relax your bowing arm, but keep your fingers firm (only your fingers, not even your wrist/palm). many adult students commonly have the bowing arm tense up quite stiffly.

the shoulder rest should be FOM.


come on, it's only 2 months, and you didn't have any musical training, so it's normal.

normally they'll inspect it free of charge. if they ever going to make a tiny changes, they're going to charge you, but of course they'll inform you first.

a few things to check:

1. are you able to hear you're out of tune?
2. your thumb and index finger base joint staying at the same place, or they're moving around?
3. is your left hand posture correct, this one i cannot help you much cause everyone has different posture that "works".

what to practice, how to practice, and what to listen?

it's your teacher's job to tell you all that.

well, i'm not ready for private teaching, coming to my house, or going to the student's house. just that simple.



as i said, there's no such thing is 100% in tune. it's a completely wrong impression that world class players can play with intonation that the tuner will agree with.

i'm not saying some slight randomization, sometimes you want a sharper note, but the same note will sound better by playing it flatter on certain phrase.

i'm not ready to teach private yet, regardless of your house or my house far or near...

but there's a great danger of using tuner, you're listening with your eyes, not with your ears. i know you can always look, then listen, but then you're only listening to one single note, not one note related to the other.

if there's a need to practice intonation, play with pianist often, or with CD. if you can find books with CD/demostration with violin recorded, play along with it. you can always follow the violin track guide, so you know if you're off or not. learn how to reference the "in tune" playing by listening.

sorry if this frighten you - your tuner is WRONG. when i play with the tuner, i almost never hit the yellow light on the tuner. most of the time it's either sharper or flatter.

google "just tuning" and "equal tuning". as i mentioned, violinist play just tuning, while tuner is equal tuning. it's like asking a french to tell you if your german is wrong.

you have to rely on your ears. no other way. play along with a CD if possible, because playing with pianist or another violinist is definitely not possible i'm supposed.

it's not difficult to tell if you're in tune or not, when you have the exact same pitch for reference. when you play a note, pay attention if the sound is "fighting" with the reference, or sounds like cluster and frequency clashing. if you're in tune, you'll hear smooth sound or minimum cluster.

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Added on January 21, 2010, 12:59 amask the professional musicians. almost all, if not, everybody will tell you that the tuning used on the piano is what regarded as "out of tune". all of the notes are tuned equally bad so they won't sound funny or totally off when you play all 12 keys.

do this simple math - 440Hz and 880Hz are the note "A" and they're one octave apart. so the difference is 440Hz, and try devide by 12 and see if you can get whole number.

This post has been edited by little ice: Jan 21 2010, 12:59 AM

violin learning books with CDs, or go to youtube search for the song you love and play along.

the reference pitch i'm talking about is that you're playing the same notes as the melody you're listening to (CDs, youtube, etc).

you only use a tuner to tune, not to train intonation. period.

you can play in tune until the tuner give yellow light doesn't mean it will sound right.

i play pretty out of tune when i first started playing. when i play alone, i don't even know if i'm in tune or not, i just play what i think sounds in tune. i did try to play a lot with CD or with other pianist, and that's how i learn. if you can, play with your teacher often, follow his intonation. i never use a tuner to learn in my entire learning journey, and was surprised to found out my intonation didn't make the tuner happy. it was only once i tried to use a tuner to check my intonation, i rarely see the yellow light, though. the thing is, when i try to adjust my finger until it hit yellow light, it sounded so funny and out of tune to my ears, despite my regular playing doesn't sound out of tune even playing with a pianist (apart from mistakes, of course).

don't let the tuner tell you about your intonation. let your ear tell you by play with a reference - CDs, your teacher, pianist, etc...

This post has been edited by little ice: Jan 22 2010, 10:55 AM

i see no point arguing about this with you. if you think tuner is needed, just go ahead and use a tuner. good luck to you.

EDIT:sigh...nevermind...

This post has been edited by little ice: Jan 24 2010, 01:20 AM

do you guys know your open strings tunings are not accurate to the tuner, if you tune the perfect 5ths (by referencing the A string) using your ears?

E will end up being slightly sharper, D slightly flatter than A, while G slightly flatter than D, all according to the tuner.

open strings are already not accurate to the tuner, why bother use a tuner?

that said, there're a lot more things that're more useful than a tuner. if you insist to have your intonation visually aided, i'd rather suggest you to follow the markings on the fingerboard.

EDIT: nevermind lol...

This post has been edited by little ice: Jan 30 2010, 02:16 PM

i don't think anyone will take the risk to bring in carbon fibre instruments that priced from RM20k~RM30k.

for that price, you can buy some really nice wooden violin/cello.

it's entirely up to you...

just want to report that i just had a very bad experience at the sri hartamas shop (you know which one). it's offically deleted from my recommendation list.

if you want to go there, just be careful, especially if your instrument need some repairs. i'm not the only one who had bad experiences.

my friend praise boris a lot, he should do a very good job.

coming from europe, prepare to pay a lot of money (say, RM200~RM300 for a bridge, or maybe more but unlikely less, i'm not sure).

i'd like to add that, dominique @ carismen dolce is a successful business man. since he "bring" boris in, apart from real luthier services, there's also business...

to be fair i haven't send my violin for boris to service yet, and i didn't hear from my colleagues about the fees, so i couldn't speak for the fees. but most likely it won't be any cheap due to germany/italy based + "import duty"...

normally, say, fitting a new bridge, the fee is normally below RM200 included a new high quality bridge (RM200 already pretty steep for local luthiers). so most like it'll be more than that. if you're dealing with cello, it'll be even more.

those who willing to pay the money for imported luthiers, their instruments are usually in the 5 digits range...