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.
Private messaging is working again.
Log In
Register
Home
Topic RSS
(4 votes) 
Honorary advisor
Regulars
Offline
Expect some or many mistakes here,because i was in a hurry when i was recording this, i am only a beginner, plus, i was nervous as well 
every piece i played was played the same way of how i played it at the day i learned it, the same with the first piece i played w/c has open strings because i am still at that stage at that time, every piece was ordered from the first tune i played to the current piece i am practising, here it is:
here's the list of what i played on this video:
1.Amazing grace- i learned that by ear, the first tune i played.
2.The Barber of seville- i learned that from fiddlerman(yay!)
3.Paganini's Caprice # 24- the first tune i learned after learning how to read sheet music
4.Paganini's 6th Sonata
5.Paganini's Cantabile- the last tune i played for my first month.
6.the Devil's trill
7.Thais meditation
8.Chopin's Nocturne for Violin
cheers! - ⁰ℨ
Regulars
Offline
this isnt posted in critique corner but what I have to say really isnt critique , more of an advice thing. First let me say you are doing amazing. There is no doubt you are working hard and making excellent progress !!
Now for my advice. Stop learning new pieces for a while. work on the ones you have now and focus on polishing them and your tone and technique. I did the same thing when I first started, I tried to learn a lot of tunes quickly. I soon realized I knew 10 tunes and played none well.
Now I never have more than 2 tunes as works in progress at a time. you'll discover 2 years from now you will still be finding ways to improve tunes you know.
Being self taught like myself, you really need to take a hard look at yourself and be your own teacher and make yourself address issues in need.
Keep up the good work, you have much potential !!
There is no shame in playing twinkle, youre playing Mozart
Honorary advisor
Regulars
Offline
thanks Barry, ya, i should do that, but the thing is, I'm on the "learning stage", I'm learning different tricks, styles, and movements from different pieces, plus, i can't just play a whole piece, specially in classical, because I'm playing for my self and not for an audience, i can't just play the whole devil's trill that will take at least 12-14 minutes, but i will play the first movement..(plus, playing the 2nd movement is out of my reach for now)...Thanks again for the advise
cheers! - ⁰ℨ
Regulars
Offline
Oz, I have to agree with Barry... chill on the new stuff and really concentrate on one or two...
I've been working on just 1 tune for months now... perfection is an elusive thing.
Some days you can never miss a note and other days you can't play two notes out of 200 in tune!
You can play several well enough to be recognized ...but most people wouldn't want to hear them twice... but if you can play just 1 to a level of 90%+ perfection, meaning no missed notes, no intonation errors, no flubbed up string crossings, no squeaks, no squeals, and certainly no bow errors... people will want you to play it again...and of course adding the elusive vibrato to the 1 tune you have perfected will just add icing to the already great cake...
"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
Members
Offline
Well, you do have to play through some songs first, when you start out teaching yourself, to get an idea of what the instrument can do and what you want to work at getting good at.
If you are taking lessons, at least hopefully your teacher has already been through all that years ago, and made the mistakes and figured out what things have to be learned as basics and what techniques build off those later, so you don't have to figure it out on your own by trial and error.
But when you're on your own, there's no choice but to experiment and see what is easy and what is hard and find out what you can do and how well. After a bit of that, then you can figure out plan of what to practice and what techniques to work on perfecting to be able to play the songs/pieces you want to be able to sound good at.
My first month or two, I was trying playing every song or snatch of melody that came to mind. Even the Devil's Trill. LOL I figured out that some of those songs were going to take technique that it would take time to develop the skills for. So then I was able to settle don and work on scales and simple arpeggios and doing songs/pieces where I could work on just getting plain and simple melody with no embellishment. Getting the intonation right and the tone developing towards something I could like.
But I feel that first month of two when I was just playing everything I could think of and trying every technique I could find out about were good though. It got my inertia up so I could settle in and work on basics, because now there were songs and sounds I definitely wanted to be able to do.
A good teacher would have ways to keep a student involved and keep them going, but learning on your own, that early bit of "fire" can really help to get the enthusiasm up and find your "I can do this.. " attitude.
The better you get, the more you hear your own mistakes or things you could have done a bit better, and then you know where to work to get improvement happening.
"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
Member
Offline
To be honest, I'm not here to advice you like the others (I feel I'm not playing long enough or well enough to do so) , I'm just pretty amazed by what you did achieve in 2 months. I haven't even started on the vibratothing... and the quick fingering you have, I agree with Barry that you have much potential!
