The Violin Geek Blog Tips, insight, and inspiration since 2007.
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!
- christmas music
- encouragement
- fitness
- gear review
- improvisation
- insight
- inspiration
- instrument tips
- interview
- intonation
- music
- music business
- musician tips
- music theory
- new album
- new music
- online lessons
- pedogogy
- performance tips
- practice tips
- recording tips
- repertoire
- stories
- student tips
- teaching tips
- technique tips
- update
- visualization
My partner and I have a friend who jokes about the fact that we never have anything but very specialized magazines lying around. Next to the piles of Strings Magazine and The Strad, my non-specialized reads are as specialized as Yoga Journal, VegeLife, ...
As we all know, music lesson regularity and continuity are essential to progress. In an effort to decrease cancellations with current students, and to provide instruction to students in rural areas and foreign countries without access to good teachers ...
This is an interesting article that came my way recently. Rather than answering the question: “What value does beauty have in our society,” I feel the experiment asks us to ponder the importance of beauty in our own lives. If our lives have become ...
This photo was recently passed along to me after years of hearing about it and I thought I’d take the time to tell the story.
The seed of my interest in alternative genres was actually planted in the first few months of my initial study of the ...
Back in August, Track 6 from the Sweetfire CD, “The Fresh Hills of Cein Mhic Cainte,” was featured on Marc Gunn’s Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. The episode is #55 which you can listen to through the following link or on iTunes when you seach for ...
I went out to see Mike Beck and the Bohemian Saints play at Plaza Linda in Carmel Valley Village on Saturday and ended up sitting in with the band for the second set. The experience brought me back to the first gig I played with the Cardinale Brothers’ ...
I have performed a few times now with my new violin pickup and am very excited about the warm, natural sound quality it produces. I have also been enjoying the freedom it gives me to move with the music rather than worry about standing still and keeping ...
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.
The Violin Geek Blog is a free resource and always will be. We also don't sell advertising, meaning that everything you read has been a labor of love. If you'd like to support my efforts and help ensure they continue, please consider making a donation. Thanks for your support!
Laurel ThomsenViolin, Viola, Vocals
Performance, Instruction, Recording
Based in Santa Cruz, California
"After the Fire" - released January 21, 2022!
Each song portrays a facet of the journey from setback to reclaimed hope - finding faith in the possibility of LOVE in “Make Me Come Alive,” HOME in “Beale Street,” COMMUNITY in “Together Again” and “Money Shouldn’t Talk That Strong,” and one’s own STRENGTH and FORTITUDE in “If A Wave” and “Hey, It’ll Be OK.”