This question was posed by a violin teacher whose student wanted to quit after a handful of lessons. Do we just let our student go in these instances, or should we try to encourage them to stick it out a little longer?

Students of all ages ...

This question was from a violin teacher who felt she needed to stop her students each time they made a mistake in order to fix each issue as it happened. She didn't want to let anything slide, for fear of them developing bad habits, or being seen as ...

Whether or not we plan to make a career of music, this series will be relevant for everyone! If we keep at it, we all reach a point where we're ready to take our music beyond the practice room, but as one of Laurel's students recently asked: "What ...

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 ...

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 ...

When we move beyond the beginning stages of learning to play the violin or viola and our basic major and minor arpeggio patterns, we quickly start to encounter scale books with more elaborate arpeggio sequences. If you’re a violin geek like I am, you ...

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 ...

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 ...

I received this message from a fellow string teacher recently. It’s the BIG question isn’t it!?

In my experience, it’s worth taking some time to ask questions about the student’s day to day schedule and practice set-up at home. Sometimes it’s ...

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 ...

It’s September again and with an influx of new violin, viola, and fiddle students as well as many longterm students getting back into the swing of lessons after vacations and time off over the summer, there’s been a lot of talk about practice lately ...

When people learn for the first time that I teach violin, viola, and fiddle via Skype, many ask whether or not I think it’s really possible to correct a student’s posture, intonation, rhythm, vibrato, etc. without being able to reach out and adjust ...

Not all shifts are created equal. And no, we’re not talking nightgowns!

Learn how to refine your violin or string family shifting technique for optimal expression! Did you know that the finger you “travel” on during a shift makes a subtle but ...

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 ...

Improvising and listening go hand in hand, so don't separate them! I understand, but am still always a bit surprised when I hear an improviser running up and down the fingerboard, disregarding the phrasing (and sometimes tempo) of the group, articulation ...

Every day we are offered choices. This food or that food. This activity or that activity. Every thing we decide to fill our time with means that we are choosing not to fill that time with other things. How do we decide what interests to devote our ...

As the holidays approach it may be time to take advantage of seasonal sales and surprise the budding string player in your life (maybe even yourself) with a new instrument. First things first though. What size? A string teacher can size students best, ...