Well, no. But you sort of get what you pay for with $28 for a pack of two.
There’s also this:
Another evening of playing. Reaffirming my view that chords and arpeggios are much easier than scales and melodies. Been spending time working out positioning on a single string against an open drone strung for reference. If nothing else, it’s great practice for the ear.
Still can’t do vibrato for my life, but for four days in, I’m pleased.
I still don’t practice vibrato… so much more needs to work, for me, before going for vibrato. Probably this year, I will be starting.
So, I’m a cellist. Which means I naturally despise all violins/violinists.
But for this, I make an exception.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCNHM7TCcPs&ab_channel=RichardDavid
This is another one I’ve been poking around with, both on piano and violin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ipI4JFIKXY&ab_channel=JohnMinton
I love Arvo Pärt… Something with his music clicks for me. The violin pärt looks like hell…
I think it’s less complicated than it appears on first glance. The piece is basically the same set of harmonies and rhythms with textural variations. The opening arpeggios are just bowed up and down across the strings G-D-A-E / E-A-D-G with the chords shifting every few beats, but make use of the open strings to keep it from just being four up and four down. Seems like the biggest challenge is the fingering of the chords.
I absolutely love his “tintinnabulation” system that he uses for this piece (and others like Für Alina). There are basically two sets of voices throughout: an inner set of drone voices that strictly play the notes of the root triad (in this case, A minor: A-C-E) and outer voices that move up and down a scale (in Fratres, it seems to be the Phrygian Dominant scale in A: A - Bb - C# - D - E - F - G). The inner voice notes are determined by the outer voice, and play the chord tone underneath: that is, if the outer voice plays A, the inner drone voices play E. The outer voice moves to Bb, the inner voices play A. C#, D, and E are played over C, and F and G over E. Leads to some very interesting harmonies.
Once you’ve got the basic idea down, it’s much easier to hold the piece in your head.
And it’s a fun and satisfying way to improvise on the piano.
EDIT:
Für Alina is a much more basic and clear example of tintinnabulation:
The upper voice plays lines in the key of B minor, and the lower voice plays a drone using only* the notes of the B minor triad. It’s always the closest note between the two that gives at least an octave of distance.
*There is a single C# in the lower voice, to briefly imply the dominant as it moves towards the end of the piece. But it’s a very deliberate divergence to signal a closing, and the rest is entirely B, D, and F#.
exactly.
Fair! I didn’t mean to imply I thought it would be easy, just maybe less nightmarish than it may seem at first glance. For as fast as the notes go, the chords don’t change very often, and they do so in a repetitive, systematic manner that aids memorization.
hey, how are you progressing?
I finally managed to learn the whole “Moondog” piece… a lot of different fingerings were required
A lot less progress on the piano was made…
I’ve been making slow but steady progress. Focusing on playing double stops and simple arpeggios in tune, but not much in the way of melodies. Most of my music time lately has been focused on the piano, which only upsets one of my cats rather than both.
I was in a violin shop with friends this weekend, now I feel the urge that I need a better violin. If I compare the sound of my violin to a friends violin to a violin from the shop, my violin just sounds a little bit dull.
It is a fake copy from the end of 19th century of a Jacobus Steiner violin… dull piece of wood. Time to upgrade.
just bought a new violin on Saturday from my local music shop. The right one is the new one, the left one is my old piece of driftwood. I had it for 15 years, and it sounds a bit quiet or mooted.
The new one is still a beginners violin, but with a bit more power or body. It was about 1800$ … A 2021 make from a hungarian violin maker (they work for less money). Good violins start at 4000-5000$ … but I am not there yet with my skills.
It feels strange to let the old driftwood go, I will keep her around. She was the first one after all. And I was so used how she felt, her weight, sound… and I need to learn to feel comfortable with the new one.
@anonymgeist Where is your violin from?
… and now you’ve made me feel much better about the price of electric guitars, thanks! A decent midrange one of those is “only” one or two thousand bucks. Maybe I shouldn’t have collected a dozen though 🙄
I had a horrible half hour, full of terror.
There was something hanging inside the f-hole of my old violin, it looked like a spider egg sack or something… I took small scissors and it dropped into the depths of my violin. Pure horror. Now I had some spider eggs sack inside my violin! I shook the violin from one side to the other, I could not hear a thing. Then finally, under the light, I could spot it through the f-hole. There it was, was it a living thing? What was it??
How to get it out? I turned the violin upside down, but it would not come out, it was gone again. I was thinking to go to a violin maker, he should take that “thing” out. Was there maybe a spider living inside my violin?
I shook and shook, then I spotted the ball again. I took the back side of 2 small model paint brushes and used them like chop sticks through the f-hole and got that shit out… I don’t know what it is, I threw it out of the window into the dark of the night.
I think it was only some fluff or what, I hope… Maybe that was century old fluff… maybe worth something to somebody. I was playing years with this shit inside my violin. Glad it is out. I hope no spider is inside.
Well when you hear a tentacle tapping on your window…
case solved, dust bunnies are an actual violin thing. I am so glad it is not a spider egg sack!!!
I bought mine from FiddlerShop. Their Apprentice violin set. Won’t be performing any concerts with it, but it works well enough for my stage of learning.
Coming late to this thread:
My Dad was a professional violinist. He was born in Cleveland in 1910. His parents owned a grocery store in Cleveland’s East Side and Dad practiced the violin in the store’s back room. His sister and brother said that he kept the customers entertained. His parents scraped together enough money to send Dad to the conservatory at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, OH. To give you an idea of how good he was, for his senior recital Dad played BOTH the Tchaikovsky and Brahms concertos. Dad also was the conductor of the conservatory’s big band, which made him quite popular in the ‘30s. Dad would go on to have a damn good career as a free lance musician playing with all sorts of musicians and singers and touring Broadway shows. I loved it when I got to tag along on a gig. My favorite was Rod Stewart and the Faces at Cleveland Stadium in the ‘70s and Dad playing the violin solo on “Reason to Believe” in front of 65,000 people. Dad played professionally well into his ‘80s. When he finally retired, he kept the folks at the retirement complex entertained on the piano outside the dining room. After he passed, several of the residents told my sister and me how much they missed Dad’s playing.
more shocking violin stories (it’s Australia, so what do you expect?)
a hornets nest inside a violin.