It all starts with the violin. If you live in NYC, you have access to one of the best Philharmonics in the world. The New York Philharmonic is the oldest in the U.S., founded in 1842, and today they have won twelve Grammys. If you’re growing up as a kid in NYC taking violin lessons, you have some really great examples to follow.
High-Intensity Practice
If you continue with your violin lessons for a few years, you’ll start to get good. If you combine that with a serious passion for the instrument, your chances of becoming a professional violinist increase dramatically. It all comes down to how hard you practice, not when you started. Even though the Suzuki method advocates that the younger kids start the better chances they have, those who begin playing violin after grade school can definitely still become pros. They may be intimidated by how younger kids show superb talent but a lot of the time, these prodigies are forced to practice between two and three hours a day for years in order to further their chances of playing professionally and wind up playing like machines, without the deep, resonant feeling originally intended for the music.
If you’ve started violin later, you can still play professionally, you just need to catch up by practicing more. It can be hard to practice more than four hours a day, but studies show that the more you practice the more you will be willing and want to play. Professional violinists practice sometimes more than eight hours a day. That’s what you have to look forward to if you’re really serious about making a career out of playing violin.
Violin Love Outweighs Tough Competition
Once you have those thousands of hours of practice under your belt, you still have to beat out the competition. Usually only three or four seats open up every year across the U.S., with hundreds of people trying out. One wrong note immediately disqualifies you, and that’s not all. You can play the violin perfectly, but if your playing lacks a certain emotion, a certain feeling for the piece, that will separate you from the best. It can be nerve-wracking playing this way, even before you’re playing on a stage, but it’s part of the game. If your playing can stand out during an audition, your chances of moving on to the next round will improve. And while competition can be stiff, sometimes playing to beat friends for a seat in an orchestra, if you love violin, if it’s part of your essence, then you have to keep playing.
Even before Antonio Stradivari made his first violin, violin lessons consisted of teaching the student proper technique and guiding him through more difficult pieces of music. Today, lessons may be in a different language, but not much else has changed.
Violin lessons primer
There are four strings on a violin: the G, D, A, and E. It can be plucked or played with a bow, played solo or with an orchestra. And because of its loud sound, the violin is the instrument that carries themelody in groups of musicians.
Otherwise known as the fiddle, the violin comes from a family of stringed bow instruments, originally from Persia. The first violin strings and bows were made of horsehair, and today’s horsehair bows show the legacy of those original violins. Although violins had their heyday in the baroque era, today the violin is making a comeback, and is used to play jazz and pop as well as classical music.
Violin lessons are good for beginners, intermediate and advanced players. But for those starting out, who aren’t sure if they want to keep playing violin, it’s a good idea to rent an instrument first. Keep in mind that violins come in different sizes for children and adults, so it’s good to have the person playing nearby for a fitting. Once you have an instrument, call our violin teachers, who have dozens of years collectively under their belt. They have played all over the world in different settings and venues and know how to play in a variety of styles.
Fundamentals of violin
As in playing any instrument, it’s crucial to have the fundamentals in place before progressing onto different and more complicated pieces. Good posture, square feet placement, and holding the instrument upright are important to reaching the next level of playing. This is why violin lessons are so important—instructors help students get into the right habits early on. Another potential pitfall young violinists face is resting the neck of the violin in their palm, which prevents proper fingering.
Handling the bow is just as important. The bow typically goes left to right, which is called a down-bow. Inverting bow-strokes, i.e. sliding down when it should be up, is another common problem beginners face. But with violin lessons these potential pitfalls can easily be corrected. The bow should also slide smoothly along the strings and not bounce over them, which can cause harsh, scratchy sounds. These mistakes and others like them can be easily avoided by booking booking a lessons today.