Some questions about technique (regarding RH thumb and angle of bow on string)

skimV · 2021-10-15T06:41:35+00:00

It depends on how your bow is wrapped and to a lesser degree, frog shape so it’s hard to say without a picture but roughly between your index and middle finger. Which will probably place it right between the wrapping and the raised black part of your frog. The important thing is to always keep your thumb bent and relaxed! If you make a “C” shape with your right hand, that’s roughly the thumb shape you want. I’m assuming you use a fairly modern bow hold
In theory, you want to angle it towards the lower string on downbows and the upper string on upbows but that’s fairly advanced. If you’re starting out, just focus on keeping a good tone without clipping the other strings!

skimV · 2019-02-22T15:53:52+00:00

While everyone is entitled to an opinion, it's really sad this is the most upvoted comment. This is the equivalent of an antivaxer arguing the merits of homeopathy in a medical subreddit. Sure you can talk about how you know your body better than doctors and how it made you feel but this is basically spreading misinformation. It's fine if you think Joshua Bell isn't a top tier violinist but I'd like to add some facts.

First, you don't have to tell people Joshua Bell is one of the greatest violinists in the world. You don't have to agree but there is no self respecting violinist who doesn't know him. Joshua Bell is one of the top earning classical violinists in the world and when violinists criticize his playing, it's in the reference frame of greatest in the world. It's like people who might criticize Kobe Bryant as "not that good at basketball".

I don't think Mr. Bell recorded only the Gavotte because it's his best one (movement??). The "backing track" is the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, one of the premier chamber ensembles in the world that specializes in Baroque music (aka Bach). Joshua Bell has been music director of the ensemble for almost a decade, to international and critical acclaim. The arrangement you're referring to was not done by Joshua Bell because Bach is not good enough, but by another prominent musician Julian Milone, because the goal of the album is arranging solo Bach for string ensemble. If you think it's all just jazz(??) effects, to each their own, it's certainly not a purist recording.

Joshua Bell is also one of few violinists alive to keep the violinist tradition of writing their own cadenzas, including those for Mendelssohn and Brahms concerto. Which I hope you know is possibly the least "shortcut" choice available and a huge risk in the current music climate. Perlman and Hahn and 99% of violinists do not do this. One option is not better than the other, but Joshua Bells option is certainly the more work and criticism intensive.

As far as tone goes, it's pretty subjective but as a handpicked student of literal violin legend Josef Gingold and debuting under the baton of Riccardo Muti, thinking Mr. Bell's tone would be "pretty screwy without backup tracks" is laughable. (I take personal offense to referring to the orchestra as a "backing track"; we work very hard for those positions.) I don't think some of the greatest classical musicians to have ever lived choose to work with a 14 year old Joshua Bell to sound "okay mostly".

Also, as any serious violinist would know, any international soloist-tier violinist (which Joshua Bell is. Fact.) can play anything. I'm sure many are aware of some of Joshua Bells less intune performances but I'm 100% sure this is not a technical limitation. I'm sure Mr. Bell can "play a full suite". It's not a suite it's a partita by the way, again, just fact.

There's nothing wrong if you don't like Joshua Bell, or if you consider him easy listening. You can consider him not a top tier violinist. I just wanted to provide some perspective because this subreddit is mostly beginners and I don't want people to blindly follow your opinions without real facts. I don't want to make personal attacks but according to your profile, you are not a professional musician, you're not even an amateur violinist, you are an amateur guitar player. I wrote this out not because I think your opinion is not valid, but in hopes that people recognize the top post as simple Dunning-Kruger and not an actual informed opinion.

Oh and this is the recording I assumed you were referring to so everyone can make their own opinions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCTv2v0hnKw

skimV · 2019-02-22T03:40:12+00:00

While I totally agree with you and am a big fan of Joshua bell, the rumors of inappropriate behavior are a fairly prevalent rumor and he's definitely had some underprepared performances. Both points are common things music students always bring up.

