I get asked about practicing all the time. Practice schedules, how to practice, what to practice, routines, habits, techniques… everything! And while I’ll save my complete guide on practicing for another time (as it’s a very in-depth manifesto), I want to address an EXTREMELY common issue that adult learners have with the violin: consistent practice. The Problem: Life I’m sure you’ve encountered this scenario: you get home late from an exhausting day’s work. You plop down on the couch and take a breath, head starting to race with the things left in the day, whether they be personal or for family. What am I going to eat for dinner?… Gotta help the kids with their homework… I should probably go to the gym… Need to call my cousin back… And then you see your violin staring at you out of the corner of your eye. You’ve committed to yourself to practice AT LEAST an hour per day, but gosh… so tired right now! A whole hour of violin practice suddenly looks like scaling Mt Everest.
Not gonna happen. Understandably, this cycle tends to happen day after day, especially during busy pockets of life. It can become extremely discouraging because you can’t seem to build up any momentum.
Without momentum, practice takes a ton of mental energy which is hard to muster when life is crazy, which is most of the time. I’ve seen this scenario play out a ton, especially with adult fiddlers (including myself!). Showing up every day is the key to building the muscle memory skills needed to play the violin. Daily practice is way more important and helpful than doing a marathon practice one or two days per week. Momentum makes it sustainable to practice every day. Once you have it, practice can feel energizing and relaxing instead of draining. So how do you get that ball rolling the right direction? The Solution: M-V-P (not the Lebron James kind but just as great…) Here’s a gross confession: I once went years without flossing my teeth. Most days I would feel too rushed to start my day in the morning and too tired at night. The toothbrush pretty much reaches in there right?? I just couldn’t maintain the habit until a friend suggested that I lowered my quota to one tooth per day. At that point it felt really silly to skip it. It worked like magic! Since I was already standing in front of the mirror, with floss just beginning to cut off the circulation of my fingertips, stretching my cheeks like a kid making faces, it was really really easy to just continue and floss the whole mouth most days. Then sometimes I would exercise the right to literally take 5 seconds to floss one tooth, throw the floss in the trash and call it good! Using this mindset, I created something for my students that helped them SO MUCH to form a consistent habit of practicing their violin. I call it the Minimum Viable Practice, or MVP. It’s a short (<5 minute) simple, yet useful practice which you set as your measure of success for the day. It breaks the cycle of feeling like a failure when you can’t find time for a longer practice. It’s way more resilient against excuses because it only takes five minutes. Defining “successful practice” is an incredibly healthy and helpful mindset shift. Our minds tend to skew negative, so if left to our own devices, we often tell ourselves that we didn’t do enough or we could have done more and then it feels like all is lost. Our dreams are dead in the water. An MVP is protection against “those days” when the thought of an hour of practicing seems really daunting. By just doing your MVP, you’ll have achieved success for the violin that day and everything else is considered gravy! If it sounds a bit like an average warm-up, it’s supposed to! Just like my example of flossing, you’ll notice that on some of “those days” you’ll complete your MVP and think: Well I’m already warmed up, I might as well practice that one song/technique/scale part. These will turn into 10, 15, 30+ minute practices that will make a WORLD of difference compared to skipping days outright. And even the days where you just spend 5 minutes on your MVP will compound immensely over time in terms of positive momentum and muscle memory skill! What does an MVP look like? For an example of an MVP geared towards beginning learners, check out my video here, which comes from my beginner program ViolinWOD. For more intermediate or advanced players, some examples could be:
8 full bows (frog to tip) on each open string, set to a metronome
Basic scales: G major/minor, D major/minor, A major/minor, and E major/minor
It really doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as it makes sense for your particular skill level. Remember, the goal is to get you to show up. The real power of the MVP is sparking practice sessions that would otherwise never have happened. Over time, the compound interest will accelerate your skill level faster than you could imagine. Keep Consistent! I have used it for a few years and I totally wish I had it when I was first learning! It would have saved a lot of discouragement. Keeping a consistent practice schedule or starting a new habit with anything is a challenge, so don’t make it any harder on yourself than it needs to be. Set your daily quota low so success is inevitable, show up every day, and ride the positive momentum to achieving your goals!
