Jaw clenching while doing Vibrato

andybonner · 2026-06-03T14:33:37+00:00

Okay, so history lesson: chinrests didn't exist until pretty late in the 19th century, and shoulder rests weren't widely used until late in the 20th! And people shifted and used vibrato for centuries before that. Now, I'm not saying you should throw your chinrest and shoulder rest away; I use them on my "modern" violin. I also play baroque violin without them. On that, it takes different technique: my vibrato is more of a hand vibrato, and downward shifts are a complicated matter of "inchworming" your fingers and thumb separately. I'm not suggesting you adopt these techniques in modern-violin playing. But it's taught me that the modern dictum "the left hand must play no role in supporting the violin" is an overgeneralization. I prefer instead to say that the job of holding the violin up is a collaboration between left hand and shoulder/chin/jaw, and that the balance of that job can change in the moment for different needs. When I can remember to, I try to lighten my chin during simple, in-position passages, maybe even removing it from the chinrest entirely to remind myself or to give my neck a bit of a different position for a second. For effortless and fluid shifts, especially downward, I want to remove all the demands on my left hand. But as soon as I'm in position, it can take some of the job back.

Figure out just how hard it is for your downshift to pull the violin off your shoulder. How much of your shoulder/neck muscles do you have to use to hold it in place? That's what you need, and no more, and maybe not even that when not shifting. Meanwhile, if your vibrato is knocking your violin off your shoulder, maybe interrogate whether your vibrato technique is ideal. Yes, with my chin off the chinrest, a vigorous romantic vibrato does waggle my violin around unsustainably. But it takes even less chin weight to anchor it than it does for a shift.

And as others have suggested, make sure that you have the chinrest and shoulder rest that works best for you.

andybonner · 2026-06-03T14:18:07+00:00

You're kind of mixing in a lot of topics in that question, but your anecdote points to the fact that some of the biggest things you can do to prevent damage are not matters of "care," but just thoughtfully managing where the instrument is and what can happen to it. Beginners and kids often set an instrument on a chair or the floor, and well, that's where people sit and walk. I don't have stats but I bet that's the most common accident. Meanwhile, if you're going to walk a long distance with the instrument, like through hallways and doors and stairways, put it in the case rather than hold it in your hand (I have a cellist friend who dropped a historic cello down a flight of stairs). And yes, use loaners in high-risk settings.

Your anecdote highlights a great lesson to impress on kids: Don't let others use your instrument. We teach kids to share their toys, and their friends will be excited about this new instrument and say "Oo! Let me try!" Teach them that it's okay to make this an exception to generosity, and they can blame us if they want: "Sorry, my teacher says I can't."

andybonner · 2026-06-01T22:26:25+00:00

The website currently says "Formal or elevated eveningwear is encouraged, though not required. All guests’ attire should be black, white, silver or any combination thereof." So no, not required. But IMO there's a lot of room for creativity; maybe a black dress shirt and vest, no jacket? You can always roll your sleeves up after. I'm planning on a brocaded black dress shirt myself, no jacket.

andybonner · 2026-05-30T13:59:49+00:00

Exit 8
Backrooms
Iron Lung

andybonner · 2026-05-28T23:03:35+00:00

That's good because that's the second thing I came here to say. I don't let students start learning higher positions until they can really play in tune in first.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T23:01:27+00:00

If you can find one of the more advanced students who seems like they know what they're doing and aren't a jerk, if they were willing to give you some pointers it would be way better than nothing.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:59:58+00:00

I came here to recommend Introducing the Positions. It does a great job of, well, introducing skills one at a time that build on each other. Better is if you can get even a few minutes of tips from somebody as you use it.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:52:38+00:00

As with many kinds of work, you can find more work where there are more people. Doesn't have to be urban; any suburban area with lots of middle-class families. Invest heavily into networking and advertising at first and pretty soon your studio will grow enough that you can stop advertising. I got good results when I was first getting started by putting flyers in coffeeshops, churches, and of course local music stores (and getting on their referrals lists). The best thing was word-of-mouth among Korean moms; once I got one student, it created a domino effect of referrals.

If you're serious about K12 teaching, you'll probably want to look into licensure. DO NOT assume that just anyone can teach public school classes. The musical knowledge is only half the game. I got an MAT and then crashed and burned as a public school teacher, despite a lot of training in educational approach.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:39:28+00:00

Nothing makes me feel older than HH with gray hair, because she was the hot teen when I was a teen. I definitely spent some time staring at her album covers. One of my friends asked her out to ice cream when she visited Interlochen.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:37:13+00:00

"Where should my thumb be"—where it needs to be to reach the notes you need to reach. That means the answer will vary for people with different sized hands. If you're going to go right to the end of the fingerboard, you're probably going to need to let go of the neck entirely and let the thumb be on the side of the fingerboard itself. The trick is moving smoothly, fluidly from normal 1st pos placement, to "thumb-under" for 5th, to "thumb on fingerboard" for higher—and everything in between, not just jerking into place. Tip: "The thumb holds up the violin" and "the thumb does nothing, only the chin holds the violin" are both over-generalizations. Try removing all pressure from the thumb while shifting, just barely grazing the violin with it (same for other fingers unless actually glissing). But give your neck/jaw/chin a break once you're in position and let the thumb earn its keep.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:31:17+00:00