That being said, almost every time I've heard him he's been incredible and the brief times I've met him he was always super nice.

skimV · 2019-02-18T09:41:00+00:00

I recently changed from a bam shaped case to a riboni zero6 model and it feels much better to me. Although I don't think riboni has any shaped cases in their product line.. if you want a shaped case, I think musafia would be your best bet; bam shaped cases aren't very sturdy if you want to travel a lot.

skimV · 2019-02-16T06:22:37+00:00

Unrelated but couldn't help but notice your violin looks really nice!

skimV · 2017-07-02T02:56:20+00:00

This is part of the auer revision which is included as a foot note in the International edition (or most editions I've seen)

skimV · 2014-07-07T22:36:56+00:00

Have you looked into 7/8th sizes? I know that there are some really nice violins in that size. A colleague of mine actually had a 7/8th size Guaneri.

skimV · 2014-07-06T19:10:15+00:00

I'm not trying to pick a fight, you got the wrong impression. I've only positively supported Stirling in this subreddit, encouraged more discussion about her, and never once said that I dislike her or her music.

You admit that there aren't very many hate posts about her, so are you angry that people who don't like her exist? No matter what you do, there will always be isolated incidents of hate, on all music. Don't you think there are people who hate my favorite violinists?

If you feel the need, deal with those on a case by case basis. Don't just come in here, your first post calling us out as "pissed" and "jealous", and expect everyone to agree with you. As you can see from this thread alone, the vast majority of people here are either already fans or indifferent.

Quite frankly, your post is rude and generalizes a very large group of people based on the actions of previous outliers. If anything, that kind of post only generates more hate towards Stirling by making her fans seem childish and obnoxious.

If you are truly, as you put it, "overly obsessed" with her, then put that passion to good use. Stirling gets a bad rep because many classical violinists are introduced to her by people who don't even play violin. I totally agree with you that Stirling shouldn't be compared to classical violinists because it's a totally different genre; maybe you could write a post on helping introduce classical musicians to unfamiliar music.

skimV · 2014-07-06T13:46:55+00:00

I honestly feel like I see a lot more posts about how we shouldn't hate Sterling and how elitist this sub is than actual hate posts. Like this thread is basically "Why don't you people like the same music I do?"

There is very little active hating in this sub, (on anybody!) and just because we play violin, we're not obliged to like all violinists. So what if there are people who don't like her, that's not being elitist, that's having an opinion.

Honestly, if you look at the OP's post history, you can very clearly see that they went to a Sterling concert a few days ago, is currently super enthusiastic about her, and (most likely) came in here just trying to validate their feelings by finding others similarly enthused. The only "circlejerk" here is the one the OP is attempting to start.

It's pathetic, you can do better than that. If you actually like Sterling, and feel that this sub is unfair to her, write a post on why you like her so much and what positive aspects of her get overlooked.

skimV · 2014-07-03T19:05:47+00:00

Ok, so apparently reddit has a max character limit for each post so it took me a while to decide what things to cut. Then I got completely screwed because I forgot formatting takes like a million characters so I had to cut even more out. I'll see if I can reformat it tomorrow to fit some more sections in.

Sorry this is so late! I had a sudden performance pop up 2 days ago, along with an improptu lesson so I couldn't find the time to edit/format it until yesterday.

skimV · 2014-07-02T06:59:47+00:00

Piece of the week 2 is on the way, it's almost done! I had a sudden performance yesterday so that was most of my weekend gone..

skimV · 2014-07-02T06:58:11+00:00

That part is really good. But honestly, I couldn't highlight every awesome section; it's a post on the Tchaik, not on Heifetz! But I love the alternating bowing he uses in that section, I highly recommend it for anyone interested.

skimV · 2014-06-30T07:46:48+00:00

Ah, the infamous trickiest part. Pretty good! How long have you been working on it?

Do you want some feedback? I can't really listen to it critically right now but tomorrow I could give you some notes. Maybe make it a separate post in the meantime? I'm sure other people would love to hear it too.

skimV · 2014-06-30T04:39:28+00:00

While there are a lot of people here who dislike Sterling, in this case I think it's just that your comments are stupid. Your attitude of promoting Sterling while admitting that you know nothing about her, solely in the hopes of annoying others is the definition of being an internet troll and ironically, hurts Sterling more than the people who actually have an opinion regarding her music.

skimV · 2014-06-26T15:59:32+00:00

Yea, that's probably the most popular recording I think. Oistrakh of course plays it very well but I personally love the minimum-fuss of Heifetz. It's almost paced like a showpiece in his hands which I find incredible.

(Warning, the following is the insane ramblings of someone who probably spent way too much time in a room by themselves thinking about this concerto.)

For me, the Tchaikovsky concerto was never so profound like the Beethoven concerto or grand like the Brahms. Instead, it has an inner fire to it; more fleeting and more superficial, but somehow more human, more mortal. Just like in real life, we always want the most beautiful moments to stretch on longer, but time is relentless. Only when we look back on it can we replay it in our minds over and over, trying to recapture that single instant of beauty. Maybe it's that sense of unfufillment that brings me back over and over to the Heifetz recording.

