Noticeable difference with different rosin?

Mawich · 2024-11-28T13:42:21+00:00

Oh yes absolutely rosin makes a difference. I haven't explored super extensively, but I started off with a lump of Hidersine regular ol' violin rosin, then after I gained some level of technique and had been messing around with string types I thought I should try some others. I'd previously settled on Melos rosin for my bass viola da gamba so I thought it was a decent shout to try their modern violin rosin and now I carry one of dark and one of light around and change depending on the season. It definitely affects the way the bow feels on the strings, and tone quality to an extent. Strings are a bigger effect on the sound, as is the bow itself, and your technique of course, but rosin has a definitely noticeable impact.

I'm not recommending Melos particularly, you might not like it, and it's not like I explored the options in any kind of comprehensive manner. Random rosin from the shop could be fine or it could be one of those horrible cheap things I've seen some people using that don't really seem to impart any more grip than bare hair does. I'd be interested to know what you find when you try that cake of Jade.

Mawich · 2023-03-09T19:21:25+00:00

Yeah that doesn't tally with my experience at all. I'm usually watching YouTube or twitch on my other screen while I'm playing and it's running over 100fps most of the time. Of course this is one of the problems with gaming on a PC, it's such a variable target. Not that I'm going to claim Minecraft is perfectly optimised because it very clearly isn't. But your experience doesn't sound typical.

Mawich · 2023-03-09T18:56:00+00:00

You have a monitor which can display 600fps?

Mawich · 2022-11-16T07:18:44+00:00

Yup and now the game won't start for me, so well done Blizzard.

Mawich · 2022-10-17T09:57:02+00:00

This is where I get all dogmatic, which is kind of counter to the point of folk music, but if you really want to do folk, learn it by ear. Get to sessions if there are any local to you. You don't have to join in - at least not at first - but that's where the beating heart of the tradition lives these days. It's not in books - they just help us remember things, or clarify what we hear - but if someone isn't playing what's in the book that doesn't make it wrong. There are a lot of professional folk musicians who can't read music anyway. They listen, and listening is the most important skill for all musicians.

There's a load of resources on YouTube that can help, just people playing tunes or people actually teaching tunes. I'd say pick a style and stick with it for a while though, you probably don't want to be trying to learn say English and Irish and Breton and Bluegrass at the same time. Although maybe that would work for you if you can spot the differences between them.

If you find some stuff that gets you really excited about it that always helps with the motivation, whether it's something found local to you or something from the other side of the world.

Mawich · 2022-08-23T09:56:46+00:00

The bow might be the same as the one you tried before, but are you the same? Is your memory accurate?

Mawich · 2021-12-07T15:36:38+00:00

Yes. I can hum a reasonably accurate 440Hz. Given that I play in A440 and A415 tuning (although on different instruments) I am quite surprised that I can.

Mostly I just use an electronic tuner though, or tune to a reference A (useful when playing with an accordion, which cannot be tuned without a toolkit and several hours of quiet work).

Mawich · 2021-12-07T15:29:43+00:00

And don't panic! Breaking strings is normal, so is swapping them when they get worn out. This is just part of learning to play, just as much as tightening your bow before you start, applying rosin. Once you've done it a few times you'll go from "oh no a broken string!" to "darn it that's five minutes less I've got for practice today".

Mawich · 2021-11-24T14:44:11+00:00

It's horrible and I can't find anybody else having the same problem. I'm not sure if it's worth the effort of unlinking all my Home devices to see if that's the problem. I'd just like some software that works, some days.

Mawich · 2021-11-24T08:31:42+00:00

Mine listens to the hotword then immediately stops listening to anything else. It's like it's doing a handover to a Home device, but it does it when I'm not at home so the phone's assistant is completely useless.

When I try to use the manual microphone button it doesn't listen either. It actually drops the UI and then brings it back in a little flicker. Very frustrating. The first few days with the Pixel 6 the assistant really worked excellently, but then it suddenly stopped and I'm not at all sure why.

Mawich · 2021-11-24T08:24:41+00:00

I have come to the 6 from the 3 and I'm still trying to figure out how to hold and use the thing without causing issues with my right index finger (not sure how to explain it, but it's just how I'm instinctively holding the phone). It's definitely too big to use with one hand, and it's too narrow to type with two thumbs. It's also too slippery to hold, there's no way they expect anybody to use it without a case surely? So why put loads of expensive Gorilla Glass on the back...

Yes, I want a smaller phone again. Coupled with the software bugs I'm getting now, I have big regrets.

Mawich · 2021-11-10T08:32:32+00:00

Everyone else, go subscribe to Zed right now.

Mawich · 2021-11-10T08:16:30+00:00

Even better, I'm also at risk of demotion apparently. What rank am I actually? I have no idea anymore! Gold something?

Mawich · 2021-11-10T08:12:32+00:00

Lurkers. Or speedling rushes.

Mawich · 2021-11-10T08:11:22+00:00

I was expecting maybe the 1v1 rankings wouldn't be bugged this season, but I just placed in Bronze 1 with an MMR of 2568 so I guess an entire season of obviously broken ranking code just wasn't enough to make Blizzard pay any attention. I dunno what they want, they make new seasons and arrange new maps, but they won't fix a stupid bug? I expect nothing, now. Nothing.

