In this episode of The Violin Geek Podcast we speak with celebrated New England based fiddler and songwriter Lissa Schneckenburger, who's been helping students increase their confidence and improve their skills ...

In this episode Laurel Thomsen is interviewed by award-winning vocalist and FAR-West Board Vice-President, Susie Glaze about her experience with teaching violin and viola online. Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, back in 2009 in fact, Laurel transitioned ...

You’ve just perfected a difficult passage of your favorite concerto and grab your smartphone to capture this monumental practice achievement. You run through the passage again and while not perfect, you still feel pretty good about your progress. You ...

One of my violin students shared this inspirational message with me today. Though the day to day activities of an aviation technician are obviously quite different from a ...

As the account goes, someone once asked child prodigy and virtuoso violinist Jascha Heifetz: “How are you able to play so well in tune?” To that, Heifetz replied something to the effect of: “I don’t. I adjust before anyone notices.” Although playing ...

After a brief encounter with a very basic bar rest as a child, my teacher recommended a Wolf and it's been my shoulder rest for both violin and viola for about 30 years now and the one I recommend most frequently to my students.

They didn't ...

This seems to be the topic in my lessons studio lately. Especially as the Covid-19 pandemic wears on, the days and weeks seem to run together and many of us are looking to create some memorable success. With many other aspects of life sidelined, ...

While there are many options for free sheet music online, giving us near instant gratification when we hear a melody we love on a movie or TV show or hear our teacher mention that we’ll be trying a new concerto or sonata soon, it’s usually worth it ...

If you use a tuner or tuning app, you might have wondered why there are often little numbers next to the letters. Maybe you’re seeing something like G3, F#4, or A5?

There are several octaves the human ear can register yet we only use 7 letter ...

Each time you practice your instrument you deepen your knowledge and ability, but also risk perpetuating bad habits. Whether you’re a beginner or a more advanced player, keeping in mind a basic checklist of foundational actions and skills can help ...

Beginning and intermediate students often worry that they’ll never be able to play their songs, scales, or etudes as well as the recordings they hear, their teacher, or people they see playing on YouTube. And if not, does it mean they should play the ...

With the COVID-19 shutdowns and for many of us, more time to practice our musical instruments, it’s important to avoid mental burnout and physical injury by keeping our expectations in check. I’ve had some students, excited to see the progress they ...

When it comes time to buy an instrument, especially when stepping up to a higher quality violin or viola, students often ask if I can recommend any particular brands. Unfortunately, that’s a tough question to answer and one that seems to assume that ...

I’ve written a number of posts over the years discussing effective ways to practice and ideas for helping create better practice habits or reinvigorate a practice routine. With my students, I prefer to focus on the quality of practice over stressing ...

Periods of overwhelm are common at any stage of learning to play the violin, viola, cello, fiddle, or any instrument for that matter. The technical aspects of any instrument, but especially violin family instruments, can be unforgiving, yet we all ...

June 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of my first experiences teaching violin, viola, fiddle, and cello lessons via Skype (and more recently also FaceTime and Zoom). A lot has changed since then! The milestone has had me reflecting on the hundreds ...

No matter our playing level or age, clean playing and fast playing are often at odds. Over my years of teaching the violin and viola, I’ve noticed that students tend to fall into two camps - those who try to play near tempo from the start, often with ...

It happens to all of us. We get impatient with our musical progress and suddenly we start questioning whether we should bother playing music at all. We start wondering, are we really cut out for this? Are we ever going to get any better? Have we reached ...

I received a question recently from one of my Complete Vibrato Mastery students asking whether one of type of vibrato (wrist, arm, or in modern times, the lesser used "finger" vibrato) ...

The age old story goes - you set up your bow hold, perfectly, just as your teacher showed you, but as soon as you start playing, the pinkie finger stiffens, or worse a joint fails and it buckles. Your tone starts to suffer. Your hold feels tense, and ...

I had the pleasure of meeting with the Skype team over the past few months and helping Alpha test their new Skype Professional Accounts - basically, everything we love about Skype along with the integration of PayPal and Calendar apps, note taking, ...

I’m very excited to have a new online course available, this time all about vibrato! I’ve spend the last two months planning, video recording, editing, and finally, as I flew back and forth across the US for my Fall tour of New England, every chance ...

This time next month it will be six years since I started offering violin, viola, fiddle, and cello lessons via Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom, and shortly thereafter realizing the world, quite literally, was opening up to me. I’ve since toured all over ...

Every month or two since early 2012 when I was included in a New York Times front page article about teaching music via Skype, I’ve received an ...

Do you:

• have technical issues you want to master?
• pieces needing polish, or a performance or audition to prepare for?
• want a second opinion about where to focus your energy and valuable practice time for the most pay ...

In this episode of the Violin Geek Podcast, join Laurel Thomsen and special guest artist and educator, Christian Howes, for a discussion on fostering creativity, the three key factors to consider for great improvisation chops, how creating set parameters ...

Learn to adjust your fingerings to harmonize perfectly with open string drones, be they in fiddle tunes or presented as "easy" double stops in classical pieces. Sounds simple? Not so much! In this episode if the Violin Geek Podcast, find ...

In December I was interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times, Catherine Saint Louis, about teaching violin/viola over Skype. Today, the article, “With Enough Bandwidth, Many Join the Band” made the front page, A1. Very exciting to be included!

About once a year I do a search of other string teachers’ policies and rates in similar socio-economic areas. From the information I gather through these searches and through talking with other teachers, it’s clear that despite their policies, all ...

In this Violin Geek Podcast series I cover all the most important elements of good practice, including the need to create a dedicated practice space, and to consider how we schedule practice and think about practice when we're doing other things. We ...

If you’re a string player, have you ever thought about left and right side independence? Perhaps not. The violin family instruments require such asymmetrical positions and motions, I suspect that many string players have never considered how interconnected ...

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 ...

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 ...