grade 8 or what is not important. I've seen many violin/piano diploma holders play like hopeless idiots without the book. They are so dependant on the book that they became instant retards without any book.

Each time someone tells me they have grade 8 or higher, I make them play something without book. Sure they will behave like retards!.Hahaha...

how abt the body ler... coz the rosin all sprinkled on my violin body dy i use tisu wipe aso no wipe away

erm.. regarding the online tunning.. do u ppl think it's accurate?

better violins are better in:

1. richness in tone - this is an immediate quality improvements. some cheap violins can sound like tin cans, while the better ones are richer or "thicker" in sound.

2. balance on 4 strings and across the register- this is actually very difficult to get, unless you willing to spend more than RM10k. neither any of the strings are overpowering or sounded like alien to the rest, all 4 strings are well balanced. also, some violin will sound poor up above the high register.

3. dynamic range - better violin can play much softer AND much louder. how broad the range from the softest and loudest sound you can play matter a lot. a violin only can play mp to f isn't an ideal concert violin.

4. clearer and cleaner tone - the best violin has the least distortion to the sound and overtones. if you play 2 notes together (double stops), you can immediately hear this effect - clearer and cleaner tone will sound more harmonized if 2 notes are played together. another way is to play with piano (well tuned one), out of tune is so easy to detect because the sound is clear to listen, not mud-like.

5. projection - ability of how the violin can project the sound. this is related to the point above, a powerful violin that doesn't have a pure tone the sound will not travel (if you want to read more, google "phase cancelation"). a truely projecting violin doesn't need to be powerful, and personally, i prefer broad dynamic range than plain powerful violin.

6. respond - better violin simply respond better to your bow stroke. means you don't need to dig the sound out, it'll automatically rings out without much effort. however, watch out for the overly responsive violin, they can be poor on dynamic range.

7. ability to control the colour - this is one of the rare quality in violins. a truely great violin can let you play bright sound AND mellow sound that is so easy to control, or more subtle differences such as "whispering", "roaring", "luminous", "airy" etc, all from the very same violin. a lot of people think violin can only have 1 character which is bright or dark or in between.
i might have missed out some points, but that's about it.
and lastly, if you haven't play some better violins you will never know what i was talking about. you'll never know how bad a cheap student violin is, if you never play a better ones. go to shop and start to play some, you'll know it by then.

When I was young, I palyed in chong ching orchestra and NSO junior before...That was the time before they moved the whole thing to Istana Budaya. Stopped my violin and piano at standard 3 then continue at Form 3... SO juz playing for fun now. Didn't really play in any professional orchestra (duh...there's only one in Malaysia and is full of ang mors) . Played in KL Pac O, PCCO, KLSO all these aren't really professional orchestra but they are good orchestra with nice ppl around IMO. And junior string ensemble at my house formed by my mum... lol...
An ensemble is mroe than enough I guessed. Lol. I can hardly think of any forumers here who owned brass/woodwind and percussion instruments especially a set of timpanis. lol.
I am alto 

All you need is 3 violinists and a cellist for Canon in D. I'd expect the number of people who personally own stuff like timpanis and double bass to be <50.

Speaking of orchestras... apparently I've been accepted to PESSOC's training orchestra.... didn't know they had enough people for one. Or even heard of this training orchestra before.

i've always wondered how some people learn violin without a piano or keyboard at home to use as reference, i'm talking about normal fellas without perfect pitch or anything, just picking up violin(or any string instrument for that matter) as their first instrument, how would they know their passage intonation is ok? especially passages with some accidentals

so far i haven't known of anyone attempting to learn violin without a piano background, how would absolute beginners go about their intonation w/o piano/tuner?

A good relative pitch can help in identifying how a note sound like what the perfect pitch does?

i dont understand of why i feel pain on my arm , after i have finished practising violin, and i ever asked my violin teacher if my bowing technique is correct, she said yes, but i feel my muscle feel sore when i make a down bow to the head of the violin bow, this will be the major problem that i am facing now, wish to get some guidelines here from sifu

oops, i was answering BelowAverage's post wrongly.

if you're talking about string heights, sometimes it's just as simple as reshape the bridge. but sometimes it's more than that - neck angle drop which require a neck reset, maybe as expensive as buying a new student violin. it might be a bad fingerboard shaping too, a new fingerboard is also not cheap.

so have a lutheir to check it, best bring it down to singapore if yours is expensive violin (RM5000 and above). if not, maybe luthiers in KL should do a good job on fixing it.
PS: don't worry about perfect pitch. many musicians and composers in the past didn't have perfect pitch, including Paganini (if my guess is correct, based on how he tune his violin). so why bother if you have or not?

Your intonation didn't make your tuner happy? Sorry to be a b**** kid, but are you on drugs? The tuner is just an electronic tool, it doesn't have emotions on its own to feel prejudice or biased towards anyone. It would just tell you whether you are sharp or flat, pronto.

Telling people that tuner is useless is akin to get lost inside a huge forest without a compass. Yeah, just watch the birds or the direction of the sun you'll get there.

You admitted you only used tuner ONCE and you admit you rarely hit the green light. How do you know your aural ability is not on par say, William Hung? Yeah, just listen to your pianist or cds. William Hung did listen to cds too  You can play all the Paganini in the world but can you blend in with the 2nd violins in MPYO?

Its not a matter of arguing, I'm simply giving another point of view so at least no n00b walks out of this forum thinking "Oh the lowyat musicians thinks tuner is useless so it must be true".

PErfect pitch don't grant you a perfect intonation. It just grants you a better hearning... Lol. Those who are with perfect pitch had to train more or less equally hard as those without to get a ncie full tune.

apologies to little ice and other posters if my language is rough, been moody these few days.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but there are some principles in music you cannot simply compromise. It pisses me off when I observe teachers who are pass themselves off as "sifu", dispensing themselves with dangerous advice and wrong, harmful technique to its students.

Not that I accuse little ice of being that case, you have to admit he is a pretty knowledgeable violinist but nobody is perfect. Regarding his views of pitching and intonation I just have to disagree with him. 

I don't know if little ice have played with an orchestra before but I've worked with some people from MPO, NSO etc and I can tell you you have to be obsessed with getting good pitch in order to get at least decent respect from these folks. I don't believe that pure perfection is the means to making good music either if you get my gist.

I'm not saying these folks open their tuner during duration of live concert but if a student's aural perception is so bad, how to get him to understand equal temperament and such on his own without getting solid basics grounded 1st?

The only way and ONLY way the debate can be settled is by readers to ask real pros in the outside world (not the sifus in ABC music school). For starters, you can ask ANY violinist who hangs out in KLCC =P. I don't want to further prolong this discussion, argument, whatever.

any bassists here into estrella? they have nice songs with sweet jazz basslines

what do u guys think about this violin



just for show?

Anyone here bow on electric fiddles ?  Im looking for a Yamaha SV-130 and a Roland amp to go with it...

Been playing accoustic for 2 years and plan to go electric. ^^    Inspired by some Jazz player in a bar.

The problem is, i cant find Yamaha electrics in Penang... The roland amp is fine and can be found almost anywhere... but for electric violins... all i find is those cheap china electrics costing 100$ on ebay. ( and, mind you, theres plenty to go around )

Anyone seen good quality electric fiddles around ? KL perhaps ?