I believe each person has her/his reason for starting a violin lesson.  With hundreds of tutors advertising all over the world, online, youtube demo, facebook pages etc.  I understand how difficult it is to choose a tutor, and often one only finds out the type of teaching style or how good one wants to experience after trying a few teachers.

General types of violin learners.

1, Privileged learners: These are learners who were given opportunity to start violin lessons when they were as young as 4-6 years old.  The violin is one of most difficult if not the most difficult instruments in all the stages, in beginner stage, intermediate stage and advanced stage, there is never a moment that isn't challenging.  Very often the privileged learners have more chance to build up the basic techniques, when the parents are supportive in personal practice, if the learner is commited and gifted, he/she often chooses the music conservatories route in order to progress to the advanced level.  If you do a little search online, you find schools like Royal College of Music, Julliards School, Curtis Institue, Trinity College of Music, Guildhall College etc, and most the of world class artists were trained from these schools.

2, Hobbyist learners: These are people who are passionate about music or performing music on the violin.  These include the privilged learners, given violin lessons by their parents, but taking violin as one of the life passions, as it is obviously a lot more difficult when one tries to commit to multiple passions or subjects.  Lack of practice or commitment often leads to minimal progress or failure to build up muscle memory, as the saying goes, 5 minutes of performance on stage often means 5 years of hard work.

From my 15 years of teaching experience, there are about 20% of privilged learners, and 80% of hobbyists in this world.  This blog is more of an advice for the hobbyists. 

To take full advantage of any violin lesson, it is important to start some kind of self preparation.  There is no rule about one must have a violin before a lesson, or can already play something.  However it is important to have a clear expectation, and for a total beginner, I would suggest avoiding online lessons. 

I play the guitar myself, I have to say some instruments are more forgiving than others, violin is not the most ergnomic instrument, it takes one bad posture or tension in one part of the arm, to ruin the sound or bow stroke, wrong way of holding the violin could result in inability to remember the finger spots on the finger board, or finger flexibility, one simply can not play fast notes. 

I offer one off free trial lesson, so I often ask what their expectations are.  Regardless of age and ability, I believe an open mind plays an important part of violin study.  There might be moments when you are asked to do really silly exercise, learning how to hold a pencil before moving on to the real violin bow etc.  Playing a small instrument like the violin requires a lot of micro movements, hence building up techniques can mean many little steps, starting slow, from figuring out where those finger spots are, to executing those notes beautifully, and then speed them up to the concert speed.  Some people get very frustrated and didn't expect violin to be so time consuming when it comes to practice.  

Therefore I always encourage as much communication as possible prior to the lessons.  Ask the right questions! What is the right size of violin? Do I need to apply Rosin on the bow hair? Why is it sounding squeaky? Do I buy a violin online? 

All these questions are part of the lesson, because you will want some answers during, if not before the lesson.  And what you find out before the lesson can boost your interest and passion as well.  I like it when my student comes to me with his/her violin and the music sheets, saying I can't read this note...why didn't I sound like the recording? This kind of preparation will bring answers and instructions.  

So all I was saying is if one thinks result will magically happen simply from paying someone, then the trial is normally an hour with the teacher trying to figure out what you need, where your ability is, I believe that is not productive at all.  And a toally unprepared student often don't go back to the same teacher.  They often not know what they want and just waiting to be spoon fed the knowledge instead of trying to figure something out as well.   

I grew up not knowing what it is like if I did not pick up the violin that day when I around 5.  As I was reminded by my parents frequently that I am so fortunate, not everyone gets to learn the violin.  Well, I'm not going to get into "what's the best for your children" argument.  One thing has happened though is I have stuck to violin and been playing it ever since.  I remember starting the journey in a nursery school, and later I was referred to a teacher who plays violin for the National Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan.  I guess that's how it all started, and maybe it's the way I have persisted with the violin study throughout my younger years, my parents were really excited and decided that the best thing to do is to send me to Europe, in order to deepen my violin study.

I arrived in the UK about 18 years ago.  I went through the boarding school phase, don't know whether it was luck or destiny, I found myself in London, having passed the audition for the Trinity college of music.  My experience in college was not always pleasant, even though the atmosphere does give me the idea that there's nothing to worry about but music, yet I could smell competitiveness in the air, not that I'm really competitive, everyone is constantly exposed to the performances of their colleagues or visiting performers.  And the feeling of hitting the bottleneck during my practice session was a major mental torture.  Most of the conversations among my colleagues were about the violin virtusos, how incredible these people are, and how much we would give to play in the world class level, just like them.

After working in the music unrelated field for awhile, I had stopped the practice routine.  Then one day I was approached and asked to perform in an informal setting.  I had an epiphany in the process of re-learning the violin all over again, maybe I was physically forgetting the struggle I had with the violin techniques I once tried so hard to achieve, or I was gradually feeling the benefit of yoga and meditation, I became more aware of my body and I understood the perception of climbing up the ladder to get to the top level of playing, to ultimately master the super difficult techniques, is simply creating limitation.

