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Mouse said
Okay, I took cello lessons for a while. It got to a point where I really needed to work on all the information and techniques I was taught, so I switched to viola lessons. Now I am able to work on cello, cementing the techniques I was taught. I am doing much better and am working on a song we were actually doing in class, a while before I stopped lessons, that requires a lot of shifting. I love shifting. I am able to do this song much better, and am still working on it. I am working on my shifting, intonation and vibrato with this song. I have not added the vibrato completely. Every once in a while I will add the vibrato, but the shifting and intonation has to be more fluent before I get serious about adding it. I just add it to keep the actual arm and wrist vibrato movements familiar.

I reached the same point in my viola lessons. I need time to absorb and work on everything I was taught before I can move on. That is the way I learn. I had my last viola lesson last week. When I am ready to move on, I can call my instructor and we can start FaceTime lessons once again. 

With lessons, it is pretty much classical music, I am not a fan of classical music. I see where there is so much of the technique in those pieces, so I do not complain about it and give it my best. It, the classical music, makes no sense to me. It is like jazz, as I have said before. I repeat it to explain why after learning the technique, I cannot use classical music to actually fine tune or cement that technique. I cannot do any embellishing or dynamics with it because I cannot feel any of that in a piece of classical music, except for a very few (the one I am using in my solo cello learning and playing). 

I ordered a book for my viola solo learning and playing that has songs, not classical music. I will be taking the techniques I learned in my viola lessons and cementing them with my viola. I can't do this with the classical pieces. It should arrive in a couple days, maybe today. I am pretty excited to get it. I have been using my cello and violin books, but it is not reading the alto,clef, so I wanted actual viola sheet music. I know, there are times when the viola music will venture into treble clef, but been there in my lessons, but I wanted to keep the alto clef fluent. 

So, if you feel information overload, but have not reached your goal, maybe you need a "time out" from lessons to let all the information soak in and become second nature. Maybe talking to you instructor about pausing lessons and working on what you have learned is right for you, too. 

Talk to your instructor and see if you can restart when you feel comfortable adding more. You may not be able to get the same time slot. If you won't be able to restart, then examine your need to pause and see if adding more information will do more harm than good.

Now, I know this will be controversial for many die-hard violinist;violists/cellists, but not everyone learns at the same speed, learns with the same method, or has the same goals. I am a senior citizen, I am doing this for my own benefit, my own enjoyment and my own self-fulfillment. Just going through the paces and working on pieces until they are good enough, and then moving on does not help me be able to do those things learned smoothly. It just adds to what I have issues with and cannot work on to reach the quality and comfort I want in playing, because we keep moving on. I need to go up that hill more slowly, and stop to rest along the way. If I do not do that, the hill becomes a mountain.

I know this goes against the grain for many, so this post is not being made to start a debate about this or for comments that if I do this, it means my instructor was not not very good. This is just the way I learn. I need time to absorb and put into practice what I learned before I move on. I am just providing another method for learning for those who have reached a point where they are feeling, "Info overload", but maybe have not reached a point where they will never need a lesson to reach their goal.

  

 Dont have a teacher, its a luxury i cant afford, even if there were any teachers where I live. I taught myself to read music in order to u derstand violin instruction books. One and a half years self taught, been really difficult, but I have been helped by the fact i am what you would class an advanced guitarist,  so I didn't have to gain dexterity in my left hand  to start with.  I am working through wohlfhart etudes in third position at the moment which are very taxing Even though its a beginners book, I am building on my vibrato and intonation by playing scales, arpeggios, dominant seventh,  scales in fifths, and I also have learned to sing scales,  which I was told to do by the soloist Eugen Modri, my problem isn't overload its cramp,  which i get in my left hand as I generally practice around 3 hours a day