Brisbane Violin Shop Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Fiddler Dan Violins & Workshop, Brisbane

Violin Coach or Teacher

Getting better at the violin is a lot like sport (something Australia does very well). It takes dedication, practice and the right input at the right time. This is where an experienced violin teacher comes in, but it also about creating the right environment or ecosystem to learn in.

Professionally I worked with Australias elite sports organisations for many years developing tools for improving co-ordination and skills at the highest levels, returbning to violin as an adult I have really enjoyed seing the pedagogy of violin playing again. One of my favourite authors is Simon Fischer who has a fabulous book series on the pegadodgies of the violin. See Links for more

Traditional practice is chunks of 30min to 1 hr in time, but there are other ways to get there – especially with children. Firstly barriers to pracvtice need to be removed, often its as simple as making sure that it is easy and convenient. An open violin case in a special nook in the house makes it easy to pickup the violin and go. A quick set of scales before hoping in the car to school, play your favourite piece before dinner, or between dinner and dessert (a nice micro reward) can help build up time spent ‘on violin’ and establishing habits.

Learning the skills

Skill acquisition, that is the learning of skills takes time, many talk about the 10,000 hours to expertise, and while that is a gross simplification, time on the violin is essential to making progress. Of course it needs to be good time with attention to detail – thats the role of a teacher. learning consists of multiple methodolof=gies and a mix is required for success and the mix is individual.

Fine motor skills take time to develop drills (like scales) are essential for building the vocabulry, playing for enjoyment and without self critique is important, in sport they call this error free learning.

The learnignof technical skills is many fold, left hand, right hand, bow preassure, bow point, reading music all need to develop togeteher to make a decent sound. i suspect this is why many students never get over the hump to sounding good just when they are breaking through

Enjoyment, it takes a while to get here…so don’t give up. Finding music that you like and music that you can play is essential, as to an outlet for playing .

Performance matters

The opportunities for violinists to regularly perform are somewhat limited for the classical purist. Unlike your average town in Europe with a plethora of orchestras, there are often just a few on the surface and many of them require a high skill lvel (like the QYO). Regular opporunity to play with other and especially to perform adds an opportunity for feedback and feelings of accomplishment. So whats budding violinist to do. If you are ;lickiy enouygh to be learning at school then you might have an orchestra you can play in, with at least a couple of performance opportunitiesa year. So how to get more, you can look to community orchestras, if you learning privately you teacher might have an ensemble. If your not averse to church type environments (across many faiths)), many churchs have bands playing traditional hymns through to contemporary music (if you are happy to strech yourself). At its simplist violin and piano playing hymns go very well togeteher. Hiding in the piano part are often harmonies (especially if you learn to read the bass clef). Delvuig into the work of chords can have you harmonising and improvising as well 9its challenging but you can do it)

Where is my violin made?

Once upon a time all violins were made in Europe and ideally Italy, then France, then Germany then the UK etc… These days they are made all over the world, but a European instrument still commands a higher price.

Its partly because of the way they are built (by hand), varnished (multiple layers of hand applied lacquer) but also because of the reputation of being the birth place of these instruments. The timber was sourced from slow growing European forest and much prized for their tonal qualities

Now a days most instruments are made in China and while the early instruments of the 1970’s were quite ordinary, now a days there are some fabulous violin makers in China who can command a premium on their work too.

One area where China really excels is in the substrantially lower cost of labour, and given violins are a labour intensive process they can really compete on cost.

two violins europe or chances which is which

So today savvy European western violin makers have cottoned on to this and can out source parts of the violin making, or even all of it, to China and still call their instrument European (see Sander Violin review…made in Germany?). They can do this by shopping their European timbers to China, having them roughed out, (or even finished under supervision of a European maker), before being hand finished by in Europe and then lacquered. Does it matter?…I guess that is in the eye of the buyer. Most reputable violin makers will tell you where the wood is from and where and who did the work on the instruments. You often see a sliding scale in the cost of the violin to reflect this.

So most beginner instruments today are made in China, the better ones will be finished with a traditional lacquer, but the cheap ones will use a spray on “Nitro” finish. It quicker and keeps the cost down. Check out mine here, I have selected these for their sound. It also a more robust finish for beginner instruments too.

Antique cases

Recently we have had lots of fun restoring antique cases. Just like violins they are snapshots in time, often put together with paper lining, spare bits of spruce, liberal hide glue, all hidden under a layer of felt.

One the lining is out we pretty much start from scratch with some interior frame to give it strength, then padding and suspension elements. There’s a lot of thinking because the tolerance are quite fine.

The exterior is either an oil finish for the natural timber cases or black enamel. we recon they are not too shabby, but at around 20hrs of work quite fiddly.