Squeaks to Success...Kinda [Week 2]

I would start off this post with a hello but that seemed a bit boring so...yeah.  I guess this is now my introduction.

Looking back at the week before, I noticed that there was not much "in-depth" violin language that I researched, so I took a section of week two to do so.  The two websites I used were violinist.com and violinonline.  Using these two websites, I divided violin vocabulary words into three sections: parts of the violin, parts of the bow, and accessories/necessities for the violin.

1. Parts of the Violin

2. Parts of the Bow

3. Accessories/Necessities for the Violin

Bridge: The ornate, raised wood that hold up the strings in the middle of the violin.  It is not glued down; it stays in place only because of the pressure of the strings.

Shoulder rest: A contraption with a cushioned bottom and plastic support that is placed on one's shoulder to help support the violin.

Mute: A small device that fits over the bridge to mute the sound of the violin.

Chin rest: A wooden device attached to the bottom-front of the violin that separates the chin from direct contact with the violin surface.

Once I knew for sure that my research was complete, I began to actually learn how to play the violin by starting some pieces! I used the same Suzuki book that was used in order to obtain the "research" I did last week.  The results were...um...interesting.

I'm not sure if I can express in words as to how disgustingly squeaky I sounded the first time I attempted to play a note on the violin.  I thought that now knowing the correct posture, bow hold and fingerings, the actual playing of the violin would be easy to do. Uh...let's just say that I was wrong.  Wrong to the point that there were times during my first few days of violin practice where I questioned as to why I decided to choose this topic for my project.  I thought that most of you would not be able to understand how bad I was at first, so here is me playing one of the first of the Suzuki Book 1 songs, "Lightly Row."

Not the best thing you ever heard, was it?

Listening to the recording taken of my violin playing, I came to the realization that I needed a lot of practice.  So, unlike my original plan of slowly increasing five minutes a day, I went straight to practicing two hours daily.  Through this, I was able to progress significantly quicker and was able to (kinda) get the squeaks away.  This was the result of continuous practice for seven days:

It's clearly not the best playing that you will ever hear, but I think that I got right where I wanted to by the end of this week.  I hope that I will have the same motivation on week three as I had on week two and will be able to continue progressing at the rate I currently am!  Wish me luck! (Really though, I need it.)

Between the Margins [Week 1]

Finally, finally, finally! Week 1 is published! Throughout the first week, I have obtained an incredible amount of information.  Week 1, as mentioned in the previous blog post, required no violin playing at all.  Although there was a strong temptation to pick up the wooden instrument and start playing, I had no choice but to stick with the books. Well, more like music books.


Suzuki was my main resource for obtaining information as to how to play the instrument.  But wait! most asked.  Isn't Suzuki a music book filled with beginner level music?!?! Yes, it is.  However, the first seven pages are filled with how to hold the bow, how to tune, the fingerings for the violin, and much more (I honestly learned a lot more just by that book than I thought I would).  Here are some examples of what was exactly in the book:

Another method of learning the fundamentals of the violin was watching videos of famous violinists.  I watched several musicians play several different pieces, but I enjoyed watching Roman Totenberg the most and ended up only watching videos of him playing.  Through the videos, I was able to grasp the sense of how to hold the violin when playing and what the proper posture looks like. 

The final (and, might I say, most effective) method of learning the fundamentals was my father. As mentioned before, he played the violin ever since he was a child and is currently playing at an advanced level (not enough for him to be going around saying he is a professional like he is doing, but who am I to judge. It’s America).  I asked him to show me how I should hold the violin, the bow, the different strings, and the fingerings.  So, he took out a violin and gave me a hands-on lesson.  Immediately, I was able to have a better sense as to how the violin was played.


Now, you all must be wondering (at least I hope you guys were…), how was this ‘research’ spread out through the course of week 1?  Well, I am here to talk about my experience, right?  So here’s the breakdown of how everything went exactly:



Monday, February 9^th – Look at the Suzuki book; the tonalization and bowing pages.


