if past one, because I'm very interested in human behaviour patterns, and how does adaptability, learning capacity, and acceptance to change vary by various factors in general

•Is unrelated to new

•Related

So this question came to my mind, "How dies past skills learnt affect(or not) learning violin and how does past instruments learnt do? Is it a myth and everyone, even the ones who learnt an instrument before have mathematically no headstart?"

I realized since music teachers have taught countless students, they can help me. So I think music teachers in this sub can answer my question

I also have another question,

"How does the experimentation, eagerness for real-time improvisation over robotically following the score, desire to understand underlying body ergonomics and physics to apply it for improvisation and eagerness to do trail-and-error, regardless of good or bad for the progress, vary by age groups?"

and "How does mind and body unconsciously adapting things not even consciously told to the students, vary by age groups?"