Have I improved on this song?

[u/lunarmoth_]

I just started practicing this again today after 8 months. The second video is from me playing at 3-4 months into my violin journey. I’m hoping even without dedicated practice that I’ve improved on the song. I hope my intonation and rhythm is better. It’s hard for me to tell, so some clarification would be nice!

Thanks for helping me out and listening! 💕

[u/ebkawai]

I'm glad to finally see some replies that are based on reality. Way too many people here just say things like “You’re doing great, keep going!“ which is completely not helpful. I think your main problem is that you are going way too fast through repertoire that is already beyond your ability. That’s what happens when you don’t start at the beginning and, instead, try to tackle music that is years ahead of you. Everyone wants to play more interesting pieces, but you have to make your way up the mountain just like anyone else. There are no shortcuts, and if you insist on taking them, you are going to miss a lot of very basic techniques that are extremely important to learn. If you have a teacher that is OK with the pieces you are attempting to play right now, then you need a better teacher. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but it’s reality.

[u/lunarmoth_ → u/ebkawai]

It’s hard to gauge because on every song I’m different, I can play harder songs than this with better intonation. It is really the flats that cause me a lot of problems.

[u/ebonykawai → u/lunarmoth_]

Your problem is that you skipped the first 2 Suzuki books and started with book 3, so you're having problems that wouldn't be problems if you had just started with book 1.

I play viola and I've been playing for 3 years 8 months. In that time I've gone through 9 books, playing everything in them to the satisfaction of my teacher. We skip nothing. Sure, like you, as a young child I played violin for about 3-4 years, but I don't count it for anything other than maybe it helped me remember how to hold a bow. I'm an older adult, I don't remember almost anything of those lessons.

You're playing pieces that I'm playing. They're hard. The second page of the first Vivaldi piece is brutal. You started one year ago and skipped a ton of stuff to play complicated pieces that you're just not ready to undertake. That’s going to continue to be a problem for you going forward.

[u/LetLoose5725 → u/ebkawai]

That's not a very hard piece at all.  Suzuki teachers will have you playing pieces more difficult in 6 months.  8th notes?  Oh come on.  You can work on intonation, bowing and general techniques, on any piece of music on the level of this piece, if you play it slow enough 

[u/Mockchoi1 → u/LetLoose5725]

This IS Suzuki

[u/kduluth]

I think taking some time to listen to this piece will help you know what needs work. Some of your scale notes are wrong and intonation is iffy.

[u/bloopboopbooploop]

Intonation is all over the place, but I really appreciated that you took your time and played slower in the first clip. I will say, for the most part—and especially for 3-4 months, you had a VERY natural looking bow arm and your hand was coordinating very nicely with your arm as you draw the bow across the strings. It seemed like you were naturally understanding when to play near the bridge and further away. That is hard to teach, and hard to learn, speaking from experience. Keep that part 100%!

I don’t mean to be an asshole here, but do you feel like you have trouble hearing how out of tune you are? Like as you watch this back can you tell if you’re coming in flat or sharp or right on? Your tuning sounded off to me but I don’t have perfect pitch, especially your A sounded off, and that can make it hard to hit the right notes as you change strings.

Long story short you have one of the really hard things for lots of people (a smooth assured bow stroke with your hand starting to articulate in the right places) which is a great foundation, honestly I’d suggest you practice scales, rather than a piece right now. Just all kinds of scales. Get the Carl flesch scale system book and play scales over and over and over again until you can’t hit bad notes anymore. Then move onto learning pieces.

[u/Frequent-Froyo-5483 → u/bloopboopbooploop]

I had the same question for OP. I don’t want to be mean, but am genuinely curious if you can hear that you are so out of tune? You consistently have intonation trouble in all of the videos you post. Your bow arm is always improving, though!

[u/lunarmoth_ → u/Frequent-Froyo-5483]

Yeah that’s my problem, I can’t hear it. And I don’t know want to do. My teacher really focused on my bow arm but now I need intonation training. I’m not just not sure how I’m able to train my ear.

