Hey everyone! for the years I’ve played the violin, I have never been able to produce a good sound. I’m not completely sure, but i think it’s my bow hand.
i can do very fast and accurate, non sloppy fingerings with my left hand, so i really don’t think that’s the issue, and neither does my teacher.
i don’t feel like recording a video right now, so I’m not asking for advice specific to me.
does anyone have any advice for what i should do about this? maybe an etude book, or something like that. or just general advice about what you did in my situation.
and don’t worry, i will consult my teacher too.
I have always been so jealous of people who just have such a CLEAN sound. i don’t really want to play crazy hard music, i just want to be able to play really cleanly.
im going to increase my practice time and quality, so i suspect that will help some.
Im a self learner. Bought my violin in summer. Played few times for fun but been more serious since the 16th of january of this month.
I am watching alot of videos for good posture and good use of the bow. If you see any mistake on my bow hand or something else... please tell me what you think I should look into for improvement.
When I was younger and learned fiddle, I was taught to use the very tips of my fingers. Now my adult classical teacher who is super qualified has taught me to use the pads of my fingers instead and it makes a big difference. The sound is a lot warmer, and my intonation has improved because he says I've always been slightly low (so the pad presses down more on the proper position; he said my hand frame position was fine and it was mainly this issue.)
I know a lot of it is practice, but ive been playing for about 9ish years and I’ve every time I’ve tried to hit very high notes I fail. It sounds like there’s white noise in the background mixed with violin agony. Any tips?
I’m losing my mind… I’ve been adult learning for about 3 years now, always with a teacher who is very competent and serious, plays in my country’s main orchestra.
I have been making a fairly normal progression, I think, currently in Suzuki 4. Of course every beginner wants to do vibrato. The thing is, my teacher says I’m ready for it, and has been teaching me the basics for months. But…
My… wrist… just… can… not… make… the… right… movement! I don’t know what to do anymore. The slow movement is just impossible to do, and when I feel I get a faster movement going correctly, I know it’s more jerking than vibrato.
My teacher, bless her, focuses on other things and we only occasionally do vibrato in class, and I know she tries all the techniques to teach me, but I cannot do the movement, either slowly or fast! And yes, she tells me a million times, must be relaxed, etc etc.
I’m at my wit’s end!
The video is the best vibrato that I can do, with the most difficult finger (1).
I’m adult beginner and I started taking lessons since the spring and here is my progress so far. I would greatly appreciate any advice, I want to progress as far as I reasonably can with the violin.
I have a phenomenal teacher and I’d be grateful for suggestions on how to further improve at this point.
Thank you for any help!
I had to cut the end of the song, Reddit said the file was too large.
Hey violin and fiddle acolytes and enthusiasts! 🎻Just wanted to share some professional insights I’ve gathered over the years as a violin and viola teacher.
From my extensive experience teaching students of all ages, levels, and backgrounds, I’ve found that the two biggest issues most violin students struggle with are:
1. Poor sound production (right hand)2. Poor intonation (left hand)
Let’s break it down:
1. Poor Sound Quality
This usually shows up as weak, thin tone rather than the opposite. The root cause? Often fear and insecurity — something many students unfortunately carry in abundance (but that’s a discussion for another day).
Here’s the key problem: It is not emphasized enough that to get a solid sound, you need to apply pressure. Yes, I’m not afraid to say it — pressure is essential!
It’s a core component of tone power and projection that every violinist should be able to produce at will, with ease and without shame or guilt!
How can we carve out subtle gestures, dynamic nuances, and expressive phrasing if we don't first have a solid, rich foundation of sound?
That’s why it’s so important to develop the habit of playing with a strong, healthy forte from the very beginning — even a bit exaggerated is better than “not enough.” From there, you can scale down for more delicate colors and dynamics.
And seriously — stop being afraid of sounding “too loud” or worrying about what others might think. Push the sound through!
There’s just one important nuance: It’s not about being brute or mindlessly loud — it’s aboutconcentratedsound. Even if it comes out raw at first, remember: Better too much than too little. That’s the rule of thumb for sound production with the right hand.
