Thursday, May 28, 2009

Violin Lessons - are they needed?

Violin Lessons are a great help. But is it always needed? Recently, I have had a lot of questions concerning my previous post on violin tuition. Personally, I have violin lessons every week, and it is worth every bit of expense to help me have that extra quality. Violin lessons also help if you wish to take the route of taking a violin exam. I will try to explain in detail what will generally happen in a violin lesson to give you an idea if you wish to take this route.

In general, violin lessons are set out in a weekly timetable for set amount of time and the lesson will take place at the same time. The first thing that happens in a lesson is to tune the violin; you don’t want to be blamed for playing the wrong note when it isn’t your fault! It is essential so the violin teacher knows how you are making mistakes later on in the lesson. A new player shall usually have the violin tuned by the teacher, but at a more advanced stage, it can be tuned by the person themselves.

Then, there are a whole variety of things that can happen in a violin lessons. For myself, my violin teacher asks me to play certain “scales” on my violin. This is to warm up the fingers and check how well I have been progressing. Usually, the violin lesson shall progress naturally, the lesson then leading onto pieces and other things regarding what you are doing.

Sometimes however, the violin lessons shall all be about an incredibly important thing: the violin technique. For many people, they do not realise how they aren’t bending their left fingers, pulling their right elbow over the violin and not doing a proper bow hold. A violin teacher notices all these things, and shows what to do better.

At the end of a violin lesson, the violin teacher will tell the person what to practise specifically for the next week. And then the process repeats itself. Violin lessons are incredibly handy if you wish to improve your violin technique quickly, but may not be cost effective for some people. And in this current economic doom, you may decide to put it off. Lessons in the UK vary from £10-20 per ½ hour and anywhere from $15-30 in America. Of course it depends where you live.

Violin lessons often take place in a music centre, so it is important to find one nearby to you. Violin lessons are sometimes held in the violin teacher’s house also. But what is most important is that the violin lessons that a person has should be enjoyable and worthwhile. If they aren’t you should be able to find another violin teacher easily.

But there are other alternatives to having violin lessons rather than having the traditional method. For example, online video sites such as YouTube have users providing online video lessons. And the best thing about these violin lessons is that they’re free! With this, you can have these violin lessons from your own home, and are saving a lot of money! Also, you have the added benefit that you can practise the violin whenever you wish, and not have to “make” time for it.

Although these practises are unique and are becoming popular, I still have to say that having violin lessons from a violin teacher will make you a stronger violin player. They give the personal support which the internet won’t and personal guidance which you may need to improve on which you may have realised. At the end of the day, it’s up to you whether you wish to have violin lessons!

3 comments:

  1. That was way too long so i didn't read it

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  2. There's a lot of sense here. It's so easy to get into bad habits, especially when you start, and they can make playing very difficult as you progress to harder pieces. A good teacher will sort all these things out as you progress and also provide lots of inspiration and keep you practicing.

    Can I recommend a nice violin site http://www.violincompany.co.uk - very friendly company.

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  3. Learning on how to play violin trough music lesson is helpful. This is good to those who wants to know more things on it. There are actually many lesson that is being offered by many companies and school, well I guess its good also. But for my experience I have great time learning all of those music lesson by the use of instructional music videos as well as the information that I got from the dvd store online. Anyways thanks for this.

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