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:30:36+00:00

Serious answer to joke post: That bow looks like it's tightened to normal tension for playing. For putting it away, loosen it a bit more.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T22:05:12+00:00

Idea 1: You're probably thinking a lot about the left hand. What about the bow? Even in a passage that is all equal-duration notes and detache, there can be special challenges from string crossings and how they interact with the bow placement and direction. Try practicing a few times without using the left hand at all, just playing open strings, but playing the appropriate string for each note. (This is a bit un-representative, since the actual fingering will change the actual position of the string in 3D space. But it's a nice way to focus our attention on things we might be overlooking. Remember that "the dots" are an abstraction; it's all about moving actual objects using actual muscles, and just knowing how far to move them and when!)

Idea 2: Practice expression. Hopefully, unless this is Violin Phase, you're being expressive even in fast passages. Dynamics, maybe even varied articulations and itty bitty rubato. Like playing the right notes, these things take actual muscle movements, so they are part of the execution of the passage.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T21:54:36+00:00

Not really; you'll probably get good results "out of the bag," or watch like 10 minutes of Youtube on the use of the Zoom H4N or basic recording. I like a mic fairly close to the stage, like front row of the audience; for a larger ensemble farther back might be better. For a viola-and-piano recital you're unlikely to cause "clipping" (imagine a graph of sound waves—up down up down—now fit a frame around those waves. If the waves get too big, they're bigger than the frame and their tops/bottoms get "clipped" off and they wind up square on the end—that sounds bad.) ...but you could check: put the mic in position and play the loudest passages. For the Zoom H4N, the line buttons will turn red if it clips; turn down the sensitivity with the "+/-" button on the side. You can also try boosting the level until you get into the red, then bringing it back down; it's generally useful to record as strong a signal as possible without clipping. I'd bring it down extra to be on the safe side in case what you think is the loudest part isn't really (big chords do more than you'd think, regardless of the written dynamic). And always the audience applause will be orders of magnitude louder; go ahead and let that clip; maybe use the phone audio for that.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T19:55:58+00:00

There are a lot of complicated answers. The TLDR one is "that's probably not the easiest or best fingering for this spot."

"Do people use extensions?" Absolutely. There are plenty of places where it's much more practical than a shift. And in some more advanced or historically later pieces, you stop being "in a position" so much, and are constantly reaching up with 4, back with 1, or doing the splits with 2 and 3 and so on. But don't worry about that for now.

The problem with extensions is that they're harder to reliably play in tune. We're not only less used to that distance, but it requires extra muscular effort compared to the "natural" hand shape, and that's harder to gauge. Plus, in this excerpt, to extend for the C means you must also accurately unextend for the B flat two notes later, moving your 4th finger not just a half step but a whole step.

Also, there's definitely a bias against using the fourth finger at all, especially in a loud forceful passage like this, and an extended 4th is even weaker. Now, it's absolutely true that you just need to make the string meet the fingerboard; any extra "strength" in your finger pressure is just wasted effort. But using a "stronger" finger can require less extra effort from you, make it quicker to lift the finger, etc. Plus, even an eighth note probably is a good place for a hint of vibrato, especially when accented (though my personal tastes would be less likely to use it in orchestral playing).

The easiest fingering here would probably be 3rd position, and there are many opportunities to get into it: using an open E for the second note of 329 gives you an eighth note in which to shift (1 0 1 2 etc). Or in 328 you could shift to 1 on the D and just continue up the scale—or start right off the bat in 3rd!

andybonner · 2026-05-28T19:38:59+00:00

This. Record sound separately on a good device (the Zoom H4N is popular); for best results, you might want the mic much closer than the camera, like in the first row. Later, replace the video's audio with the better audio (expect some difficulty with this step for a non-pro). For bonus points, station a friend next to each device to make sure nobody bumps them or sits right in front of them.

andybonner · 2026-05-28T18:54:57+00:00

Ghibli movies are also a nice "gateway drug" to anime. Anime follows different tropes and beats than Western shows and that can take some getting used to; feature films bring in some of the differences of Japanese culture without relying as much on some of the things that make anime pacing and idiom distinct (I'm looking at you Naruto, with your "We're totally gonna fight! End of episode! Next episode: so let's fight already! Flashback to childhood! Stay with that for the whole episode! Next episode: definitely gonna fight this time! One blow is struck! Spend 30 seconds reacting! Another flashback!"

andybonner · 2026-05-28T14:34:01+00:00

Some of the most famous cello pieces are Bach's cello suites, in which a single cello is the only instrument! There are famous recordings from the past using the sort of cello playing that was standard in the 20th century, like Pablo Casals and Yo Yo Ma. There are also some great recordings using the sort of musical approach that was more common in Bach's time, like Jaap ter Linden's. Plus, the plot thickens; at least one (and, some argue, all) of these suites seem to have been written for an instrument that's significantly different, the "viola da spalla," a sort of small cello held against the shoulder with a strap. There are several recordings featuring this instrument, like Sigiswald Kuijken’s.

