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Thank (google) God. I have read and understood the forum rules.
Gil Shaham..
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it ..(William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night)
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ChinaFiddler - Though we respectfully read your thoughts and opinions, we ask one final time that you abide by the forum rules. Specifically no 1 and no 6.
I respect and actually understand what our friend ozmous is saying. I should hope that you would do the same. He has good ears.
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Final presentation for the day - a 'sweaty' one..
http://www.youtube.com/v/OSaVIFSoBMc
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it ..(William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night)
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@Chinafiddler , Wow, here's what your implying; The personal opinion of one must follow the professional opinion of others....
first a counter argument,
After watching a movie, a friend would ask you, how was the movie? Of course your answer will be it's good, it's bad, or anything that you think about the movie, but your friend then say the exact opposite of your own opinion. He then look for some reviews from professional critiques to support his claims and many of those really do support his claims, he then show it to you and ask you how long you have been into movie business, have you ever directed, produced, or act for a film? etc. well you might say, no, then he'll say, well, you are not of a right to judge the movie because of those reasons.
But that's not how it works, is it? The truth is your friend would have his own opinion, you would have your own opinion base on what your preferences, if the critiques prefer the directing style, the picture, the acting, etc. and you don't, well, your own opinion is as correct as theirs as long as it's on your own preference.
In short, some people prefer horror, some comedy, people sometimes would say they hate horror, horror folks would say it's good, who's correct? well they are both correct base on what they want.
btw, when I said "it's not bad," I didn't mean "it's not good, it's not bad either" but I mean that it's not bad to do that staccato, I just don't like it personally.
cheers! - ⁰ℨ
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Nicola Benedetti does a sweet job of playing unaccompanied Bach.
2011 - Bach's Partita in D minor
2011 - Chaconne
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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Joshua Bell Bach Chaconnne (June 2014)
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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Just in case the link for Suresh's video did not work. 
13:51 minutes of exquisite playing.
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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I bumped into this thread, I didn't read it closely, but I think I get the gist of the conversation. I'd like to make a few observations.
First notice that the subjects of discussion are all soloists. Musicianship in soloists is everywhere in music and frequently has entirely different meanings across different genres.
I am a big fan of the Guitar Gods of rock and roll. Hendrix, Clapton, Van Halen, Vaughn and many others. These are all brilliant soloists, and they are also composers and the music they play is typically their own work. But there is an exception, Vaughn built up his reputation playing the work of Hendrix, he did a version of Little Wing that is truly spectacular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....P0vzZk8Olg
But what was it that Vaughn was playing? Was it note for note exactly what Hendrix played? But what was Hendrix playing? Little Wing is not a written composition. There is sheet music now that matches note for note some recording of the original Hendrix "Little Wing". But Hendrix did not compose Little Wing on paper first. And what Vaughn played was his interpretation. It was very close to what Hendrix performed and may even have been exactly the same. But nobody cared. This is rock and roll and interpretation does not extend from a written composition. The musician is the composer. Variation in interpretation is to be expected.
Compare with our virtuoso classical violin soloists. All brilliant, but not a composer among them -- we guess. Did Bach play any of his violin compositions? No? Did he play the violin at all? If you can't answer the question readily, it is hard to judge those who interpret his work, especially if you are a violinist yourself. A violinist playing a composition is expected to play the composition as written and there is bound to be a right and wrong way to do it. Even so, without interpretation playing a role, then what is the point of a soloist performance at all? A violinist is an artist too and expected to lend some personality to the piece.
Aspiring R&R guitar soloists don't have to be precision artists, all they have to do is be able to raise the hair on the back of the necks of a captured audience and take them to that special place that only a solo electric guitar can take you. It is hard to say where that kind of talent comes from. And his peers know better than to proclaim some student unworthy of the task, simply because they are not hitting all the right notes.
But a classical solo violinist has a different challenge. Improvisation does not play a role unless the composer makes it explicitly a part of the composition. It is much easier to judge a violin soloist if you can read the original composition. With popular recordings, it's even easier. You can just listen to different performances over and over again looking for little flaws and inconsistencies. But the job of interpretation remains and an appreciative audience expects variation between performers and individual tastes in music are bound to color criticisms. Expectations of these differences should temper how one views other critics of a performer's work.
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@coolpinkone , I knew that this will show up some time , didn't noticed Suresh's post.
cheers! - ⁰ℨ
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I know Oz!!! I clicked on the link on Suresh's post and it did not work for me... but Suresh gave a bit of a clue... so then I looked it up. woo hoo....
I am at work and I had a lovely 13 minutes of Chaconne to keep me happy at work, thanks to Fiddlerman. We have a treasure in the forum with a violinist such as he. #luckyus!!
