I am spending a lot of time vetting instructional videos for my students. As with everything else on YouTube, there is an incredible amount available, but not all of it is good. I am trying to make sure that you get material that is compatible with the approach to violin playing and teaching that I was trained in. In addition, I am recommending videos from which you can get more value for data spent than I could do online under current circumstances. Think about it this way: if you took the time to study the material I have been posting here, you have had instruction by quite a number of the world's best violinists and teachers, including Kurt Sassmannshaus, Pinchas Zukerman, Nathan Cole, Daniel Kurganov, Brian Lewis, Yzhak Schotten, Odin Rathnam, Augustin Hadelich and Bela Horvath. When I was your age, there was no internet! None of these resources were available to me at the touch of a button, already selected by my teacher.
Here's how my lessons on technical matters with Dorothy DeLay went: in one lesson she explained the 4 different categories of bow strokes. First I had to develop a proper Detache bow stroke. She demonstrated the Detache stroke, explaining that the weight on the bow weight and the speed at which the bow moves should remain constant, while only the direction of the movement (up or down) changes, one note per bow. She played a few bars of Kreutzer nr. 2 and had me do the same. It took perhaps 10 minutes. Then she told me to pay attention to the detache bow strokes of famous violinists, whether on LP record (there were no CD's yet!) or in the live concerts and dress rehearsals that I attended. End of detache lesson! That was it.
At the next lesson she briefly checked that I had learned Kreutzer nr.2 and could play detache properly. There was not even the remotest possibility of not meeting the expectation. The same with the next bow stroke I had to improve: martele. She simply demonstrated a few martele strokes, explained that it involved first gripping the string with the bow, then releasing it suddenly with a fast bow speed, while keeping my grip and arm as relaxed as possible. She showed me how make sure the bow hair gripped the string by wiggling the string back and forth before releasing it at high speed. She then made sure I could follow her example, first on open strings, and then with the first few notes of a scale, taking enough time, and being patient enough, to first wiggle the string a little back and forth before doing the stroke. Then she had me do it with the first few bars of Kreutzer numbers 6 and 7. I then had a week to learn the Kreutzers and master the stroke.
This had to happen while I was working on solo, chamber music and orchestral repertoire, and attending to other technical matters as well. The other technical matters were scales, shifting and double stops. I was simply told to work through Sevcik's book on thirds, as well as Yost's book "Exercises in change of position". About shifting, she said it should be comfortable and smooth at any speed on a spectrum from very slow to quite fast. She demonstrated a few shifts, solid shifts (note to note with one finger), French (finger playing the first note does the shifting) and Russian (finger playing the second note does the shifting) shifts, and told me to systematically work through the Yost shifting exercises, doing each one slow, medium and fast. Again she told me to pay attention to how the great violinists do it, and to make sure I could do it too. This shifting instruction took perhaps 15 minutes. I was expected to master it. That's it. End of shifting lesson.
I had to go practice shifting, and the underlying assumption was that if I couldn't do it, well then I didn't belong in a violin class at Juilliard, and would have to make way for someone who could. The demonstrations in many of the videos I have recommended on this group is as thorough, and some ways more thorough, than what I had at my own lessons. I would have given anything to have seen Zukerman's demonstration of bow strokes as he does in the master class on video (even with bad quality video) that I posted here! My point, as I have previously stressed, is that to learn, one needs understanding of the principles involved, good models to follow, and the responsibility to practice and experiment as much as is necessary for goal achievement.
There is such a vast amount of extremely useful technical material (exercises and etudes) in the violin repertoire, that it is impossible to make in-depth use of it all. There is enough for several life-times! The best one can do is to mine it for the bits that are useful to you personally. As an example, for regular exercises (mostly for shifting and double stops) I used some bits of Yost, Dounis, and lately Schradieck and Korgov/Vamos as well, plus 'n few of my own. As for etudes,through the years I did a few Kreutzer's and Dont's after a cursory glance at some others like Fiorillo and Gavinies. Especially lately, with students in mind, I have been discovering and revisiting wonderful technical material, all of it very useful in one way or another. The Ysaye exercises, Gavinies Etudes-Caprices, Simon Fischer and Edmund Singer ("Daily Studies") are cases in point.
One can almost get lost in the volume of material available, running the risk that etudes and exercises become an end in itself. We should remind ourselves that the purpose of etudes is to sharpen our awareness of technical matters so that we can apply it in the concert repertoire. It should not push aside or replace the magnificent music composed for our instrument. For that reason, Galamian's advice to spend no more than a third of our daily practice time on technical material (scales, exercises and etudes) is sensible, lest we miss out on the joy of making music. So, as with most things, keeping a healthy balance between technical and musical material is essential.
[05/26, 10:38] Let me repeat. The basic categories of bow strokes are: legato, detache, martele, bouncing strokes (spiccato, sautille, etc.). Scales are very useful for practicing/developing all bow strokes. So are many etudes. I like the Kreutzer Etudes. Kreutzer Etudes to be practices for these strokes are: for Detache - Kreutzer 2 & 8; for Martele - Kreutzer 5, 6 & 7; for Spiccato - Kreutzer 2 & 8. Of course, other Kreutzer Etudes are useful for other purposes. For example, for a certain patten of back-and-forth string crossings, nr. 13 is very useful. For basic positions shifting, nr 11 is good. For finger dexterity and strength, nr. 9 is handy. Many of these Etudes can also be adapted to serve other purposes. For example, each bar of the entire etude nr. 9 can be played on 2 strings instead of one string, by simply changing the fingering, providing excellent exercise in string crossings. Work systematically on your bow strokes. Use the Kreutzer Etudes to do so, starting with the lower numbers and progressing to the higher ones.
