Violin for Beginners
Simple and Effective Strategies of Reading Music and Playing Melodious Violin Songs
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Congratulations on embarking on your journey as a beginner violinist! Welcome to a vibrant, creative tradition of string players and musicians that has grown, inspired, and lasted for centuries. Through this book, you will learn how to refine your beginning musicianship skills, each of which has been organized into different sections for simple, quick reference throughout your practice.
Each section will be either focus on your violin technique or music reading skills through a series of strategies and tips. Principles for each technique will be explained, followed by an elaborated explanation to further refine your sound! In this book, you will find multiple angles and strategies targeted towards making the most of your practice time.
Extended techniques and ideas to refine your basic skills will be explored and explained in a simple, practical way. You will be able to take different strategies from different sections of the book and apply them to your violin practice as needed in real-time. While this book does not explain how to play specific pieces of music, the topics within will enable a universal, fundamental understanding of artistry that will prove applicable to a variety of genres and styles of music.
Anyone can learn to play the violin beautifully, regardless of age, background, or previous experience with music. Music is a universal human experience, and everyone has experienced it in some way, shape, or form. Playing the violin is one of many ways one can take part in this experience shared by people throughout history. While learning to play the violin and read music takes time, with patience and perseverance, it can be accomplished. Technique and music reading can be taught and explained in a multitude of ways, culminating in successful practice and performance of music.
There is one truth about learning and teaching: there is always a strategy or approach that will work for some people, but it will not always work for everyone. However, this is precisely why a variety of strategies have been included throughout each section. As a violinist who has taken lessons from multiple teachers over several years and observed many masterclasses, concerts, and conferences, I have heard so many different perspectives that all originate from the same universally held principles of violin playing. Some ideas that I've heard clicked with me instantly! Others were not as clear but made complete sense to the people around me. It's exciting to test out and incorporate new ideas, especially when they click right away. The experience of learning the violin and music reading is all part of a process that spans a lifetime and should be enjoyed! That, I believe, is a vital part of the experience of music learning, especially when challenges arise.
This book has been purposefully structured to reflect how the violin is initially taught to the beginning player techniques before music reading. There are so many variables involved in playing the violin and music reading! Learning to actively listen to music and transfer the sound to playing the instrument is a complex task. Throwing music reading into the mix right away can be overwhelming if you have no prior experience. Learning music is a lot like learning a language - and the first way that many of us initially learned language was purely based on listening and imitation. In other words, as beginning violinists, we begin to learn by rote (or, by ear) before making the direct association of the sounds with music notation.
Music reading skills can be developed at the same time, but it should be done separately from learning to play the instrument before they are combined. Essentially, the music skills you will need while getting started will be broken down into three categories throughout this book: left-hand technique, right-hand technique, and finally, music reading. This principle is based on a model of learning to play string instruments called the Allen model. Each category will be explained separately before being brought together in different combinations to achieve cohesive, effective practice.
As a beginner violinist, it is important, to begin with, what may be the most important strategy that has moved you to read this book: inspiration. At some point in your life, you have heard or encountered the sound of a violin, whether through listening to a song, video, concert, or in passing through some chance encounter. Regardless of your reasons for learning to play, it is important to keep that inspiration close. There will be moments of frustration or times when you do not feel motivated to practice, and that is when the power of music truly shines. Simply listening to a favorite recording of a violinist or remembering your personal inspiration can be a powerful tool to help you focus and act on your practice intentions.
My hope is that this book will serve as a practice companion throughout your journey and will bring you many actionable tips and insights to resolve your questions and enhance your musicianship skills. With that being said, let us dive in!
Chapter 1: Using a Quality Instrument for a Quality Sound
First things first you are going to need a violin! To be more specific, and in your best interest as a beginning player, you are going to need a quality instrument that will enable you to get a great sound as a beginner. Beginning violinists must have positive feedback from their initial encounters with the instrument, or they will become discouraged quite quickly or jump to the conclusion that they were not meant to be a successful player. It can be challenging to know who to trust and where to turn for references for well made, beginner, budget-friendly violins, especially because investing in an instrument can be an unfamiliar path. There may be violin kits that come with all of the accessories for what may seem like a bargain, but some of these instruments are not well set up. That is if they are even set up for you at all you might have to learn how to carve your violin bridge with some of the instruments I've seen purchased by hopeful, inexperienced new players.