Tuesday, February 10^th – Continued “research” via Suzuki book; tuning and playing posture.


Wednesday, February 11^th – Searching on youtube for violinists and examining their posture


Thursday, February 12^th – Imitating the posture of the violinist on youtube with a real violin


Friday, February 13^th – Helped by my father to correct the little mistakes I made with the posture I learned by myself


Saturday, February 14^th – This day was an unproductive one :( But it was my birthday...if that's a valid excuse


Week 1 was an overall productive week.  I learned many things about the violin such as how to hold the violin on your chin, how the bow is supposed to be held, how to tune a violin, and the fingerings for each note on the violin. With this information, I am now able to apply this knowledge to week 2, where the playing actually begins.  Wish me luck and see ya'll soon!

Commented Blogs

Blogs I commented on:


Hanna Kim: handydandygenius.blogspot.com (1,3,4,5)
Sieanna Rahatt: strinityanimation.blogspot.com (1,2,5)
Nathan Leung: veryloudcloud.blogspot.com (1,2,3,6)
Kat Saddler: katgeniushour.blogspot.com (2,3,4,5)
Ruby Lee: rlgeniushour.blogspot.com (4,6)
Allison Liu: myftia.blogspot.com (6)

Plans, Plans, and More Plans [Week 0]

I was never good at making decisions.  Whether it be who to partner up with or what to eat for dinner, a solid decision almost never comes out of my mouth.  Now, when given a project where I get to decide what to learn, the amount I struggled coming up with a topic was not surprising.  

However, in the end, I somehow came up with two ideas that I thought would make a good presentation: making a new language and learning Francis Bacon's binary code.  Did I have an interest in either?  Not at all. I came up with these ideas because I had difficulty figuring out what I was interested in.

Until it hit me.  Maybe not right in the face, but somewhere along the cheek area, I was slapped and startled awake by the topic of music. I came to realize how much I listened to music on a daily basis, the different instruments I played, and more instruments that I desired to learn. The possible instruments I wanted to play are listed below:

1. Guitar
2. Flute
3. Saxophone
4. Violin
5. Cello

Immediately, cello, saxophone and flute were bumped off the list.  Why, might you ask?  Due to their accessibility.  I do not own any of those three instruments, so it would be difficult to practice when the only accessible instruments are at school.  Guitar was also taken off because I knew a decent amount of chords already, and I wanted to challenge myself to play an instrument I have not really experienced playing that much before.  

Well, this pretty much narrowed my topics down to the violin.  So the violin it was. It was not only the process of elimination that caused me to choose the violin as my topic.  There were reasons why I wanted to learn it as well:

1. I enjoyed listening to my father play it when I was younger
2. I have a passion and a love for classical music
3. I wanted to play the violin since I was young

Now that the general idea has been decided, a plan must be created.  Time management is a key ingredient to a successful product, am I right?

I divided my time into approximately five weeks, each week completing a different task each day in helping myself to learn the violin.  Since visuals are almost always more appealing than words, why not present the details in a timeline?

For week 1, I will be focusing on the fundamentals of the violin before actually playing. This will be done by looking into videos on youtube of basics such as what kinds of fingerings to use on certain strings and imitating those videos with a violin. Weeks two and three will be using beginner violin books to work on my playing technique.  These violin books are called Suzuki.  These books were put together by Shinichi Suzuki with the purpose in grasping proper technique for beginner violin players. The final two weeks will be practicing an intermediate level piece in order to focus on the dynamics, emotions, and flow of a song when played by the violin.

So, in the end, what are my goals for this project?  Reaching that intermediate level of violin playing would be my largest goal.  How to measure that I reached that goal? I will record a small video or recording of my playing every week and upload them each time a new blog post is posted. As time passes, hopefully the fluid, emotional, clear-sounding, intermediate level violin playing will be shown.

For the time being, nothing that I have discovered created a way to set me away from accomplishing this goal.  Unless, of course, procrastination decides to take over.