——————————————————————————————————— I want to hear from you! Please give this a try and leave me a comment down below with your MVP ideas or practices.
Which is better, a carbon fiber or wood bow?
It’s a question I’ve received a lot, so… Here are my thoughts!
As many of you may have noticed, I actually play both a carbon fiber and wood bow. While it’s essential to try out a bunch of bows at your local luthier to find what YOU personally enjoy playing, I think I can help point you in the right direction using my experience! Carbon Fiber
While technology hasn’t really improved upon the perfection of violin design from the last few hundred years, it certainly has improved the quality of reasonably priced, high performing carbon fiber bows. You can usually find them for a few hundred dollars, and they play like many wooden bows 2-4x that price.
Because the material is synthetic, bow manufacturers can be really specific on the weighting and balance of these bows, making their quality extremely consistent. In contrast, different cuts of wood have different densities, so quality can be hit or miss in the low to mid price ranges.
But on top of playing fantastically, carbon fiber bows are practically indestructible and totally immune to the elements (temperature, humidity, water). Take it from someone who performs 90% outdoors, these bows can take some punishment unlike their wooden counterparts.
If I could only own one bow, a nice carbon fiber bow would be my choice. They play extremely well and will last a lifetime.
JonPaul and Coda are two brands that make really nice carbon fiber bows, but there are many others. Here’s my JonPaul Bravo: Wooden (Pernambuco)
If you happen to have a sizable budget (at least $1000) and want something absolutely luxurious that can bring out the best in your violin, I recommend you play some wooden bows at your local shop and consider this big upgrade. The subtlety and nuance of a masterfully made wooden bow feels like a dream.
But make sure the wood type is pernambuco, which is a sturdy and dense, yet very flexible wood which the HIGHEST quality bows are made of.
But be warned, wood bows can be fragile to heat, humidity, accidental water damage, and warping (i.e. leaving your bow tightened for a long time so it loses its natural curve). Keep that in mind if you are set on buying a wooden bow and treat it with care!
Here’s my German Heiko Wunderlich bow, which plays like driving a Ferrari. Choosing what’s right for YOU
You really can’t go wrong with either option as long as you enjoy playing it and the bow feels amazing in your hand. I’ve played hundreds and hundreds of bows, and I can tell you that there are amazing carbon fiber AND wood options spanning across price ranges. You just have to seek them out.
Make sure before you purchase a new bow to play it on YOUR violin to make sure you like the sound. And even if you’re not in the market for a new bow, head on over to your local shop sometime and try a bunch out, from cheap all the way to high end, just to feel the difference and get an idea of what you may want if you decide to change or upgrade in the future.
I hope my answer helps you guys out! Leave a comment below with your thoughts on violin bows and what kind of bow you play. I’d love to hear your opinions!
More answers to questions and updates coming soon!
I hope your Monday is going well so far, but just in case you need a little break…
Here’s a musical interlude from one of the world’s best violinists in an intimate setting:
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She plays some pretty dense difficult classical music for the first 7 minutes or so, then throws on a fedora and busts out a series of folk tunes.
Hilary pulled those melodies out of a piece she was working on called Four Sonatas for Violin and Piano by modernist composer Charles Ives. (Hence the fedora). It would have been much more showy and impressive to actually play a part of the Ives piece since he layered folk melodies and hymns with all kinds of experimental composition techniques, yet she chose to play the hymns and tunes closer to their original form.
I’m just curious- which do you prefer to listen to? The Bach pieces at the beginning of her performance or the tunes at the end?
And why do you think she started with some of the toughest most sophisticated pieces she is known for and then finished with some simpler peasant music?
