learn the violin

I received my fretless finger guide yesterday! I need to hurry up & tune my violin.

I will try to have my violin tuned before next Saturday because my fretless finger guide should be here by then.

I just bought a fingerless fret guide & printed the sheet music for “Happy Birthday”! Getting a tad closer! I will try to practice tuning my violin while I am waiting for my fret guide & watch the youtube videos that teach how to read music. I have a few really good books that teach violin, but that seems too boring. Maybe I’ll set aside 43(!) minutes a week to try to read some of that stuff.

My fiance bought me a beautiful violin for Valentine’s day a few years ago & I still have not tried to play it. Well, once upon a time ago I did for a short while. Just saying, “I want to learn how to play the violin” sounds like there is no finish line. How exactly do you gauge if you have learned? After learning 1 easy song or when you can play the most difficult piece of music out there?

So, I decided for myself to set smaller goals until I feel totally confident that I can mark this goal as complete.

My first goal will be to learn how to play “Happy Birthday” before my fiance’s birthday. That will be December 18th. Yikes! That’s soon!

I have no idea how to read music, tune a violin, or anything else for that matter. This will be a challenge, but doable if I commit.

I found some fretless finger guides that I might order just to help start me out with my finger placement. I am not confident enough to get violin lessons yet. I would like to have some idea of what I am doing before I pay for someone to criticize me.

I really would just like to be able to play with others, and piano is a rubbish instrument for that.

For this week: getting in touch with a tutor

I think its a beautiful instrument to look at and hear.
Its the only instrument that i like to listen to im quite excited about learning the violin i bought my first violin today so now i jus need to find a affordable teacher in my area i also want to learn by ear aswell.
i cant wait!!
i suppose ill have to get a job lol

I am improving, but slowly. Need to practice more than one day a week. I do enjoy it when I’m playing it, but for some reason it’s hard to get started.
Maybe in the next 6 months I’ll buy my own, new violin. And a better bow! The one I have isn’t very comfortable.

I never really realized how little encouragement was given to me growing up( or even now as an adult really) until I hear the praises of my instructor. I’ve been attending private lessons now for 3 months now. And I’ve progress remarkably fast as my teacher tells me. Alot of that is the fact that I’m an ‘adult’ and I can give more focus and appetite in my desire to play well. Sure you have to be progressing ‘at something’ to get praise…shrug. I guess for some…when it doesn’t come you get use to it not being there…how quietly sad that is.

The songs I’m currently working on are Farandole by Bizet and Autumn by Vivaldi(not so hard). We’ve (teacher and I) made great progress in my site reading; accompanied by my ‘great’ intimation, as he says. My C scale is the hardest with F & C being natural the finger position is awkward still.

He also said I can start working on a few more ‘advanced’ techniques like ‘barre’ing chords’. As a introduction to getting ‘use’ to the feeling of playing two strings at once.
My bow stroke needs work…”More bow” he says. :-)

Aside from that, I’m enjoying it more and more. But a faint reality slowly forms over head,...I have a 500 dollar instrument(decent)...but I’m already eyeing 2k violin at the string shop. ...what – back in the days I invested just under a 1k for my comp.

Remember, The more you practice the better you practice the better you practice the more you practice.!

So I up my practice length this week to over an hour, and tonight I reached a huge milestone. I actually quasi site read!!. My instructor has me working on ‘Ode to Joy’, and I’ve been determine not to memorize songs by tactile finger memorization. Its my goal to site read every step of the way; its the one of the main reason why I wonna learn to play an instrument so I can find/write cool pieces of music ya know?...
Anyways!...I actually made it smoothly through 3 bars!! Of course I’ve been playing the same thing over and over again..so it is memorized to a degree, but I am ‘reading’ the notes! Somewhere during practice it just clicked…my fingers synced up eyes….wow. yeah…this can be done ;-)

The more you play the better you play..the better you play the more you play!!

It was awesome, all that online learning paid off. He asked me a bunch of questions to test my knowledge and I knew them all. We addressed some of my concerns, mainly the slight pain I was feeling after play,...my assumptions were correct, I just need a shoulder rest. And he happily told me which one to get after we tested on one of his. He liked my form…etc..etc. hehe So my homework…master my D scale (only one octave..) a bunch of little starter songs..(twinkle twinkle little star, lol like the ‘hello world’ in programming)...I’ve been practing my scales for the past few months anyways,…and he assigned me sheet reading work. I really want to master sheet reading. The notes on the scale isn’t hard…its the translation to fingers is the tricky part…but I figure if I can memorize 101-keys on my keyboard…I should be able to do the same [one day] on my fingerboard[violin]

Its getting easier…last night I was really ‘hearing’ the notes.I still feel intimidated when I pick it up to practice. But that soon goes away. So I’ll be picking up my shoulder rest this weekend.

I could use some practice buddies…anyone in phx?

Note: People have been asking me ‘how much I’m paying’ its 20 bucks per 30-40 minutes session every saturday. He’s seem very knowledgeable, by no means so ‘grand master’ but he knows his shit. If anyone is looking in Phx..let me know..I’ll refer you.

Peace