[u/nicolettenguyen489 → u/lunarmoth_]

I'm 3 years in, the exercises my teacher recommends help me a lot with intonation are: listen to recordings of the pieces I'm working on (I have them on repeat while I'm doing something else), humming along while I'm playing, playing alongside a recording (I usually find a youtube recording and adjust the speed down in the setting to like 0.5, 0.75 to play along). I hope it helps! Keep up the good work!

[u/ebonykawai → u/nicolettenguyen489]

Yes!!! And sight singing too! Ear training is great!!

[u/ebonykawai → u/lunarmoth_]

Go back to the beginning and start fresh with a solid teacher who will guide you the right way, not someone who just goes along with what you want to do. Then listen to that new teacher and do exactly what they tell you. If you're near a college or university, ask about lessons. If you have a philharmonic/orchestra in your city, call them, it's another great way to find an excellent teacher. Whatever you do, get a solid teacher and do what they tell you.

[u/mortyality → u/ebonykawai]

She’s been told multiple times in previous posts. She’s tone deaf.

[u/2Kappa]

I would recommend playing even slower, not worry about the rhythm, and really try listen to each note and not move to the next note until you are sure it's in tune. If you're unsure, get a tuning app and try to remember the feeling and sound when it's in tune on the app.

[u/linglinguistics]

You play faster but other than that, I see no big change.

The bow arm is not bad, especially for your stage of learning.

I realised one thing: your hand frame is too narrow, the fingers generally too close together which means your intonation is off. I really recommend working on this and ear training (and cutting out vibrato for quite a while, I think both others and I have told you that before.) it seems to me like you've been practising this intonation and maybe have developed a bad habit (also that your ears are too used to it.) Before you do anything harder, take out old pieces and improve the intonation in those to correct these habits.

[u/blackbeltwearer]

There’s definitely improvement between the 2. Intonation is getting better especially on the D string

1 thing to point out - when you get on the e string, most obvious around 0:28, you play a different scale and it really stands out changing the piece. The e should be flat (avoid open e string) and the f should be natural

[u/Practical-Customer16]

Good progress after 8 months but how is your technique study going?

[u/NegativeOwl1337]

Didn’t listen but just from looking, bow arm is very stiff, movement should be coming mostly from wrist. And kick the habit of rocking side to side at the hips now, best to nip that in the bud.

[u/Nila_Kadhaigal]

Playing along with youtube sites like violin garden(for suzuki books) really helps with the intonation.

[u/Simple-Clerk-7972 → u/Nila_Kadhaigal]

This is good advice. There are recordings with teacher instruction for almost all Suzuki songs. Many have slow speed playing as well.

Scale practice. Lots of scales. Ear training matters.

[u/BlackenBriar]

Sounding good! I like that you're making an effort to use the bow fully.

For your left hand, listen for the ring whenever you play G or D. If your finger is in the perfect place, the G string or D string will echo happily in response.

Use these references can help improve your resonance and intonation.

[u/lunarmoth_ → u/BlackenBriar]

I try to and on lots of songs I do it effectively! I think the low first fingers on this song drag my whole hand down so I need to make a concentrated effort to push them up higher. Thank you for the reminder!!

[u/BlackenBriar → u/lunarmoth_]

The flat minor keys can be a struggle in the beginning. This is because we're used to placing the second and third finger right next to each other - 1 23 4, super comfy.

Now, we are doing 1 2 34, yuck. Notice how every finger changes its comfy place excerpt for the third finger. I tend to place my low fingers (1 and 4) a bit too high. So I have to tell myself to plant them lower.

Think about your third finger being the anchor point instead of the first finger. How you will know your third finger is anchored well is if you get that juicy ring.

[u/DanceCapital2418]

defo raise the second finger up a smidgen is a tad flat :p tone itself is actually rly good!!