I mean sure, they both have their place…
The main reason I’m pointing this out is that I think a lot of times when we are discouraged to start violin, or when people say things like, “Well, it takes a lifetime, so you really do have to start as a kid or there’s no point,” they are really referring to the time it takes to learn the techniques to play the tough classical pieces and they are totally wrong about the “no point” part.
And if you want to play classical, that’s not off limits either. I’m just saying there are plenty of simpler things to work on along the way that are both fun to play and musically valid.
Hilary Hahn has found some great examples here for her NPR Tiny Desk Concert. I hope you’ll add your two cents to this debate in the comments section below.
And if you’re interested in learning the violin, there are still just a few spots left in my first ever group video program that is starting next week! Visit my ViolinWOD blog post now to check it out and reserve your spot before enrollment closes Tuesday (tomorrow!) night at midnight Pacific time.
I made a new friend and thought you guys might like to meet him. He served in World War II, conducted an orchestra on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, and has been playing violin for over 93 years.
Meet San Pedro California’s own, Harry Hall:
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I’m so inspired by Harry and the fact that playing violin is an activity that we can enjoy during any stage of life.
If you’ve been wanting to learn, but aren’t sure where to start and don’t have time for private lessons, please send me an email!
Thank you guys for all your responses to The Hot Violinist end of 2015 Official Survey! Reading through them has got me reflecting on what a long strange trip it’s been since I started playing violin. Many of the things you said sounded like a letter from my past self.
I started at age 18 when many people said it was too late. I remember sitting on my bed with my violin after an entire year of trying to learn with my first teacher, and truly thinking that there must be something wrong with how my arms were attached to my body. Sure, I could play a collection of Irish fiddle tunes but EVERYTHING SOUNDED LIKE SH*T! (excuse my french, and pardon the yelling, but it was really frustrating…)
I can’t say I was perfectly dedicated to practicing every single day (confession: sometimes I even showed up to my next lesson without having practiced at all), but I was taking lessons each week and making an effort, so I could only think there must be something wrong with me. This thought made me terribly sad because I really wanted to play.
Even though I wasn’t really interested in classical music and no longer considered myself a complete beginner, I ate my humble pie and decided I probably needed to start all over with some classical technique. Over the next six months I tried three different teachers and still felt frustrated and confused! Then I found Bassam Nashwati, who at that time was second chair in the San Antonio symphony and has since taken the first chair.
He started me at the beginning of the Suzuki method and in that next 6 months I improved more than I had in the entire first year and a half. That’s when I discovered all my bad habits from playing without the basic good technique. That was a tough pill to swallow too because I had to realize that my prior 1.5 years of effort had actually made me worse not better in a way.
This era involved a whole bunch of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and other equally annoying and humbling repertoire, but I was having fun because it felt great to make some good sounds and actually track progress even if it seemed slow.
Then I spent a summer in Upstate New York living with my grandparents and studied with the amazing Judy Hyman, a professional performing fiddler with a classical background— perfect!! When I got back the next fall, I finally felt like I could maybe play in public, but I still wasn’t that great. Many thanks to Ren Faire shop owner Bill Vestal, there is actually footage of this stage.
Notice the very conservative tense playing style. And outfit to match.
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Since then I took part in building two different bands that played the largest stages at festivals nationwide and released 4 studio albums and 2 live albums (All-in-all I released 4 versions of the Theme from the Last of the Mohicans!! :-P). I’ve become an expert in adult violin learning from my own experience and from teaching over 20 students in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, and South America.
And all this is in competition with people who had been playing since they were 3 or 7, or whatever beautifully young age, and likely had college degrees in violin. There’s no way I had enough time to catch up to these people who had been playing since they were kids!
I had to figure out how to work on the right things- the things that give the most musical impact for the littlest time and effort.
I’m not trying to brag, but I just want you to know that it’s possible to do what you want on violin no matter when you start. My goal with the Hot Violinist is to distill my trial and error into bite sized helpful info for all of you.