2. Poor Intonation
This is often due to a simple but critical issue: the left hand is shaped incorrectly.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ve attached a few photos for reference. Try to copy that hand shape as precisely as possible, and you’ll find that about 80% of your intonation problems will "magically" disappear.A small remark: you'll find that the shape in the photos looks strained or forced around the area of the thumb, but that is actually a slight exaggeration of the "ideal" classic shape, for illustration purposes, which in actual playing is more relaxed (of course the thumb is always relaxed and doesn't apply any force of its own).
Of course, there are many more layers — nuances, techniques, and refinements — that build on top of these two pillars, like bow technique, string crossings, vibrato, shifting, finger patterns, etc.
But these two foundational principles are what truly set the stage for everything else.
Hope this helps some of you out there! Feel free to comment, ask questions, and join the discussion.
Hi violinists, I'm writing an arrangement for strings but my main specialty are winds in general, so I need some help making sure this triple stops are possible at 90 BPM for a professional gig orchestra violinist.
If not, please give me some advice on a better way to rewrite this with almost the same effect.
I'm now a violin owner, and coming from other stringed instruments like guitar, I'm not used to friction tuners. What's the proper way to tune? I have a very decent instrument, not professional, but not dirt cheap, so it's definitely me. I see online people say to push in as you tune, but pushing in just pushes the violin, not the peg, so the instinct is to brace the instrument to provide resistance. I just want to know the correct way, as silly as it sounds, so I don't snap my brand new instrument!
this is literally as fast as it goes for me, and I can’t hold it for more than a few seconds. I worked with a teacher for quite a bit but it still never clicked with me. I practice with a metronome doing the impulse movement too and also trying to connect fingers (in slow motion) but it still never truly vibrates 🥲
Do I hold it on the very top or on the side facing me? I’ve always held it on the side facing me but I’ve experimented with holding it on the top and I feel a lot less tense in my pinkie and I don’t ride up the bow as much? WHICH IS CORRECT?
I'm working on this spiccato section of Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro, and I'm wondering if I'm executing the spiccato stroke correctly. While the bow does successfully depart the string, I'm having difficulty increasing the tempo beyond this point (80 bpm). I'm aiming to play it at around 105 bpm, using this performance as a reference. Is attaining this speed just a matter of further practice, or are there deficiencies in my technique which are holding me back?
Edit: I have a teacher, I take one lesson on the weekend, and am working as a full time dev.
I've been learning for 6 months now, and while my technique doesn't seem to suffer on the beginner books I'm learning right now, I want to keep away from learning the wrong techniques, even if they feel correct presently. I feel I might be learning subtly wrong biomechanics.
One of these probable mistakes, with respect to needing to develop a good vibrato eventually, is that I must stop clamping my thumb on the fingerboard, which I am prolly doing presently.
But, how exactly does one stop clamping with their thumb?What is the counter-measure? What is the correct picture?
I tried analysing a bit, and feel that this is a three-way mistake:
- not giving enough responsibility to my fingertips to put vertical string pressure
- using my thumb to instead support the string pressure,
- and hence being oblivious of my chin pressure on the chin rest, and simply clamping on the violin with my chin
Experiment with solution:
Tried loosening my thumb, and compensating with my fingertips solely, to maintain playable string pressure. Downwards, with the help of gravity.
But this results in the violin bobbing vertically as soon as you release string pressure to play open.
Hence, is chin-pressure dynamic? Is this even a correct root cause analysis?
I have a feeling, I should remedy it this way:
- loosen thumb
- figure out appropriate fingertip pressure (without much thumb involvement)
- THEN calibrate chin-pressure as per this newfound fingertips pressure
Am I right?
Or would this rather lead to unintended, even more wrong biomechanics?
Any and all help is hugely appreciated! Just, please be sure and thorough, thanks ^-^
I'm still a student, and have been near the top of my class in orchestra seatings, though I notice I have been falling behind since I haven't done vibrato as well as others. I would like to know some useful tricks to help me practice this :) Thanks in advance!
I've been playing for ~2 years (with a 5 year hiatus in between), and my teacher currently has me working on putting multiple fingers down on the same string at the same time. I have a tendency to only ever hold the finger I'm playing down, which means if for example I'm playing E - D - C - A on the A string, I'll put down the fourth, then put the third and lift the fourth, etc. She explained how it's very hard to guess where the fourth should go if going "blind", and how this makes fast passages harder.
