This week at lessons many students have worked on setting the conditions for playing in tune with good tone before playing a note. Here are the checkpoints to try before playing the first note. These three steps really help ensure that the bow makes a good sound and the notes are 90% more likely to be
Tag: Left Hand
Several students this week have been assigned the Quint exercise 1 for The Well-Formed Left Hand. This exercise is practiced with careful attention to violin posture with minimal repetitions. The student works to execute the exercise with shoulders aligned above hips and hips aligned above feet, the instrument perched on the shoulder with the weight
I often find myself happily trimming fingernails for young students at lessons. Trimmed fingernails are critical on Left Hand fingers 1-4 and Right Hand Thumb and Pinkie. Students are free to go crazy and grow the other ones. I have one memory of my teacher, Barbara Embser as a 4 year old in
Hot Stove game helps new students learn the left hand finger numbers. Student pretends the left hand thumb is a hot stove. Parents or siblings or friends call out numbers between 1 and 4 and the student practices quickly touching the correct finger to the thumb. Index Finger = 1 Middle Finger = 2 Ring
For training the left hand fingers to hover over the fingerboard, it is useful to imagine each of the fingers is a member of a team of helicopters practicing touching down and lifting off. The game is to try to have each finger touching down and lifting off at the exact same speed and hovering
