While we're on the topic of China made violin, violins from Yita Music (look on eBay and I think they have a website) seems to be all the rage in the UK for people with a tight budget. Quite a lot of people seems to be happy with what they paid and what they bought.
Also you can try considering composite bow as well. I'm not in Malaysia so I don't know what make are available, but I'm happy with my Glasser bow.
I bought a bow from yita music for about RM2k+ ....Will update you guys about the real stuff when its ship to me...
The yita music's office and factory is located in ShangHai.... So anyone of you who happened to visit ShangHai can take a detour to their place .... Maybe take a chance to grab a good bow there....
here is their website... http://www.yitamusic.com Do visit their website and their products. But seriously.... Don't ask me about their products quality yet.... I am yet to get my bow from them but they are really one of the best dealers in e-bay and that made me gave it a try.
QUOTE(empire @ Jan 23 2011, 08:05 PM)
Liez...can you add me as Erhu and Zhongruan player?
sure...No worries.
This post has been edited by liez: Jan 23 2011, 09:14 PM
If I am not watching the video, i would have thought that it is the electric guitar distortion. What an eye opener to me..
(oh sh*t i did a typo in my original post, change the 2nd "i" into "it" in the first phrase i type lol!)
there wasn't a video of him playing, he played for the opening of sydney 2000 olympic and here's the only video i found:
i first always thought it's an electric guitar, but upon listen carefully there're some signature electric violin sound and bow noise so it IS electric violin. amazing sound from it.
can anyone tell me how you guys learned vibrato? I just can't seem to get it right~!
QUOTE
vibrato derived from the word vibration...but you shouldnt think of it as a vibration. Erm...Lets think of it as a 'movement'. a 'movement' that move forward and backward with your wrist while pressing a note on the string.... just remember....move it forward and backward.....not side by side....up and down (while most learner tends to do this mistakes).
see here...while you are pressing on the string with your wrist grabbing on the violin neck...it restraint your wrist's mobility. But that is what makes vibrato....
so imagine yourself holding the violin and pressing a note (not too hard but the finger which press on the violin shouldn't move its position from one semitone to the other) and you try to move your wrist forward and backward.... at most your finger affected by this movement is just a little bit..... u do it slowly....u made a mosquito-nearby-your-ear sound......accelerate the 'movement' and familiarize with it....it becomes what we called as vibrato....
on a side note: you dont depend the violin's weight on your left hand....you stabilize and hold the violin with your chin and shoulder....no weight shall depend on left hand at all.....or you will never ever make vibrato....coz if you depend a lil (yes..even a lil biggrin.gif) on the left hand/left wrist.....u will see your whole violin shaking tremendously....
but even with you holding the proper way(means with shoulder and chin) u will still shake your violin when you try to do the vibrato.....just its not as bad as holding the violin on the hand.... you can try to reduce the shakiness if you practice your violin lots of time....and find the balance in it.... (remember you are holding the violin and try to shake it...so it will shake)
see the forward backward movement I talked about.... and the mosquito sound....some very basics of vibrato
Forward and backward.....remember.....not up and down.....not left and right (side by side)
Now go try and good luck....happy vibrato~
This post has been edited by liez: Jan 24 2011, 06:37 PM
Awhh, I miss the violin. Stopped at Grade 8. I ditched it for piano. :'( Anyone went for violin/piano music camps overseas? For example the Yehudi Menuhin one.. Do share!
Awhh, I miss the violin. Stopped at Grade 8. I ditched it for piano. :'( Anyone went for violin/piano music camps overseas? For example the Yehudi Menuhin one.. Do share!
Too expensive+Getting older+bound with college... You can normally see alot of 10s ...I got into 20s already
But I did join few of the local music camp when I was young for free. . That was one of the best part during my music life... All music kids from around Malaysia gather together... They got to stay in Hotel for some occasions and I gotto stay at my own house since I stayed in KL all I can remember is alot of eating and some practicing..... IIRC.... our schedule will be something like this....
8.am : reach there then group leaders organize and start tuning. 8.30am: group practice started 9.00am: Breakfast (train half an hour then eat ) Breakfast normally got sardine/tuna/egg sandwich, coffee/ tea, milo, fried bihun/kueo teow, nasi lemak/nasi goreng.... As a kid (even as an adult) I loves eating.....so after Breakfast.....too much carbon....feel like sleeping already.....zzzz
10.00am: group practice again
Group practice consist of each leaders giving instruction which comes from the conductor, marking the bows, doing phrases, ice breaking, uniting melodies etc...Of coruse there will be an instructor for each group.... coz the group leader is only 12-18 years old. The first time I was only 7 or 8 years old..... my leader was only 11 or 12 years old.... so they need to have good leadership skill or you see parties start forming up and the whole group become so messy.
12.30pm: lunch ...... Normally consist of rice, fried rice, curry/sweet and sour/green gravy/ sweet gravy etc fish, sweet sour/mamee/lemon/curry/green gravy/fried etc chicken, curry/green gravy/roasted beef or lamb, some vegetables, some desserts.... then drinks such as tea/coffee and cold drinks like lemon/orange etc.
