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With Christmas on the way and 3 kids and family, my purchase of my own violin will be right after Christmas. What can I do in the mean time to get my toe dipped in even though I don't have anything to play on.
Any books worth skimming to familiarize myself with it, learn the language etc?
Any suggestions would be great.
P.S. I think I have probably read every review for every violin that I have seen online. from the 99 - 2500$ to fill the time.
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I would use the time for learning music theory. Wikipedia is a great resource to start with and to get something to build on. I using some of the time learning mental counting using a metronome. They I live with thought I've gone nuts lol.
'Armed with theory, practice becomes meaningful. Through practice, theory becomes fulfilled.' - Egon von Neindorff.
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HatefulPain said
I would use the time for learning music theory. Wikipedia is a great resource to start with and to get something to build on. I using some of the time learning mental counting using a metronome. They I live with thought I've gone nuts lol.
Thanks. I just looked it up *gulp*...thank GOD my wife knows how to read music and can help me along the way. I skimmed it because I am at work but that looked like Japanese to me.
I must have lost my mind to tackle this.
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Stuey75 said
Thanks. I just looked it up *gulp*
It can be a little scarey. But you start with the simplest stuff and build up.
Pitch, semitone, interval (unison, major third, perfect fifth, octave, etc.), scale, key signature, major, minor, chord.
And try some of Fiddlerman's games (intonation, fingering, etc.)
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I saw screw waiting and order that thing NOW.
Excuse for those actions: You can work on some very simple christmas tunes and impress the family.
End of discussion...
"If you practice with your hands you must practice all day. Practice with your mind and you can accomplish the same amount in minutes." Nathan Milstein
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While I can def see Denny's POV, I understand the "family and the holidays are coming up fast" situation very well, Stuey75. LOL
So, assuming you do end up waiting until after the holidays (and that there is no likelihood of Santa managing to stuff a violin into your stocking), I would say listen to a lot of violin and fiddle music.
While it is possible to study music theory and some elements of reading music without an instrument, it is definitely harder, and a lot of things may only make sense once you can hear them. Do you play any other instruments or have any available around the house that you could use to sort of study up on music in general and give your ear a bit of practice in the meantime?
Even going to the local dollar store and getting a totally cheapo kid's recorder from the toys section can work. You could use it to start getting a grasp of some basic music theory and working out some simple songs on. It won't help with things like the bowing done on a violin, but it could help with working on getting used to moving your fingers and learning what the different notes sound like and what the different marks in notation mean.
Some elements of music are common to pretty much all instruments and playing on any instrument can at least help to get a little bit of a head start when you have to wait a bit.
"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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After you get used to the idea, you can download that piece of music and edit it to see how the sounds change when you change the dots. For that you need to download the MuseScore software. It is free and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
See the "Getting Started" video tutorials at http://musescore.org/
but that may be more detail than you are able to use right away.
Notice the two different addresses: .org and .com
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Thanks for the link RosinedUp.
Looks like a cool site.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Y'all are just a wealth of information!!!
To answer the question on my music background. I played on a trumpet in 1986 for 3 days. That is the extent of my music knowledge. Wife is the music lady that can play drums and guitar relatively good.
I am an architect so my world is music-less outside of listening to it while I work.
I have made a new spotify channel with only violin music that I have been listening to for the past week. I am just dying to get started to even have it to practice on.
But I will definitely be looking up those links and trying to get the basic music reading down. Wife is going to help me get started this weekend.
Have you thought of renting from a music store until you can buy?
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I considered that, but seeing that Amazon has the Cecilio Electric one reviewed on here for 129.00 and the price of rental and fees. If I rented one for 2 months then I could have already bought one.
And I like what someone said on another post about if they ever got tired of an instrument that they would donate it to a school.
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