A Violin Lesson Today With Yew Shan
I just had the privilege to have a lesson with Yew Shan today and I would like to post what are some of the things which I can improve on. We worked on the Grieg 1st violin sonata in F (what I'll be performing). We looked chiefly at some of the general things and corrected a few details.
1. PAY MORE ATTENTION TO PHRASING. I think sometimes in my urge to copy almost all the details I hear in recordings, I forget to do what would be logical, especially in phrasing.
2. DO NOT STOP VIBRATO BETWEEN NOTES. I think I am both too lazy to correct this and also a little insensitive to this aspect. Will definitely improve.
3. VIBRATO SHOULD SOUND JUST AS WIDE ON DIFFERENT POSITIONS. 2 main things to vibrato: amplitude and frequency. I'll have to try to vibrate such that the listener won't be able to tell which string/position I'm playing on.
4. PLAN THE BOW MORE CAREFULLY. Something even I tell my students ALL the time. I should be more vigilant than actually allow myself to be this lazy. I've to work backwards sometimes to see where my bow should end up, then plan from there.
5. BE CAREFUL TO NOT SLANT THE BOW TOO MUCH. This happens quite consistently when I've more down bow beats than up bow beats. I would then slant the bow away from my head on the up bow. This may be due to my sudden movement on the violin when changing string. Solution: look at mirror and practise a few times.
6. DO NOT OVER BEND RH THUMB/ BOW ARM CAN BE SLIGHTLY HIGHER TO BE 'ON TOP' OF THE STRINGS. My RH thumb tends to overbend especially when playing loud passages. This will affect the natural 'suspension' when holding the bow. It will also cause tension and possible/likely injury. Making the bow arm higher is related to this, but the problem of having a bow arm which is too low mainly caused me to have some difficulty playing the e string near the frog as my RH would tend to bump into the violin. I forsee that this will require a fair bit of experimentation and time to improve.
7. PRACTISE CERTAIN SHORT PASSAGES WITH METRONOME. When you think you've done enough of it, you actually haven't. The metronome still comes closest to a miracle when practising certain problematic passages. No easy solution!
I will try my best to improve. I would like to thank Yew Shan for his help and guidance.
1. PAY MORE ATTENTION TO PHRASING. I think sometimes in my urge to copy almost all the details I hear in recordings, I forget to do what would be logical, especially in phrasing.
2. DO NOT STOP VIBRATO BETWEEN NOTES. I think I am both too lazy to correct this and also a little insensitive to this aspect. Will definitely improve.
3. VIBRATO SHOULD SOUND JUST AS WIDE ON DIFFERENT POSITIONS. 2 main things to vibrato: amplitude and frequency. I'll have to try to vibrate such that the listener won't be able to tell which string/position I'm playing on.
4. PLAN THE BOW MORE CAREFULLY. Something even I tell my students ALL the time. I should be more vigilant than actually allow myself to be this lazy. I've to work backwards sometimes to see where my bow should end up, then plan from there.
5. BE CAREFUL TO NOT SLANT THE BOW TOO MUCH. This happens quite consistently when I've more down bow beats than up bow beats. I would then slant the bow away from my head on the up bow. This may be due to my sudden movement on the violin when changing string. Solution: look at mirror and practise a few times.
6. DO NOT OVER BEND RH THUMB/ BOW ARM CAN BE SLIGHTLY HIGHER TO BE 'ON TOP' OF THE STRINGS. My RH thumb tends to overbend especially when playing loud passages. This will affect the natural 'suspension' when holding the bow. It will also cause tension and possible/likely injury. Making the bow arm higher is related to this, but the problem of having a bow arm which is too low mainly caused me to have some difficulty playing the e string near the frog as my RH would tend to bump into the violin. I forsee that this will require a fair bit of experimentation and time to improve.
7. PRACTISE CERTAIN SHORT PASSAGES WITH METRONOME. When you think you've done enough of it, you actually haven't. The metronome still comes closest to a miracle when practising certain problematic passages. No easy solution!
I will try my best to improve. I would like to thank Yew Shan for his help and guidance.
posted by yingning | 11:15 PM
3 Comments:
i really hope that some violinists out there actually learn something from your post after all the effort you have put in!
Here are some links that I believe will be interested
Looks nice! Awesome content. Good job guys.
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