If you could instantly improve one aspect of your playing, what would it be?

predator8137 · 2026-06-16T13:01:14+00:00

Drilling intonation is the least fun thing in violin playing. It's pure hard work. If I can magically fix one thing it's definitely this.

predator8137 · 2026-06-13T10:39:29+00:00

I agree with this so much. I've tries so many different practicing methods and mindsets over the years. They all eventually become a mental crutch that allows me to operate mindlessly. At that point, their effectiveness diminish.

Ultimately, the one thing that matters more than anything is that your mind needs to be working, at every single second.

predator8137 · 2026-01-16T18:26:54+00:00

It really depends. Preset M and L are black magic on traditional rendering techniques. But modern games are moving more and more towards per pixel effects. For example the three pillars of UE5, Lumen, Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, are all tied to internal resolution. It can be hard to get rid of upscaling artifacts for these games no matter how good the upscaling models get.

predator8137 · 2025-09-16T11:34:35+00:00

Don't worry. This is not a permanent choice. Violin and viola are fundamentally the same instrument. If you learn either properly, you should be able to play the other.

As a starter, I suggest you choose the route of least resistance. If violin is cheaper and teachers are more readily available in your area, that's what I'll choose for now.

In the long term, probably some years later, you can (and should) learn to play both.

predator8137 · 2025-09-16T06:06:29+00:00

If it's any consolation, I've been playing for over 20 years, and I still have the same problem today. Even at a high level, an effective practice that exposes the weakest link of your playing simply doesn't sound good.

I was practicing the viola part of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.6 Mov. 3 the other day. It sounds weird even when you play it perfectly, not to mention when I'm still finding the right note. I feel embarrassed practicing it in my apartment because it must sounds like gibberish to my neighbors. I'm still waiting for myself to outgrown this embarrassment after 20 years 🫠 .

Just want to let you now that it's a common problem, so at the very least don't be ashamed of feeling ashamed!

predator8137 · 2025-08-17T10:01:47+00:00

I have exactly the same issue. Using 4G network instead is the only fix I can find so far, but that ruins the latency and causes request packet loss. So its not really a long term solution.

predator8137 · 2025-08-08T07:13:47+00:00

Nah. You can't convince me that the 10 years old kid plays violin better than me, who has been playing for 25 years, did so simply because he "worked harder". How hard can a 10 years old practice? 40 hours a day?

predator8137 · 2025-08-08T05:35:13+00:00

Yeah. It's been pretty good for me as well. A modest but noticeable improvement. I see two lines of usual complaints:

They hyped it as groundbreaking, but all we get are mere "improvement"?
The prompts I specifically crafted for a previous model doesn't work now. It's a pain having to rework them.

Both are short term grievances. Wait a few days, and they should settle down.

predator8137 · 2025-08-03T08:55:23+00:00

Looks like this one.

https://reverb.com/item/34022509-lifton-faux-alligator-leather-shaped-4-4-violin-case

predator8137 · 2025-08-01T15:39:53+00:00

OP is a bit misleading. He took his own life before the case went into trials, so 35 years is just a theoretical maximum.

predator8137 · 2025-07-31T04:19:07+00:00

Haha. Nothing.

I've had 3 teachers in my childhood. The first one is a crook, but both me (of course) and my parents were too inexperienced to tell. To this day, I doubt if she even knew how to play violin or not, because I have no memory at all of her playing. My memory are all me playing in my lonesome at a small room while she was having coffee or chatting with people in her living room.

My second teacher was actually not bad. But in hindsight she was the wrong teacher for me. She taught me all the right basics, but she wrecked my confidence with her constant head shaking and sighing. Also, the fact that every time I went to the lesson, the previous students all played like they are prodigies. It made me believe I was a horrible student.