I did join hotel some times... when I did..... We went back to hotel.... then some go swim, some flirt with gals from outstation like penang & butterworth , some stay in room.... I prefer go swimming coz the swimming pool is a good place to socialize ......
The races during the camp normally consist of chinese and malay only.... Very few indian players joined us actually.... I can recalled seeing only 1 or 2 only but about 70% of chinese and 30% of malay. We are good to each other and we have strong bounds with each other of course (got short term....eager to get to know more friends so not much politics etc will happen actually....and we are all kids) we did socialize alot during all the eating sessions as well and you will see how the male seniors trying to get close to another female seniors (while I didnt do it when I was a senior coz i am afraid of rejection and spoilt friendship sort of thingy ).....and those who failed will became sad and share us with their stories..... this camp happened for like once a year....I joined it almost every year (normally at what is now the Aswara music institution...but sometimes the place changed) until I was 11 or 12....
So after 1 or 2 weeks of eat+practices...We will go perform as string ensemble....but some times.... there will suddenly appear a group of brass+woodwind+percussion players to form an orchestra with those songs we had already practiced. But its always the case that only a string player can join the camp..... There was once we performed to our then prime minister, Dr. Mahathir and each players received RM200. as a kid, get to play and eat and get cash is something really motivating.
They had this camp until the NSO junior moved to Istana Budaya.... I dunno whether there is still such camp or not..... Coz I didn't join it afterward.
I read those stuffs online d... can you, tell me how you actually practised it yourself? like how often you vibrate? how you started?
I've been trying for the last few days and i feel my arms are tired, like how you feel after constantly shaking them... Have you had that feeling?
play G major 2 octaves with vibrato.... Go slow and steady with vibrato. your arms shouldn't feel tires and neither should your fingers because you are using your wrist to do vibrato... At most you feel a lil tiring at your wrist's part... do it more often and get use to it ... you may feel tired on your arms maybe because you overshake your vibrato together with your arm's strength..... or you over lock your wrist...just get use to the movement I mentioned above.... after that, adjust yourself to the position that suit you most that you will feel very very comforting and not tired.....
but first....just start with get use to the vibrato and able to play a whole 2 octave G major with good vibrato. if you failed to play a very normal vibrato, it means you are yet to understand the concept or feel of how a vibrato should be played.... so you got to try and do your vibrato right first. hands getting tired might be you are over using your strength thus overshake your vibrato with arm's strength or overlocking your wrist..... just remember....be natural. Its kinda hard for me to explain it but you have to grab on the basics of vibrato.... good luck.
how bout this....maybe you hold a sponge on your hand and do it like doing vibrato on the violin....shake forward and backward with a sponge..... just like holding the sponge, you need not give full strength to do the vibrato.
Group practice consist of each leaders giving instruction which comes from the conductor, marking the bows, doing phrases, ice breaking, uniting melodies etc...Of coruse there will be an instructor for each group.... coz the group leader is only 12-18 years old. The first time I was only 7 or 8 years old..... my leader was only 11 or 12 years old.... so they need to have good leadership skill or you see parties start forming up and the whole group become so messy.
WAUUU. 12-18 year old leaders haha! Ooh NSO junior eh. My teacher offered me to join but I didn't have time to. Sounds really fun though! MUSIC CAMP ALWAYS = FUN!
Group practice consist of each leaders giving instruction which comes from the conductor, marking the bows, doing phrases, ice breaking, uniting melodies etc...Of coruse there will be an instructor for each group.... coz the group leader is only 12-18 years old. The first time I was only 7 or 8 years old..... my leader was only 11 or 12 years old.... so they need to have good leadership skill or you see parties start forming up and the whole group become so messy.
WAUUU. 12-18 year old leaders haha! Ooh NSO junior eh. My teacher offered me to join but I didn't have time to. Sounds really fun though! MUSIC CAMP ALWAYS = FUN!
Gotto be mature enough and have some skills of course...Like those who is young and already played in KL Pac and MPYO.
This post has been edited by liez: Jan 25 2011, 10:21 PM
It takes some times to do it. Its easy to learn it, its hard to master it especially on fast tempo songs.
lets do some reading first...
QUOTE
How to Master that Elusive Spiccato
December 9, 2009 at 5:23 PM
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «
I’m sure you’ve had quite a number of those ‘Aha!’ moments over the course of your life. They the times when an activity you were in the throes of mastering suddenly clicked. And what had required enormous physical and mental effort, as if magic, became ‘as easy as pie,’ as the saying goes.
Well, spiccato can sure be like one of those. For some, though, the throes of mastery go on much, much longer than is necessary.
And the questions I’ll answer today are, why this is so; and how does one get back on the right track.
You see some folks are defeated before they even begin; they haven’t learned to walk before trying to run.
The foundation of an excellent, dependable spiccato is an excellent, pure detache. That is number one.
It’s interesting and even instructive to note, by the way, that in the old German school, spiccato was almost anathema. They just didn’t think it a legitimate stroke worthy of study.