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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cdennyb said
@CF I thought you started at age 21, then mentioned you had only recently picked it back up again about 10 yrs ago due to "business and career" ventures. I think as difficult to play as the violin is, or to play well, taking that much time off would not qualify you to say you've played the better part of 39 yrs., in fact you would be considered a relatively new player or classed as intermediate. If I miss a few days, I can certainly tell the difference, hell... years away from it would put me back on square one. I often wonder if staying away for a few years has that great of an effect on the abilities? I bet it does.
I would like to hear what you have to bring to the table, although without the ability to use YouTube, a recording of anyone could be presented and I would have no way to either confirm or deny that it was actually you playing, no offense intended. I looked up your YouTube channel and found the last entry to be just over a year ago without a single video or recording. One reference to the "greatest violin teacher in London" and a "terrorist training" video or two of questionable content.
I know you left to travel to China then but the account was open for a few months and if I had the fantastic ability to teach and play like you do, I would've posted several videos in that amount of time of either myself playing as an instructional assistant to my students or to just preserve them for the future as my kids would like that when I was departed. Just sayin'.
Don't go ballistic, this is not a personal attack but I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from. I trust, but I also like to verify, just the nature of being a retired Mechanical Design Engineer.
First off, I don't go ballistic as you put it, I just assess what I read, absord it or reject it, simple as that !
YouTube has not been available in China for many years and in the past when I did use it, it was as a source of information on historical violin footage.
I am no armchair virtuoso, and I don't believe I have ever said I was.
Yes I did take some time out to dvelop my career as a electronics engineer, so practice and playing was not easy, but from time to time I did manage to practice a little, maybe just some scales.
Also remember that by the time I reached this point I was a pretty good player and had in the past worked extremely hard to develop my technique sometimes practicing 4 hours a day! So my diminished or sometimes stopped schedule for practice would not have been so bad for me as it would have been say for you sir!
In the UK I was simply too busy either developing my career or teaching to stand in front of a camera and make videos of myself, and of course I had to give some time to my children and former wife!
Besides I only really became aware of YouTube after coming to China. And yes you may well have found an entry for last year when I was back in the UK visiting my sister.
I know you are asking yourself, 'well why doesn't he make videos now, especially as he is retired?'
Ans:
(1) To use YouTube I would have to pay to use a proxy server and I am not so happy to do this for reasons that I won't go into here.
(2) When I was young I had a bad motorcycle accident and damaged my right shoulder. The doctors told me that at some stage I might notice some paralysis caused by nerve damage.Well this did not occur until last year when I started getting paralysis in my right hand. Sometimes it is so bad I drop the bow!
Naturally this has affected my bowing very badly so I am no longer able to play as I used to, sorry!
This has naturally made me very sad because over the years I had worked so hard to develop all apect of my technique, and to become the best teacher I could be.
I am not making excuses sir, never think this!!!!!
Understand this I do not see why I should have to justify who I am and what I can or cannot do to you or anyone here on this site, including Fiddlerman et al.
Regards
There's never any words to these song's. They're not fun at all.
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coolpinkone said
And here is what cause me to love Bach for violin....
Yes..I think she is the best thing since sliced bread.
A lovely performance, to be sure. Thanks! -Ben
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Just for a change.... Narciso Yepes..
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it ..(William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night)
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Off topic: Chinafiddler is no longer part of our community.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Fiddlestix said
There's never any words to these song's. They're not fun at all.
Aw, don't let a little thing like that bother you, Ken! I'll bet you know this song..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....muziTEnNWs
and then listen to this (short) piece by Bach..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....8lrZEJhQ3E
If you hear something you like in "the classical repertoire", and you'd like it better if it had some words, you can just make some up for it.
There's actually quite a lot of that going on, always has been. If you pick up your violin and play Elvis's "It's Now or Never", any opera fan that hears you will probably think you are playing "O Solo Mio".
Those are just a couple examples of many.
It goes both ways too, actually. A lot of the music that folks call "classical" was inspired by (or directly lifted from) popular melodies or folk tunes of those composers' day.
It's all good.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Here's one with lyrics 
cheers! - ⁰ℨ
@DanielB: Geeze,,,, I never thought of it that way, Dan. I was going to play the song by "The Toys" after I listened to it and then came the violin version, which I wasn't expecting it to be the same tune / song. Great stuff there, thanks for enlightening me.
Yes and there was the time when "Elvis" came out with that song that I did think of "O Solo Mio", but never thought of it in that way. Thanks for that too.
I've learned something today.
@ozmous: I saw the words but couldn't understand what it said. The only thing I did recognize in the lyrics were the words, "den and ken"..... LOL,,, strange ?
Thanks for that too, Keith.
All is appreciated from everyone. 
P.S.,,, I gave each of you 5 stars for the help.
Ken.
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