Advanced member
Offline
I hope I can move my fingers that well in two months
Member
Offline
Hey ,
i like the way how you are playing , but i think you shouldnt go after 2months to position changing etc, because you need to " i dont know how to say it in enligh sorry" fundieren all.
Like how to get the right tune etc.And you shouldnt play so many sheets at once , better try to practise 1 , till you can play it very well . If u have it , you can try to practise there new things , like more dynamik etc.
ps: sorry for my bad english :/ i will edit it tomorrow or later , its late here and im tired.
Keep going
Honorary advisor
Regulars
Offline
thanks everyone...
hi tomi, thanks...but sometimes, you need to do the impossible to conquer the improbable...sometimes, there's a change that should happen....i don't want to do a song with only limited position, it doesn't sound right...if you know what i mean, we need to learn more, to enjoy what you like, you need to make a change!...i have practised dynamics, or any other different styles, what do you want me to do? play twinkle? actually, all the song i played there are for practises, i don't play them in an orchestra or anything, so to practise notations, vibrato, trills, dynamics, and etc. i practise them with songs like those...plus, i play pieces for expression, i can't express myself with twinkle twinkle in first position, open strings, without vibrato lol 
....i have an old saying; "music is not for impression but for expression"...and i keep that always in my mind....
thanks for the tips 
, oh and don't worry with the english, it's pretty good!
cheers!
oh, and i also practise and try to finish all of those pieces as hard as i can, so don't worry, i'm very busy with a lot of things, but i always put on my mind to practise and play
cheers! - ⁰ℨ
Regulars
Offline
ozmous,
I've got some honest critique and advice for you. It may sting a bit, but I offer it with the best of intentions.
I think you have learned quite a lot in just two months, and you have developed good finger mobility and there's even a bit of vibrato coming out there too, which is good. Your overall tone is good too, in that you are producing a clear sound most of the time.
It's great too that you are adventurous in what you are trying to play. I'm not bothered about mistakes, eg wrong notes at this stage.
Now - in attempting to play pieces like those, where lots of shifting is required, you really are working beyond your limit at this point. Your intonation is really awful, and you are sliding, not shifting, which is why you are making a really whiny sound in the Paganini pieces. I know you are eager to play pieces far removed from 'Twinkle Twinkle', but given the sound you are making, I think you should take a step back and concentrate on getting your intonation better. There are tons of exercises and tunes in 1st position only, which are both challenging and useful for a beginner, and you won't need to touch 'Twinkle' 
The thing that concerns me is that, in the absense of a teacher, your ear can easily get used to sound you make. If it's a good sound, fine - but if you are playing out of tune nearly all the time (mostly outside of 1st position) your ear can simply get used to the out-of-tuneness. You may be in this situation where you know it doesn't sound right, and something is wrong, but you are not really aware of just bad it is. I think now is a really good time (after two months) to take a step back and work on your intonation. I think if you don't do this now, you will just propagate all your faults to any other pieces you start to learn. I know some players who sound like that, and have been playing for years! Simply because they have ignored their intonation problems early on.
OK, maybe you already realised all the things I said, so I won't go on any more, but I felt it had to be said. You have the potential to be a pretty darn good player if you follow along the right lines. To me that's obvious
There is a lot of help available for members here, from Fiddlerman, myself ... if you want to message me I can direct you to a host of 1st position stuff - some great tunes there too to get your teeth into
Mr Jim 
@ Mr Jim..... I wasn't quite sure how to say it,, you did it perfectly. The best critique i've seen here.
Member
Offline
... i never said you need to play Twinkle or something like this , but for what is it useful to play at the beginning songs with positions.. you need first to understand how the violin works and need to get known , how to get pretty and clear sounds...you wont get sucsess if u cant play the normal things perfect... , you want to play "cool" songs? Than practise on easy songs in the first position... you can play songs like set fire to the rain crystallize river flows in you etc , too in the first position?!
just keep practising starter things , the time wont run away, ps from myself i play too songs i like .. but my teacher say me the same at him im playing too in the first position.. etc and im playing since 4 years ... or longer?
but yes its up to you and your decission
Pro advisor
Regulars
Offline
The best thing to do in your situation Oz, without changing what you are currently doing...is practice scales, speeds and bowing patterns in the key of whatever song you are playing. 15-30 min more per day and your tone, intonation and bowings will improve so your song can improve. A little attention each day to the details. No big change needed. If it doesnt work for you after a month, stop doing it, return it for a full refund. 
"Please play some wrong notes, so that we know that you are human" - said to Jascha Heifetz.
1 Guest(s)
Strabo
Mouse
Fiddlerman
ELCBK
