Violin methods like Suzuki, the Solos series by Barbara Barber, and exam systems like UK's ABRSM, Canada’s The Royal Conservatory, and Australia’s AMEB offer graded repertoire intended to systematically prepare students for the major concertos of the ...

I had the pleasure of making the recent online acquaintance of David France, violinist, teacher, and the founder and executive director of Revolution of Hope, a Boston based program which helps bring the joy of playing music to the lives of inner city ...

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 ...

My latest article for Strings Magazine focuses on some of the challenges of my favorite violin concerto. Check it out here: https://stringsmagazine.com/tips-on-nailing-tricky-double-stops-in-mendelssohns-violin-concerto/?mc_cid=2ba968c6f0&mc_eid=a5cf24edb5

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 ...

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 ...

Yet again a new school year is in full swing and with practice questions floating around my studio, I thought I’d take some time to add on to a blog post I wrote about the topic last year. If you’ve read that post you’ll notice that some sections are ...