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I'm going on vacation for about 3 weeks next month and I can't bring my violin with me. What are your ideas so that I don't fall behind during these 3 weeks and what I can do after when I come back to help get me back in practice mode!
Do not practice until you get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.

Regulars

Left hand, you can take along the sheet music you're currently working on, and practice the fingering for it. You can't practice intonation (i.e. getting the notes right) very well, but you can at least practice which finger on which string in approximately which location. You'll have to refine it once you get back to your violin, but you should have the music fairly well memorized after three weeks of practice like that. (You might could cut out a fingerboard-shaped piece of cardboard - don't know how well that would work by itself, though.)
For the right hand, take anything long an skinny (a pencil or pen will do) and practice your bow stroke, paying lots of attention to the movement of your wrist (down at the frog, smoothly moving up towards the (imaginary) tip), making sure your upper arm is not moving forward and back. And imagine playing different strings, so that you move your upper arm up and down - you might be good at not moving it forward and back on one string, but unconsciously do it on another.
Then, when you get home, grab the violin and find out how much of that transfers over to the real instrument. Expect it to be rocky at first - you've been playing an imaginary instrument, and fantasy always goes better than reality. But after a few hours of working with it, I think you'll find that all that practice you put in on vacation will be paying off handsomely. You'll have done a lot of good work, you'll just have to make the adjustments to doing the same things with the real-life instrument.
Hope that helped.

Ha !
When I started playing 3 and a bit years back, about 3 months into playing, we had a holiday already planned and booked.
My good lady knows I go fishing from time to time, so I packed up the fiddle in a larger bag and put it in the car - no questions asked... LOL
We arrive, unpack, the next day I unzip the "fishing rods" package - hahahaha - at THAT time in my fiddling journey - I could not have lost an entire 10 days
It was all all good.... Debbie just gave me a wicked grin that sort of said "I just KNEW you were gonna do something like that"
I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh -
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)

Regulars
Ohhh why can't you take your violin? I would not want to go that long without.
Opportunity is often missed because it wears suspenders and looks like hard work.


@1stimesar can't take my violin because it'll be too much to carry. We are going to 3 different countries, through low cost carriers and we'll have to walk with our luggage for a part too.
@Fiddlerman I don't know anyone in the area who has a violin unfortunately! It's a shame though that I'm going to the likes of Fussen, Mittenwald and Salzburg without a violin!
@Charles working on my bow hold and hand position is actually a really good idea!
Do not practice until you get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
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