Practicing plan

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The only person who can learn to play violin is yourself. It takes time and you need some motivation.

Make attainable goals like

  1. I want to be able to make one stroke on a loose string that sounds nice
  2. I want to be able to hold the violin and play a note and still relax.
  3. I want to enjoy playing this melody
  4. I want to practice every day, not because I force myself to practice, but because I enjoy practicing
  5. I want other people to enjoy listening to me
  6. I want to be able to play with other nuisance
  7. I want to be able to keep the rhythm
  8. I want to be able to play in tune
  9. I want to be able to learn my favorite tune from a record.
  10. I want to be good enough to go into a bar and play a melody without and the audience will not stop me
  11. I want to be able to play for strangers in a bar, and after I have played they will ask for more
  12. I want to be able to play solo on a stage at....

Please note that above goals are gradually increasing.

Don't force yourself to progress. Some people learn faster than other people. I cannot put a pace that suits everybody. Don't practice too much in the start. Make sure that you have learnt a melody well before you go on to the next.

This course contains following practicing material

 

Try to practice every day. Some people may only have time to practice once a week. Then do that, but don't expect fast progress that way.

Start with 5 minutes and then increase to about 15 minutes. After a couple of month time you may increase to half an hour. (But you can also do less) After a year you may increase to an hour. Buy a good sordine so you can practice without bothering the rest of your family.

In the start you will probably work a week on each tune. I strongly recommend you not to jump to next tune until you have learnt a tune (unless you don't like the tune and decide that you don't want to learn the tune now, then you are of course allowed to skip).

Once you have learnt a tune by heart, you have probably not learnt the tune well enough. Now you should start working with your expression. Try different approaches and put the stress different places. If you have a favorite artist playing the tune on CD. Try to copy him. A good idea is to use ear phones and put a sordine, play the tune while actually hearing the artist playing. Where are the differences between him(or her) and you. How can you copy him exactly. Once you can copy him exactly you may want to develop your own style, or you just want to keep the style of your famous artist.

After you have learnt the next couple of tunes: keep coming back to the tunes that you have learnt. It is a good idea to have one or two favorites, that you keep coming back to practicing and playing. That is the tune that you will start your performance with. It is good to start up with something that you know for 100%. Another advantage of having a favorite tune is that you may use it for improving your technique.

Stand in front of the mirror and concentrate on just one think while playing your favorite tune. It may be keeping the rhythm, holding the bow right. Putting your elbow forward or something else. The important think is that while you know the melody, you can concentrate on the technique you want to learn.

The advantage with the 15 Scandinavian tunes is that they are fairly simple. Don't challenge yourself with too complicated music in the start. When you go on you should of course increase your style. You don't have to learn all 15 Scandinavian tunes, pick the ones you like, or find some other music that you want to practice. There are plenty of sources for music. By a CD. Find a teacher. Find some friends that play and learn melodies from them, or make your own music.

If you are interested in jazz music you should definitely buy Band-in-a-box and start improvising.

 

 

 

 

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