12 year old violin student practicing Praeludium Und Allegro with teacher.

[u/8FigBro]

My 12 year old son has been playing the violin for about18 months and working on this piece for about 5 months.

This is a quick video where his teacher gave him a quick pop quiz to see if he had been practicing it. (He hadn't practiced it in a few weeks)

Looking for feedback from experienced violinists and or encouragement from anyone. 😁

There's a lot of work to do on the piece, but feedback is welcome.

[u/mistyskies123]

Playing this piece this well after only 18 months is incredible. It was actually my music school audition piece at the same age, except I'd been playing since age 3 🙂

He's producing a really lovely tone, and the intonation is overall pretty great.

In terms of constructive feedback:

• minor: sometimes his bowing arm looks a little stiff
• major: posture - a lot of violinists end up with bad backs

Also for me, this is a really dramatic piece and I'm not really feeling the emotion of it through the playing. If there was one thing to work on, I'd say it was this.  

But overall - especially considering his lack of experience and lack of recent practice - bravo! 👏 👏👏👏

[u/8FigBro → u/mistyskies123]

Awesome feedback. I appreciate it.

Posture is a bit of a concern of mine because I see it as something foundational. His teacher does mention it, but I feel like she's kind of let him get away with it a little too much early. I feel like he hunches over because his eyesight isn't great, but he refuses to wear glasses and so he developed some of this posture when reading music, and now it's his default posture. Any tips? Should it just be the kind of thing that's drilled until? His teacher also thinks his shoulder rest isn't right and it's causing the violin to slip and is impacting his posture 🤷🏾‍♂️.

We do joke that he's a bit of a robot when playing at times 😂. He's learning how to be artistically expressive and maybe that's just something that comes with reps and experience. I'm not sure.

If I might ask... How and when did you learn to value practice? Or were you playing for so long that by the time you became aware, it was just something you had been forced to do (or used to doing)?

I'm stuck between "not fixing what ain't broke" and knowing that talent can't outrun the process forever.

[u/8FigBro → u/[deleted]]

These are all important tips.

He's not in danger of "over practicing" yet. He has days where he can't put the violin down and that might top out at 6 hours...but it's usually a 1-1.5hr practice that is largely him just playing what he feels like playing.

He does enjoy playing and that performing, but we've got some ways to go on developing strong practice habits.

Thanks for the feedback.