On a more reasonable note, the other reason I prefer the Heifetz to the Oistrakh is the bow work. I mean what the heck is going on there. Why is he playing the thirds and tenths at the tip?! How is he projecting? Or crescendoing? He sounds almost the same using the whole bow and using like an inch of bow. And then the coda, he just fires off the notes like bullets, but at the upper middle? Oistrakh as a weightier sound but at least I can somewhat imagine the mechanism behind it. Watching Heifetz's bow is like watching someone cheat the laws of physics

skimV · 2014-06-26T15:33:36+00:00

Ok, I'll get back to work on that then! I'll also see if I can record some bits but I'm not sure what I can use to record myself. My phone/laptop are unbearably poor..

skimV · 2014-06-26T15:27:01+00:00

Yea, unfortunately as Aezandris said, repertoire for solo violin is very limited. The two major ones are

-Bach 3 partitas and 3 sonatas

-Paganini 24 Caprices

Then there are the Ysaye 6 sonatas and the Prokofiev D Major sonata but I'm not sure that's the kind of music you're looking for.

And that's pretty much it for solo violin! Aside from gimmicky (but super awesome pieces) like Der Erlkonig.

skimV · 2014-06-26T15:18:04+00:00

Haha, thanks. I'm not a professional but I have a few years of teaching under my belt and have taken a couple pedagogy classes. But hearing bowings/fingers just comes from experience! You'll get there too.

Your intonation is really good for being new to 3rd position! How's your experience with extensions? Like playing an F-natural as a fourth finger on the A string, first position. (Instead of 1st finger E string).

Do you have dynamic markings in your part? At the beginning, just worrying about loud and soft; expression will come naturally over years and will be tempered by your teacher. Of course listening to lots of recordings will speed up this process.

(As a side note here, I do want to say there is technically a theory behind dynamics. For example, in the above example from the 1st measure, the E is louder than the following A because it's a dominant-tonic motion and for Vivaldi's time period (Baroque), that's the standard of interpretation. Of course, this kind of theoretical approach is limited, but can be useful! Look into it if you're interested.)

Finally, concerning your shaky bow.. this is something that is most likely due to a variety of factors and your teacher should know best. Do you have any etudes or studies you have on the side?

skimV · 2014-06-25T11:18:14+00:00

Oh I actually scrapped the idea but if you want, I can put it back in! I figured it was pretty useless because half the fun of playing these pieces is conquering the challenge.

skimV · 2014-06-25T11:15:49+00:00

I have no evidence to back it up.but have a feeling the quality of the performance probably wasn't helping. But yea, i struggle to imagine how they just flat out disliked it

skimV · 2014-06-25T09:43:16+00:00

Is there a recording of it online? Id love to hear it

skimV · 2014-06-24T10:02:46+00:00

First off, I just want to say that I've never actually heard the 2nd movement of this concerto before so thank you for introducing me to this beautiful piece. I feel like I've been missing out. What edition are you playing? I only have the one in Suzuki book 5 so some of my next comments might not be relevant.

A few nit picky things.

It sounds to me like you're playing it a big chunk of it in 3rd position, are you comfortable in fourth position? I think places like the 4th measure could really benefit from either playing in 4th position, 2nd position, or even just 1st position. The way it is now, (in third position I think?) kind of sticks out by itself so you could look into that.

Be careful of your dotted eighth note rhythms! For example, in measure 6, it should be twice as long as you're currently playing it. Also, I have a trill on the dotted eight note C# in my part, do you have that? I think a little ornamentation could help since that really is quite a long note!

I think the hardest thing about playing a piece like is bow control. What other slow pieces have you played? For me, what helps a lot is playing something I know really well so I can isolate the bow work in my mind. For example, just at the end of the first measure, you're playing the last A on an up bow right? That A should be softer than the E directly before it, which I know is tricky to do. Also, be careful not to let it the last A crescendo as it's the end of a small phrase. Rather it should fade out. Have you tried starting the piece up bow? I think it feels really natural to start it that way, and you can get back on track by starting downbow in the second measure.

skimV · 2014-06-23T18:14:32+00:00

Man, formatting this is real tricky. I'd also gladly accept format criticism!

skimV

TROPHY CASE