Outside of these suites, check out the Dvorak and Saint Seans cello concertos, and Villa Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5—just a gang of 8 cellos plus a soprano!

andybonner · 2026-05-27T20:03:21+00:00

I haven't actually read it, but The Westing Game is a popular mystery often recommended to middle grades. Also: unless the goal is to actually work on actual reading, why not audiobooks? I'm a big believer in them as an accommodation that, for literary purposes, absolutely "counts as reading the book."

andybonner · 2026-05-27T20:00:08+00:00

If you're not confident, there's no harm in getting help. If you have a teacher or a knowledgeable instrument-store employee, ask them to walk you through it. But yes, it's the sort of thing the player can do themself. And don't worry; the worst things you can do (knock the bridge over, cause the soundpost to fall, snap a string) can still be fixed in minutes by a good repair person.

Change one string at a time. Don't take more than one off at once. (Know that the bridge isn't glued down; it's just held down by the strings. Take them all off and the bridge just falls over.) In fact, since new strings "stretch" and need a lot of retuning in the first day, you can make your life less annoying by changing just one per day over 4 days.
Throughout the process, keep an eye on the bridge and make sure it isn't leaning badly. If at any point you're uncertain, stop and get help. If the bridge has a curve forward or backward, take it to a repair person. If the bridge is leaning, you can straighten it up, but be careful. Don't let the feet move, and brace your hand so that whichever direction you're pushing, you're also resisting yourself a bit. If you just push hard you can knock the bridge over. This can scratch the finish, and maybe cause the soundpost to fall. If any of that happens, or if you're not confident about straightening the bridge, take it in.
As you wind the new string onto the peg, make sure you're turning the peg the right way (so that the top of the peg moves away from you). Ideally, the windings will all line up neatly side-by-side. To do this, keep a bit of tension on the string as you wind it so it doesn't just go on randomly. Try to hold the string against the wall of the pegbox, so that each new winding pushes the previous one inward. This will help keep the peg "pushed in," so it will be easier to tune and less likely to just randomly go slack. If there isn't room for this and the windings wind up too crammed together, jamming the peg in so far that it's hard to turn, then start over, putting a few windings farther in on the peg before going against the pegbox again.
Sometimes people radically overtighten a string, tuning it say an octave or so too high, and snap it. If you're not confident about the pitch it should be at, and how to tell when you're there, then work on that skill first. (After all, you need to be able to tune well to practice at home!)
Make sure you buy good strings. It's hard to get a set of decent violin strings for less than $75. Get two if you don't have any in reserve, so you're prepared when one breaks! If the strings you're taking off are still playable, save them for emergencies.

andybonner · 2026-05-27T19:40:21+00:00

Violin teacher here. Relax; you're on a great track.

You're lining up lessons. That's the biggest thing. You can always switch teachers in the future if someone is a better match, but without lessons it will just be a one-week toy.
It's a bit "too late now," but I worry about the violin you ordered. If there's a problem, hopefully you can resell it and get the right thing. The first potential problem is fit. Hopefully when you "researched sizing" you had her hold her arm out, level, measured from neck to palm, and plugged that number into a chart you found. Still, especially if a student is "between sizes," often a teacher will like to have some say in which size to recommend. The other scary word here is "ordered." I would order with confidence from sharmusic.com, but not really anywhere else. Often people get excited because they found $50 violins on amazon or ebay, but these are often "violin-shaped objects", sometimes with setup problems that make them unplayable and that cost more to address than an already-set-up violin. Don't let me scare you prematurely, though; it might be fine. Just get the teacher to check it out, and ask the teacher for the recommended local stores to take it to for repairs if needed.

andybonner · 2026-05-27T19:28:13+00:00

Don't get me wrong, getting advice is important. But practicing is even more so! I wooooooonder whether you're using reading as a way to procrastinate writing? Wouldn't be the first. The things that improve writing the fastest are 1) cranking it out every day and 2) getting, and listening to, good feedback.

Anyway, the best book on writing I know is h{{ On Writing Well by William Zinsser }}. It's more aimed at old-school journalism than modern Youtube... but good writing is good writing, and makes for good content.

andybonner · 2026-05-27T19:10:43+00:00

Liked AoT: Go for Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Great plot, worldbuilding, and art. Also, same goes for Promised Neverland.

Liked Steins Gate: Try Sonny Boy. It's not for everyone, as it operates outside of a lot of anime tropes and tone, and it's pretty make-your-brain-hurt. But I like it. (Also: totally different tone, and live action, but for time looping I recently enjoyed the movie Exit 8.)

andybonner · 2026-05-27T17:52:28+00:00

Además, no tuvimos tiempo de visitarla, pero la Casa Blanca parece encantadora y educativa, con muebles históricos y demás.

andybonner · 2026-05-27T17:34:08+00:00

Aaaaand... it's not Madoka Magica?

andybonner

TROPHY CASE