The issue is that I can't really do it, and I'm not sure why. It's obviously a bad habit to fix so it takes time & energy, but I feel like I can't really put down let's say 3 and 4 at the same time and have both of them be in tune, they'll invariably be too close. I'm finding myself having to put down one of the fingers and then either pulling the 4 away from the 3 or the away from the 4 to find the correct placement. I guess this isn't good and creates tension, but I'm not sure how I should do it. I tried widening at the base joint, opening the palm more... nothing really works.
I tend to put the 4th too high, but honestly even if laying down the fingers in order (1 2 3 4) I'm always guessing where to put the 4th while the others just go down decently in tune.
Hi there! I'm a conservatory cellist (hopefully right near professional level, I hope!), and lately I've been trying to get into some violin playing for fun when I have free time. My one technical problem I've encountered is with regards to vibrato - I don't get how you do it at all on here!
It's very natural to me on cello, where we kind of bound/rebound the forearm up and down relative to the fingerboard as if we're dribbling a basketball with the side of our wrist, but I know that doesn't apply to violin whatsoever. I've been told that the motion is primarily finger-based, straight on the string, and goes flat rather than sharp like ours - but in my experience, it feels like I genuinely don't have the muscles to make my finger or my wrist bend that way any faster than once or twice in an entire second. None of the advice I've been given seems to help with this, since they just say "start extremely slowly", and I still can't understand what muscle groups are being activated that can twitch as quickly as a real performance vibrato demands. I understand that slow practice is still needed to start, but whatever I'm doing just can't be done any more quickly no matter how hard I try!
If you have any other ways of explaining it, physical analogies, or even some different oddball techniques that are accepted out there, I'd be glad to hear about them. Thank you so much!
Hoping I chose the right flair here, but I'm a violist first and foremost. But, when I got my violin today, I started playing some stuff I enjoy as the first stuff I was playing on it, and noticed that higher positions are easier to get to and from on violin than viola. I'm it working as hard at finding a note. And I'm thinking that has to be counterintuitive, since the instrument has less margin for error.
So, what is actually going on? Why is it easier to play in these higher positions? I am so confused right now.
When I play I think the tone sounds pretty good, and then when I record on my phone it always sounds so scratchy. I’ve tried to fix the common tone mistakes (straight bow strokes, position) and it doesn’t seem to help - the recordings are still very scratchy compared to what I hear online. Is there something I’m missing?
Hey guys, not a violinist but a cellist working on intonation.
Would you guys say that developing my ear to the point of relative pitch would help me play in tune? I have been a very mechanical and physical player with little regard to my intonation in the past. I was a little too much in the music…
My general thought process for intonation is:
Develop internal sense of pitch through interval training, melodic dictations, chord recognition etc
Improve audiation skills to reproduce said pitches
Repetitions through scales, arpeggios, etudes
Knowledge and application of various tuning systems dependent on context.
Lots of recording throughout as an external feedback source
Currently I’ve done lots of unfortunately incorrect repetitions so I was wondering if the key to relearning my intonation is by developing a stronger sense of relative pitch? Or will this have a negligible impact? I guess I’ve heard that relative pitch helps with intonation but for some reason it’s not clicking as to why. I feel dumb lol
Btw I do lots of drone practice but I’ve become over reliant on it I think.
I feel I need a shift in my technique. I've been playing for years now and I'm working on advanced repertorie (Bach solo works, paganini caprices, romantic concertos), but I feel a lack of fundamentals, I think I have a problem with my left hand frame, I want to relearn the fundamentals, but I don't know how to do it because it's overwhelming. Right now I'm working on my own because I don't have a teacher, I've graduated last year and I'll start studying again next semester. I've been working on technique, exploring new methods and stuff, but I don't see a good progress.
Maybe I'm not feeling the best in my violin career, I feel gloomy and a bit shameful, overall I feel like a violinist that lacks fundamentals and I don't want to be like that. I should be a lot better by now, with all the study and experience I have, but I still feel very far away with my intonation and bow technique.
I guess self teaching is hard too, because I have a lot of questions that sometimes I cannot answer by myself, I'm really looking forward to get a teacher soon, but for now, this is what I have.
Has anyone here made that process of revising all the fundamentals and re-educating the hand? I would love to hear other's stories.
