Welcome to our forum. A Message To Our New and Prospective Members . Check out our Forum Rules. Lets keep this forum an enjoyable place to visit.
Currently working on getting badges to show up horizontally. Should hopefully figure that out within a week. Thanks for your patience.
Log In
Register
Home
Topic RSS
(0 votes) 
Offline
Do not practice until you get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
Offline
Hmm. I don't know about mistakes in the song, but I think you're likely to be a lot more comfortable if you lower your right shoulder and elbow. Right now there's a lot of excess tension because your elbow is pulling the bow away from the string, and forcing you to rely more on your arm to push it into the string. Instead of doing that, try to let the weight of the bow pull it into the string.
One exercise that I found helped me learn to lower my bow arm was playing while holding a thick paperback novel (or anything else that's lightweight and a few inches thick) under my right arm. You may not be able to reach the lower strings that way, but just try bowing on the E and A strings like that; the purpose is to get used to keeping your right elbow lower.
Offline
Is that the new master violin? 
Anyway in terms of critique aside from what Andrew said, I noticed that the angle of your violin is somewhat low and all the other issues might be related to that, like your bow sliding back and forth between the different sound-points unintentionally and perhaps even the raised right shoulder is related.
Double-check to see that your shoulder rest is set up correctly and that you can comfortably hold the violin just by lightly pinning it down with your head. The way this picture looks to me is like your left hand is trying to work harder at holding the violin than necessary which causes your left elbow to press against your side for support, because your arm is tired. It could also be that you're trying to adjust to the sheet music holder which is lower than you'd like, in that case try raising it up to see if that helps. In either case your left elbow doesn't need to touch your ribs, in fact you'd want a nice relaxed gap there without feeling tired after a few seconds. This in turn will raise the violin scroll and make the strings more horizontal, which will definitely help out with the bow sliding, but it might also fix the raised right shoulder once you figure out a comfortable position.
Keep up the good work!
PS: why do you have a framed picture of Dan and Phil on your wall? haha
Offline
@AndrewH and @Ferenc Simon have mentioned good points to address. I just want to say that that tune is beautiful and the sound you get from the violin is great.
Thanks
Bob
Bob in Lone Oak, Texas
Offline
@AndrewH I never realised that my right elbow was too high. I just assumed that's how it was supposed to be because I never could get a decent sound on the G String without doing that. I'll try the exercise you recommended!
@Ferenc Simon My shoulder rest is indeed a bit low but it's not adjustable. I'll have to wait for my fm outfit to come and try to adjust the shoulder rest. I've adjusted my stand also. I sometimes forget to change the height from when I'm playing whie sitting or standing. This is my old violin, I'll get the master mid December, hopefully as the fm went out of stock just as I bought it and the new stock come in first week of December I think.
Bob,(I can't seem to find your @) Thanks for the compliment. I'm practicing to try to get rid of the 'beginners' sound so if you think the sound I get from the violin is good, at least I know I'm getting there, slowly but surely!
Do not practice until you get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
Offline
You'll have to raise your elbow some to reach the D and G strings. That's normal. But even then, you should mostly raise your hand and wrist -- your wrist should be above your elbow when you're playing on the lower strings. I'll try to find a good video example.
Offline
A lot of third movement of the Sibelius violin concerto is played on the G and D strings. Watch where this soloist's wrist and elbow are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....44cHdTOBUE
Yes, she has to raise her elbow to play on the G and D strings, but notice how her wrist almost never drops below her elbow when she's playing on those strings.
Here's an instructional video that talks about the right elbow. You don't need to have your elbow all the way down; the main idea is that the weight of your arm should always pull downward on your wrist, so that your arm pulls the bow into the string rather than pushing it into the string from above.
Offline
Great job Tipiaowsek,
You are doing much better than you probably think. I hate hearing myself play. I don't think there is a video made by me that I am truly proud of, or can watch without finding faults.
You get a badge for your post.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
1 Guest(s)
Andie.Kae
Mouse
ELCBK
Fiddlerman
