Welcome! I'm glad you found me and I hope you'll enjoy my musings, tips, updates, and insights.

Please use the search bar below to sort posts by category or keyword. If you're enjoying a topic, you can also click categories listed below, or the tags listed at the top of a post to organize a new list of posts with the same categories and/or tags. Happy reading!

Podcast
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In this episode, I'm answering your violin questions, including about strings, rosin, the instrument I play, how to get dust out of your instrument, the story about the oldest violin I've ever played, and more. Enjoy! Listen wherever you get your podcasts, ...

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Vibrato is particularly strange in that it seems to require a lot of work, but in the end we all seem to find that the best sound comes when we relax and just let go. Unfortunately, hardly anyone can develop a vibrato without a lot of effort, but many ...

Violin Geek Podcast
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Beginning students, but even the more advanced among us, often struggle with pitch (intonation) and tone. Troubleshooting sounds we'd like to improve can be especially frustrating when we're having a hard time differentiating between the two. One is ...

How-To
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Although we all have to start our intonation journey with figuring out how to play in tune up and down single strings, pretty quickly we encounter music which requires us to find our intonation in various zig-zag patterns across the strings. Arpeggios, ...

Interview
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In this episode we speak with Tokyo born, New York based Jazz violinist and composer about her new album, "Lingering," with pianist Kevin Hayes, how her conversion to Judaism has informed her life and music, her journey from Julliard to free ...

Please email me at laurel@laurelthomsen.com if you have a violin, viola, fiddle, music biz, or practice related question you’d like answered in the blog or on a podcast, have a story or insight to share, or if you’d like to inquire about violin, viola, or fiddle lessons with me, in-person or online via Skype, FaceTime, or Zoom.

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Laurel Thomsen

Violin, Viola, Vocals
Performance, Instruction, Recording

Based in Santa Cruz, California

Site by Laurel Thomsen
Photography by Michelle Magdalena

laurel@laurelthomsen.com
831-224-0913
Skype: laurelthomsen

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