If you struggle, have faith in the learning process. Nothing complicated and worthwhile comes easily! Many a breathtaking skill has been borne out of "struggle". If you need to, watch some great examples on YouTube. Then make little videos of yourself, and compare. You will make lots of helpful discoveries by being your own teacher in such a way. Set realistic goals for each session and for each day, so that you can build on success experiences, one at a time. Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that one eats an elephant one bite at a time.
Here's how my lessons on technical matters with Dorothy DeLay went: in one lesson she explained the 4 different categories of bow strokes. First I had to develop a proper Detache bow stroke. She demonstrated the Detache stroke, explaining that the weight on the bow weight and the speed at which the bow moves should remain constant, while only the direction of the movement (up or down) changes, one note per bow. She played a few bars of Kreutzer nr. 2 and had me do the same. It took perhaps 10 minutes. Then she told me to pay attention to the detache bow strokes of famous violinists, whether on LP record (there were no CD's yet!) or in the live concerts and dress rehearsals that I attended. End of detache lesson! That was it.
At the next lesson she briefly checked that I had learned Kreutzer nr.2 and could play detache properly. There was not even the remotest possibility of not meeting the expectation. The same with the next bow stroke I had to improve: martele. She simply demonstrated a few martele strokes, explained that it involved first gripping the string with the bow, then releasing it suddenly with a fast bow speed, while keeping my grip and arm as relaxed as possible. She showed me how make sure the bow hair gripped the string by wiggling the string back and forth before releasing it at high speed. She then made sure I could follow her example, first on open strings, and then with the first few notes of a scale, taking enough time, and being patient enough, to first wiggle the string a little back and forth before doing the stroke. Then she had me do it with the first few bars of Kreutzer numbers 6 and 7. I then had a week to learn the Kreutzers and master the stroke.
This had to happen while I was working on solo, chamber music and orchestral repertoire, and attending to other technical matters as well. The other technical matters were scales, shifting and double stops. I was simply told to work through Sevcik's book on thirds, as well as Yost's book "Exercises in change of position". About shifting, she said it should be comfortable and smooth at any speed on a spectrum from very slow to quite fast. She demonstrated a few shifts, solid shifts (note to note with one finger), French (finger playing the first note does the shifting) and Russian (finger playing the second note does the shifting) shifts, and told me to systematically work through the Yost shifting exercises, doing each one slow, medium and fast. Again she told me to pay attention to how the great violinists do it, and to make sure I could do it too. This shifting instruction took perhaps 15 minutes. I was expected to master it. That's it. End of shifting lesson.
I had to go practice shifting, and the underlying assumption was that if I couldn't do it, well then I didn't belong in a violin class at Juilliard, and would have to make way for someone who could. The demonstrations in many of the videos I have recommended on this group is as thorough, and some ways more thorough, than what I had at my own lessons. I would have given anything to have seen Zukerman's demonstration of bow strokes as he does in the master class on video (even with bad quality video) that I posted here! My point, as I have previously stressed, is that to learn, one needs understanding of the principles involved, good models to follow, and the responsibility to practice and experiment as much as is necessary for goal achievement.
There is such a vast amount of extremely useful technical material (exercises and etudes) in the violin repertoire, that it is impossible to make in-depth use of it all. There is enough for several life-times! The best one can do is to mine it for the bits that are useful to you personally. As an example, for regular exercises (mostly for shifting and double stops) I used some bits of Yost, Dounis, and lately Schradieck and Korgov/Vamos as well, plus 'n few of my own. As for etudes,through the years I did a few Kreutzer's and Dont's after a cursory glance at some others like Fiorillo and Gavinies. Especially lately, with students in mind, I have been discovering and revisiting wonderful technical material, all of it very useful in one way or another. The Ysaye exercises, Gavinies Etudes-Caprices, Simon Fischer and Edmund Singer ("Daily Studies") are cases in point.
One can almost get lost in the volume of material available, running the risk that etudes and exercises become an end in itself. We should remind ourselves that the purpose of etudes is to sharpen our awareness of technical matters so that we can apply it in the concert repertoire. It should not push aside or replace the magnificent music composed for our instrument. For that reason, Galamian's advice to spend no more than a third of our daily practice time on technical material (scales, exercises and etudes) is sensible, lest we miss out on the joy of making music. So, as with most things, keeping a healthy balance between technical and musical material is essential.
[05/26, 10:38] Let me repeat. The basic categories of bow strokes are: legato, detache, martele, bouncing strokes (spiccato, sautille, etc.). Scales are very useful for practicing/developing all bow strokes. So are many etudes. I like the Kreutzer Etudes. Kreutzer Etudes to be practices for these strokes are: for Detache - Kreutzer 2 & 8; for Martele - Kreutzer 5, 6 & 7; for Spiccato - Kreutzer 2 & 8. Of course, other Kreutzer Etudes are useful for other purposes. For example, for a certain patten of back-and-forth string crossings, nr. 13 is very useful. For basic positions shifting, nr 11 is good. For finger dexterity and strength, nr. 9 is handy. Many of these Etudes can also be adapted to serve other purposes. For example, each bar of the entire etude nr. 9 can be played on 2 strings instead of one string, by simply changing the fingering, providing excellent exercise in string crossings. Work systematically on your bow strokes. Use the Kreutzer Etudes to do so, starting with the lower numbers and progressing to the higher ones.
If you struggle, have faith in the learning process. Nothing complicated and worthwhile comes easily! Many a breathtaking skill has been borne out of "struggle". If you need to, watch some great examples on YouTube. Then make little videos of yourself, and compare. You will make lots of helpful discoveries by being your own teacher in such a way. Set realistic goals for each session and for each day, so that you can build on success experiences, one at a time. Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that one eats an elephant one bite at a time.