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
(7 votes) 
Regulars
Offline
@Ripton , @JohnG , @wtw -
You may find some benefit from this.
I'm pretty slow at switching back & forth between Treble and Alto Clef, but think I found some good practice videos that might help everyone.
This play-along practice video by Rudolf Haken, "Scales and Arpegios for Viola", makes good use of your ears and eyes to help with sight reading and intonation - slow it down in the video settings if you need to.
...just don't get me started on Tenor Clef! 🙄
The "How to Practice Violin, VIOLA and Cello" YouTube Channel has AMAZING play-along practice videos to help with sight reading, intonation, timing and ear training!
I especially 💖 the ones for Double Stops!
Here's an example. *NOTE: some videos require you to tune to A=442Hz and some say don't look at the music, just listen - but looking at the score while you hear it can help with sight reading!
There's MANY more! Sevcik, Schradieck, Kreutzer, Carl Flesch, Kayser, Suzuki, etc...
https://www.youtube.com/channe.....uery=Viola
SLOW LIST for Beginner VIOLA practice.
https://www.youtube.com/channe.....ow%20Viola
...I believe that seeing notation, hearing the correct pitch and timing - while you play along, is a GREAT way to learn and practice.
Rudolf Haken has a really cool 5-string Viola, made by David Rivinus!
- Emily
Regulars
Offline
Don Juan? That's the really scary orchestral excerpt on professional auditions. I've worked on it, on and off for about three years, with the help of multiple tutorials on it, and I still can't play it cleanly in a reasonable performance tempo.
Also, Haken's fingerings are clearly intended for someone with larger hands than mine.
Regulars
Offline
@AndrewH -
So, you didn't think the "Don Juan" tutorial video was helpful... at all? ☹️
Or, I just shouldn't recommend it - should I delete it?
Regulars
Offline
It's not especially helpful for people who are trying to learn alto vs. treble clef, because the excerpt is just so hard. It's considered by many to be the most difficult of all the orchestral excerpts commonly seen on professional audition lists. And even from a reading perspective, it's very chromatic, which means it's not easy for beginner-to-intermediate violists to follow.
The slowed-down practice tempo that Haken takes for a play-through starting at 14:40 of the video is close to my upper limit for how fast I can play it cleanly.
Some of the practice ideas may be useful for me (such as using all the same fingerings on one string), but I'm not sure anyone who isn't already at a very advanced level is likely to benefit much from that tutorial.
Regulars
Offline
@AndrewH -
Thank you!
Your opinion is appreciated. Deleted it to avoid any confusion. 😊
Regulars
Offline
Thank you @ELCBK ! I like the "don't look (much) at the screen" ones. I need to work on double stops and this slow-tempo play-along may be more helpful for me than any etudes book could. I almost never work on technique because technique means etudes and sheet music usually.
The first video "viola scales" is a bit scary, too much black on it ;-).
Putting all those videos online must have been tremendous work.
1 Guest(s)
Mouse
ELCBK
Jols
Strabo
Fiddlerman