After all, tone is produced when the bow is ON the string, not off. And the great German romantic era was indeed all about tone and its ability to transmit FEELING.
Yet today, in this country, it is almost the opposite. Many players seem to wear their spiccato as if it were some kind of medal to be displayed at any and every opportunity, even when it is stylistically inappropriate.
I guess this tells you something of where my own sympathies lie.
Yet the point of my telling you these things is to get you to relax and stop trying to force it to happen, if this is the predicament you’re facing at the moment.
An effective, pliant spiccato is cultivated over time, and finessed into action. It does not arise from ‘man handling’ the bow, as some would believe.
Ok, so now let’s assume you’ve got the makings of a fine detache in place, and you do want to begin making the bow ‘jump.’
The first thing to bear in mind is that the bow jumps, or bounces, as a result of the surface tension formed and broken at bow changes.
It is not something produced by making vertical motions with your hand or arm.
Yes, there is something called a ‘brush’ stroke, in which you do drop and lift the bow purposefully. Yet that kind of CONTROLLED movement is a distant relative to the stick-generated stroke I’m talking about here.
What you want to do to get surface tension working for you, is, without altering your detache form in the least, to narrow the travel of the bow down to the smallest amount possible on each note. In other words, to concentrate the detache much like they do the orange juice sitting in supermarket freezers.
Now remember, this is happening right around the middle of the bow; a little below, in slower tempi; a little above in very fast ones.
And ‘edge’ the bow as I mentioned the other day, this will dampen away the excessive chatter you might otherwise produce in doing this.
One further thing, at the beginning I recommend you even focus on PREVENTING the bow from jumping. Doing so will get your bow RIGHT IN THE STRING and keep you focused on horizontal movements of the stick.
At a certain point in the process, as you narrow the range of motion and increase the amount of weight on the string, the bow will begin to ‘jump’ in spite of your best intentions for it not to.
And THIS is the beginning of a truly excellent spiccato. From here it is a matter of experimentation with pressures, speeds, and bow placement to get the ‘feel’ of a range of conditions. Yet each MUST evolve naturally from the interaction between bow hair and string.
You know, I was asked once whether I thought the spiccato stroke can actually be taught. And indeed it is rather like riding a bicycle. How do you really ‘teach’ that? You can point folks in the right direction, yet it is something to be experienced before it can be truly understood.
-Don't over tilt the bow .Learn to play with the hairs flat on the bow, it gives you a better sense for the bounce,then learn to play spiccato with a slight tilt ,if you want.
-learn to bounce the bow off the strings first ,then practice eight bounces then eight spiccatos ,keep alternating .This will teach you the feel for it.
-Don't think "C" or "U" for the image .Think smile (: (Or a plate) , you want to think of a nice gentle curve.A C or U image may have you lifting the bow to high of the string.
-Watch your elbow ,it's good to have it leveled with the hand.
QUOTE
If open strings sound good but fingered notes don't, the explanation may be incoordination between the hands. Practice the timing of the dropping and raising of the fingers while playing with the bow on the string-- Simon Fischer's Basics has great exercises for this.
The other thing is that as you put fingers down, it's important to accommodate the shortening string by moving towards the bridge, and by adjusting the strength of the left fingers on the string (i.e. how far the string is depressed). Often, spiccato problems are indicative of those proportions not quite being in order.
QUOTE
Make sure your bow is correct for playing spiccato; get an experienced player to try it and your violin. I have seen bows, even with a good name, that had problems - incorrect balance, for example (that can be corrected). A bow that is too heavy at the frog will be almost impossible to use for a good spiccato - and a fine bow can be wound with too much silver wire
source <--if you have time, you can spend some and read the whole thing. ____________________________________________
so let's assume if you knew the way to paly a slow spiccato already, the correct question should be how to fasten the spiccato. Basically, you had to first master the song or the parts that you intend to play spiccato with. Only then you will be able to play that part with a fast spiccato.
here's some video example that you may want to watch.
Slower spiccato
Do you notice the bow's part she drop her bow on the violin is always the same place??? the middle? There's where she find her most balance part to cope with the speed she is playing together with the weight of the bow she is carrying. Basically, not only length and the weight of bow determined the balance point...There are something else.
Now she goes for a faster ones.
faster spiccato
Its not solely about the technique but also your familiarity with the songs you are playing. You just can't simply play any songs you like with spiccato.... You had to know the songs to play spiccato with it.
Good luck~*
something to share with you guys...
This post has been edited by liez: Jan 26 2011, 08:42 AM
Jan 23 2011, 09:00 PM
But seriously.... Don't ask me about their products quality yet.... I am yet to get my bow from them but they are really one of the best dealers in e-bay and that made me gave it a try. 
Quote
so it means for the next summer break I gotto work to pay for part of my next education year. 
so they need to have good leadership skill or you see parties start forming up and the whole group become so messy.
, some stay in room.... I prefer go swimming coz the swimming pool is a good place to socialize ......
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