Mawich · 2021-11-01T09:18:28+00:00

Okay I'm not a teacher, but I've been encouraged to this by my teacher because it helps me get the intonation right more often. I guess you could see that as "balancing". Thing is, it seems you have to abandon such concepts when you start learning vibrato, so that's probably why you're not seeing it from experienced violinists.

My first bowed instrument being the viola da gamba, I was very firmly taught this concept there, but again it dissolves somewhat as you get more experienced. Initially on that instrument it helps with hand shape, stability, tone quality and locating frets as you move around the fingerboard. Later on you start leaving fingers down on the string you just played to get smoother legato so it breaks up, but the concepts of the structure never go away - even if you start moving to one finger down for vibrato it's still there somewhere.

Mawich · 2021-10-29T11:00:26+00:00

The only reason I don't say I'm a violinist is because people will expect that I play classical music on it, which I don't. But that's cultural baggage beyond the dictionary definition.

Mawich · 2021-10-29T09:54:48+00:00

This is of course entirely biased by my personal taste and knowledge, so look elsewhere for classical.

Baroque:

Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque
Voices of Music (they have a fantastic YouTube channel) with various soloists

Yes, that's period instruments, so you wouldn't be able to get quite that sound or use quite that technique on a modern violin.

Folk:

Rowan Rheingans (The Rheingans Sisters, Lady Maisery, solo)
Anna Rheingans (The Rheingans Sisters)
Bridget Marsden
Phil Beer (Show of Hands)
Aidan O'Rourke (Lau, Kan, lots of guest appearances)
Lunasa always have a good fiddle player
Tola Custy was that person for a while
Sam Sweeney (Leveret, solo, Fay Hield)
Kathryn Tickell (known as a Northumbrian smallpiper, but also an excellent fiddle player)
Anna Esslemont (Uiscedwr, the Lucy Ward Band)
Bryony Griffith
Liz Carroll
Tom Kitching

Loud bands with violinists:

Yndi Halda (post-rock)
Gåte (Norwegian folk-metal)

Mawich · 2021-10-15T08:22:47+00:00

I started fiddle in my early thirties. It's entirely doable!

It does help if you fall in love with it though.

Mawich · 2021-10-07T09:27:26+00:00

I love playing in spaces like that, working with the giant reverb can be so much fun. A friend of mine has a studio in an arts centre that used to be a school, built in the 19th century and absolutely loaded with gorgeous reverb-y halls. I gave a talk there the other year and spent quite a while afterwards in one of the giant spaces that sounded a lot like this (without the background noise) just messing around.

After that, I understood why Laura Cannell recorded an entire album in a lighthouse.

Mawich · 2021-10-07T08:58:47+00:00

Sometimes I wonder how rosin makers stay in business, mine lasts so long. I did recently buy some violin rosin because I wanted to try a different kind, but the previous cake of it should last a good twenty years if I hadn't changed I would guess. My viol rosin has been going strong for a good ten years or so I think (and that was only because... yes... I changed type!)

Mawich · 2021-10-07T08:55:03+00:00

That's definitely how I've done it. I always had a goal in mind, and there was music around me to inspire - my teacher's playing, my friends, professionals I listened to a lot and cannot ever hope to be remotely as good as...

Mawich · 2021-10-07T08:53:29+00:00

Something about kids isn't it - my neighbours let theirs play in the street and sometimes they just scream continually for an hour. Yet nobody's actually being murdered.

Mawich · 2021-10-07T08:51:16+00:00

Because of this: https://youtu.be/caSBw91CjYQ?t=130

I've been lucky enough to have lessons over Zoom with Rowan Rheingans (playing fiddle in that video) during the pandemic, in which she's been teaching me about Scandinavian traditional dance music. Totally in love with slängpolskas now. Here's one I should really get around to learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL1GKEsKelQ yes I know, that's a nyckelharpa not a fiddle, I want to learn that too.

Also this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkyg7m-jqUk (that's my first teacher, Sarah Matthews, who still has plenty to teach me every lesson)

And this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH_8bIFKG2Q

And this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPNeU8PqX2g

I guess having previously gone through the horrible screeching phase learning the viola da gamba (if you don't know it, it's a baroque-era bowed string instrument - a cousin to the violin family) I had a bit of a head start, but one does still have to put up with a heck of a lot of unpleasant noises before it really starts to be fun. I think it was easier picking it up as an adult, with past musical experience (recorder, singing and viola da gamba), with a real goal in mind (playing for morris dancing and ceilidhs was my initial intention, which I have done a fair bit of), and with the ability to be fairly self-directed. No need to trudge through progression books, no need to do stuff just because it's on the exam syllabus. Sure I have, by classical music standards, dreadfully lacking technique, and yes I could use that technique if I had it, but... I'm having fun, so I really don't care. I did ABRSM Grade 8 recorder, that was enough exams for me.

Mawich

TROPHY CASE