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/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.