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I have only recently started working with vibrato and I thought I would expose this minuet by Beethoven for it. I really like this minuet though it has some challenging passages in my opinion - especially the latter part.
Feel free to comment or give me advice. I am all ears and always eager to learn



One thing I noticed when I watched it without sound - you sometimes have the bow very slightly crooked - your hand is slightly too far away from your body. That causes the bow to skate towards the fingerboard on an up bow, and towards the bridge on a downbow.
It's only really noticeable when you do a fast bow, using most of the bow (a fast, long upbow is where I first noticed it.)
On shorter strokes, I think you're seeing it and correcting it, but the soundpoint is wandering back and forth a bit. (Of course, if you were changing the soundpoint deliberately, ignore all that. )
You seemed to be doing vibrato on the medium notes and not on the long ones. That may just be because you're not confident how long you can keep it going, but I'd recommend swapping those two. Vibrato is much more natural on long notes, because that's when it happens in the human voice when singing. (Unless the singer is trying to force vibrato, which sounds about as good as you'd expect it to.)
Last thing, I think you're thinking of it too much as an exercise. Try playing it as a song. Your bow movement on some of those comes across as a bit jerky in spots (watch it without sound and you'll see what I mean). Try playing it as a song and dance to it (the bow being part of the dance). I don't think you're very far at all from being able to do that, which is why I make the suggestion.
I'd hope that I would be that good by the time I've been playing for the same amount of time, but between a natural lack of talent and nowhere near enough practice to overcome it, I think it'll be more like 5. But at five years, I'll smoke this video's ass.







Your playing is really nice
As for the vibrato, some of them are better than the others (sometimes you do a bit more sideways / circular / etc movements than the back and forth needed for vibrato), but that's normal if you've only just began experimenting with it, however the waves are pretty even so that's good
What I noticed, and it may be just the camera angle... but your wrist seems to be a bit too flat ("pancake wrist"). I think it may or may not have to do with the fact that you leave your fingers hovering above the notes every time. Now normally that's a good thing to do, especially for fast sections, but you even keep the 4th finger hovering there, which kind of strains the hands by default. Who knows.. you might be a bit more flexible and not feel the actual tension from keeping the 4th finger hovering there during normal playing, but if that's what's making your wrist cave in under the neck of the violin, you may want to practice a bit without keeping it there and having your wrist more straight, since a caved in wrist like this is reducing both the arch of your fingers and the amount your wrist can further bend in that direction, both of which severely limit the range of motion for vibrato. And right now I think range is what you need to work on in terms of vibrato if you got the hang of it this much on at least the first 3 fingers.
Thanks for posting it
Cheers,
Ferenc


First of all: thank you so much everyone! Your comments are very motivating
@charles you are very observant. The crooked bowing and the soundpoint changing is something I am actually working on at the moment. My teacher noticed it before christmas. It was worse at the time I can see from some videos I made back then, but it is still a work under progress. The vibrato is very difficult for me and I think you are right with trying to sustain it on the longer notes instead. I also agree that I should try and "be" more in the music instead of overthinking the technical aspects. I will try to work on that also. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me
@Ferenc Simon your comments are very helpful. I am struggling to get a more relaxed right hand (that would be left hand for "normal" violinists). So if I understand you correctly, I should not try to keep my 4th finger as close as possible to the string when I don't use it. I should take it a bit away from the fingerboard during slower passages to allow my hand to become more relaxed and hopefully my wrist to be in a more natural position. Is this what you mean? I am happy that you took the time to analyse the video and write me your suggestions
@ryonass @Mark and @damfino thank you very much for your comments







Raef said
[..]
@Ferenc Simon your comments are very helpful. I am struggling to get a more relaxed right hand (that would be left hand for "normal" violinists). So if I understand you correctly, I should not try to keep my 4th finger as close as possible to the string when I don't use it. I should take it a bit away from the fingerboard during slower passages to allow my hand to become more relaxed and hopefully my wrist to be in a more natural position. Is this what you mean? I am happy that you took the time to analyse the video and write me your suggestions![]()
Following your suggestion, I'll post the video I made you last night.
(For the others: I made a video for Raef last night, since I figured it would be simpler to show it than explain in words... I sent it to him in a private message, but he said I should post it here too)







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