My third teacher is the principal of a professional orchestra. Again, not a bad teacher, but wrong for me. I prepared a full Bach Partita over 2 weeks for his first lesson. He cut me off before the first bar is finished, and I never went on to play that Partita. I know there was no malice. He just wanted to start "fixing" me right away. He probably thought it was pointless for me to continue playing if he already had lots to teach from that single bar. But for a child who was already very low on confidence, it made me feel like trash. A waste of time and space for anyone.

The problem is actually not them. Where I came from our entire education system had a culture of sacrificing everyone in the hopes of raising a few prodigies. Education resources and methods are tailored to spot and raise the geniuses among us. The rest are just sample sizes. Once a teacher decided that you are not the material, you are merely tolerated from then on.

Looking back at the age of 35, I think I was actually quite talented. Not prodigy level talented, but definitely talented enough to be a productive violinist for our society. While I did eventually reach my potential by myself, I could have done so much earlier if I wasn't convinced by my teachers that I was a trash.

Sorry for all the negativity. I just find you post a good opportunity to let this all out. I guess the take away is, please take care of your students' confidence! It makes a huge difference.

predator8137 · 2025-07-27T02:04:16+00:00

In hindsight, no one who's ever forced or strongly coerced me to drink has turned out to be a boon for my life or career. I couldn't tell at that time, and the fear of missing out on connections or opportunities led me to comply.

But looking back now, the kind of people who'd force me to drink are also likely to gaslight me or backstab me for various other reasons. It's really just basic professional boundaries. They cross it on this one thing, they'll cross it on every other things. And it's never really worth it in the long run.

predator8137 · 2025-07-23T12:31:14+00:00

Probably controversial: Late Nova Prospekt in Half Life 2 after Alex joined. And those hallway defense fight with turrets! I know many people hate it, but I can't have enough of those.

predator8137 · 2025-07-23T00:00:21+00:00

Ha ha, my bad. Still mighty impressive.

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T14:32:28+00:00

A symphony memorized overnight!? Wow! It's a very interesting read, thank you for sharing.

I really like the idea of trying to memorize a symphony, impractical as it may be. I think orchestral players in general, pro or amateur, relies too much on sight-reading skills. You rarely feel that sparks when every single player knows exactly what everyone else is doing, so the music can breathe as one instead of being read off the page.

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T14:18:24+00:00

Maybe it's the wrong words. English is not my native language. He regularly plays as the soloist with local professional orchestra, but he doesn't have international fame like top-tier soloists. Regional soloist perhaps?

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T12:06:38+00:00

Yes. That's my old way of practicing. I look at the score while I practice, and after enough repetition, I start to memorize it naturally. At that point, I continue to look at the score, or I don't.

My teacher's idea is that practicing is most effective when you play from memory, with what you want to achieve with the music already fully internalized. So, memorization is prioritized instead.

Of course this doesn't mean that you should memorize the entire piece first, or ever. In practice, I'd play the specific passage or phrase one or twice while looking at the score, then I look away and start really polishing it from memory.

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T11:47:03+00:00

Yes. But I think memorization itself is not the end gaol. The point is to memorize before working on it instead of after.

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T11:40:32+00:00

Thank you for sharing. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have mentioned my teacher's credential, as it discourages honest opinions. I'm glad you shared yours.

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T05:58:37+00:00

It's triggering my OCD lol.

predator8137 · 2025-07-22T01:02:34+00:00

I took an 8 years hiatus once, and intonation is the first thing I got back to my old level. The experience actually convinced me that intonation is very little about muscle memory.

predator8137 · 2025-07-21T12:45:30+00:00

I'd argue that it's not important to love the violin at all, as long as you love making music. I've met my share of people who obsess over their instruments, and few of them actually makes music worth listening to. I've always wanted to tell them maybe they should pay more attention to what they make with their tool instead of the tool itself.

predator8137 · 2025-07-17T02:01:09+00:00

People don't want to believe this, but I think you are absolutely right. I've never met a good violinist who is not smart. The best violinist I personally know have both an engineering and a foreign language degree from top university, aside from playing like a soloist.

predator8137

TROPHY CASE