In the information era we are in now, it's so easy to check out stuff on streamer site like youtube for example.  Now I look at the really talented violinists, they don't perceive complexity like the most people do, there's no difference between something as simple as "twinkle twinkle" to complicated stuff like violin concerto by Sibelius.  Difficulties or mistakes don't seem to utter their mind while co-ordinating their body movements.  The result is the manifestation of pure confidence and it communicates with the audiences very well.  

What I'm saying here is not promoting geniuses.  I am saying these people might be born with the DNA from the science point of view, to allow them to master their full potential earlier than most people.  However I believe this is something that can be developed.  There's this raw energy which I think everyone possesses when one "just goes for it", let the intuition do the work, or living in the moment.  It comes from paying attention to the postures, to mindfully intergrate one's intuition, similair to this inspriring documentary I watched on BBC many years ago, it was about the study of the brain, in what way can one fully control one's body; for instance, a gymnast's dilemma for getting the routine right everytime is extremely hard, because our bodies aren't always doing what we want.  I remember the coach would send the struggled gymnast on a break, and use the break time to visualise in her head of all the sequences, since it is possible to do an imginary routine without mistake.  And it was amazing seeing the girl got back to the form that she was before, after the visualising.  In the same way with violin study, it's never too late to explore for a new approach, or start your child with the right mentality.  

Andy

0783 7062257 

Over the years of teaching violin, to learners from children to adult.  The most challenging thing for them, in their first few lessons, seems to be learning how to hold the violin.

This particular challange can be disencaouraging to some, and sometimes forces the learners to give up completely for a simple reason that's associated with the physical discomfort.

I always stress the importance of posture to my pupils, when the violin and the bow are held and angled corretly, a great connection between the body and the instrument is formed.  It is hard to describe the exact feeling, for me it's very freeing to find such a perfect balance.  It could speed up the learning progress, takes mediocure player to a higher level, basically the player should be able to go straight into music without any hinderance.  

My suggestion to the learners in their early stage would be bringing lots of awareness to their bodies, as it is quite enlightening to discover just how habitual our body movements are.  Some of these habitual movements are unhealthy, for instance the movement of slouching higher the risk of back pain and back related injuries.  In the case of holding the violin, it's important to pay attention to the body parts that have direct contacts with the violin.   Some of the common mistakes of violin holding are raising the shoulders in order to secure the violin, the left hand wrist is raised and touched the back of the finger board, the failure of not able to correctly angle the bow on to the strings, and the inability to use more powerful joint to run the bow up and down the strings.  

1. Violin is not a very ergomonical instrument compared to piano for example.  With a violin tucked under one's chin, it's natural for many people to raise the shoulder so the violin won't fall off.  The raised shoulder could in turn lead to tense arm muscles and hinder the finger movement.  The shoulder problem can be solved by adjusting the shoulder rest, it's worth experimenting with the shoulder rest until you find the right height, and comfortable enough for extensive practice.  

2. The hand position on the finger board, which is left hand for the right-handed players.  The ideal position would be finding the right balance to steady the hand, which can be done with the support of the thumb.  Again this should be experimented due to the different size of hands.  Once steadied, the hand should stand up with a gap between the palm and the back of the finger board.  Just imgaine holding an invisible ping pong ball while holding the violin.

3. The ideal way to angle the bow is the angle that allows the bow movement so the bow can move freely (from the frog to the tip).

4. Bow holding can be quite tricky, but is extremely important, as it's quite often considered less important because the finger board hand seems to do all the hard work.  It is only true to a certain extent, the bow hand is just as important, it controls the volume, the dynamics, and the tonality.  Although there are different schools/systems in the world that teach differently on bow holding, but all of their goals are the same, is to produce the most beautiful sound one could possibly make.  As the entire arm is needed for the bow control, it's important that one makes sure all the muscles and the joints are relaxed.  Moreover in order to produce a nice tone, or to have an absolute control of dynamics, come from mostly the wrist joint.  One should watch how the wrist moves while running the bow.  This wrist movement is almost like the slow motion of trying to shake the water off the hand, but in an angle with the palm consistently facing outward(or facing right if holding the bow with right hand).  One thing to watch out is to minimise the movements on other joints as well like the elbow and the shoulder joints.

My aim of violin teaching, is to help learners explore the physical side of music playing.  I would give a very thorough explaination to adult learners before starting with the violin, with children, I tend to take them through some game-like scenarios, so they feel like winning a game, while unconciously gaining techniques that is going to benefit them along their violin study.  And don't forget it's not all about hard work, it is also fun and rewarding.

0783 7062257

Andy