rockinglr33 said

 

Patience: learn a wee bit of patience when starting out (though quite hard at first sometimes) When we are just beginning to learn its so easy to get caught up in wanting to sound like a professional that when we put bow to strings and hear the horrid squealing/dying cat sounds its quite shocking! just remember rome wasn't built in a day! 

Great advice rockinglr33,

I think your advice just about covers most things, but I would like to add a few things myself.

Often when I am in the chat room I hear beginners (one had only been learning for a few months) talking about how they are working on their vibrato. Now I am not sure if things have changed that much in the world of teaching fiddle, but I am sure that we humans are pretty much the same today as we were have always been. Yes we can enjoy many of the benefits of modern life that technology has given us, but fundamentally we are the same. Hence advice given by the old teachers of yesteryear is still as good today as it ever was (IMO).

For this reason I think it is ill advised to venture into learning vibrato until the left hand is comfortable and capable of playing scales in tune. 

If one tries to rush into using vibrato simply in a bid to sound more like a professional, intonation will suffer badly, and the opposite will be the result.

This is where patience comes into play.

With regular well organised practice, progress should be fast and then soon the day will come when vibrato can be your prize.

Like FM I agree that we should ask our students to analyze what they are doing.

For instance I usually ask my students to play open string for a few minute (like I do myself), then I ask them to play a scale either one or two octaves.

this is followed by a question: How did that sound to you?

Usually they will say, 'not so good, or not bad' and then tell me which notes were wrong!

Doing things this way tells me that the student has acknowledged that they hit some wrong notes.

Then I ask the student to play the scale again very slowly and stop and adjust when it goes wrong.

Now I am not saying this is the right way to do things, but I have used this technique for many years and found it to be useful in helping students to play in tune and pass exams.

Regards

DanielB said  Try to spend at least some time every day playing big, long, loud, notes.  When I got given that tip, the way I managed it was to go into the basement for that part of practice, so I didn't overly annoy the rest of the household. LOL But I was several months in to playing before anyone told me to do that, with open string bowing exercises.  I do feel that the months before that were spent playing far more timidly than I should have.

Looking at this point of practice closer I would also suggest that a beginner student should at first watch closely what they are doing. Their point of contact, angle of bow, pressure, etc., as they pass across the strings G,D,A,E, then returning eventually to G.

Always ensure that their bow maintains regular movement(smooth not jerky) in a level path mid-way between the bridge and fingerboard and they use as much bow as possible.

Doing this will help rid the fear of playing close to the frog or tip!

In time their arm will naturally adjust to the correct angle for playing smoothly on all strings

I also suggest that you ask them to close their eyes whilst doing this exercise to build confidence.

VickieD said:

Great suggestions from all. In addition to all of the above posts I wish I had started learning positions much earlier. I only learned 1st position when I first started and now learning the other positions is proving quite a challenge.

Naturally if  they ( the student) wants to play more complicated music or simply music that uses notes beyond the first position then they must investigate and learn these positions.

WARNING: Don't be in too much of a hurry.

I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to ensure that all their 1st position scales are learnt and can be played with very good intonation before moving on.

They should also pay particular attention when learning their 1st position scales to chromatics.

Once this is done they can learn the 3rd position as this is much easier to learn due to the hands point of contact with the body of the violin. The 2nd position is much more difficult to learn because it sits mid-way between the 1st and 3rd with no point of reference, but it is a most important position and very useful if you can learn it well.

At this point I would like to suggest a useful book that I have used for year:

The Seven Positions of the Violin by Basil Althaus by Cramer Music 23 Garrick Street, London WC2E 9AX

Now I am not at all sure if this is still in print, but if it is it is worth buying.

Hope this advice is of some use.

Regards