Videos

Three Girls Rock Out System Of A Down’s Toxicity With VIOLINS!

Once more, proof that you don’t necessarily need to play classical music to rock the violin! I discovered this video while stumbling and knew that many of you would love it! These three girls do a fantastic job, I’d like to see more from them! Does anyone else have any related videos to share?
Taken from [...]

Alexander Markov Rocks Paganini

Incredible! This was shared with me by one of my friends who happens to be studying guitar performance. I actually prefer some of his theme variations over than of Jascha Heifetz! I noticed his left hand pizzicato (2:54) especially was a very different take than what I had heard before, and apparently Wikipedia agrees:
“Markov was [...]

Hip Hop Violinist Kicks It With DJ

This video has been a hit floating around the internet for a while now, but I know even the most popular videos haven’t always been seen by everyone so I wanted to share it with you! This is yet another group demonstrating that the violin doesn’t have to be restricted to the classical realm. However, [...]

Howto

Bonus Lesson 4 – Stop Unwanted Bouncing of the Bow

Kelvin had asked about a particular problem he had with unwanted bouncing of the bow. With his permission I am reposting the video with some tips.

Overall you have great tone! You are doing fantastic work!
As far as the bouncing bow I can’t tell specifically from the angle of the video, however, my [...]

How to use the Korg MA-30 Metronome

Many musicians are afraid of the dreaded metronome- but learning how to operate one will make things incredibly easy! Just watch the video below!

How to Setup and Adjust a Kun Shoulder Rest

Any of the images on this page can be viewed at full size. Just click!
When you remove the shoulder rest from the box you’ll see that it is in three pieces. There is the shoulder rest pad itself and two legs. The taller of the two legs will be screwed into the skinnier of [...]

Wisdom

Mailbag: Violin Pickups and Acoustic Vs. Electric?

The other day I was answering a question in my inbox, and I felt that many of these questions that you are asking can help other people universally! I got permission to re-post some of the most recent questions here. I would like to make you all aware of a privacy policy I just put [...]

Put The Glass Down! (Getting Around Frustrations)

I was teaching one of my students and noticed he had a habit of tensing up and making noise on his instrument every time he had made a mistake. Sometimes he would lose control in his playing, and he would respond by ultimately losing control of his temper!
I used to do this myself at a [...]

Bonus Lesson: Keep all the Fingers Down? (Question Response)

Hello! I get a lot of comments and questions on this site, and I do my best to answer all of them directly on the comments. Sometimes, however, questions come up that I have come across in the past in teaching but didn’t think to address on this site. This is one such question:
Nicola wrote,
“Dear [...]

News

We Were Hacked! (But We’re OK Now!) Treat Included!

You may have noticed either a Google warning blocking you from accessing Stringsavvy.com or just plain seeing a spam/virus installer page. According to my host this was due to an exploit in a piece of software on one of my computers. Unfortunately it did take about a week to figure out how to solve the [...]

Being a Musician Improves Your Hearing!

Mark at Parttimemusician.com linked an interesting article from National Public Radio relating playing music to hearing ability.
Another cool study showing the growth of our most incredible muscle- the brain! Apparently musicians will hear and distinguish sounds better because the brain, having had more exposure, will have more tools to interpret with. This includes discerning specific [...]

More Lessons Coming Soon!

Hey everyone!
It has been a while! I hope everyone is practicing and playing and having fun! I wanted to write a post to let you all know I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, I just simply started a very full and involved school semester. As a business major right now I have [...]

Teaching

Put The Glass Down! (Getting Around Frustrations)

I was teaching one of my students and noticed he had a habit of tensing up and making noise on his instrument every time he had made a mistake. Sometimes he would lose control in his playing, and he would respond by ultimately losing control of his temper!
I used to do this myself at a [...]

Using The Three Minute Rule To Rocket Your Skills

As stated in the classroom analogy, it is difficult to efficiently process multiple sources of information and consciously retain all of it. It is for this reason that we learn to split concepts and techniques in their practice. Aside from your normal routine of running through music and scales, take the time to skyrocket your [...]

The Classroom Analogy

Imagine that you are sitting in a classroom. What would it be like if your math teacher was up in front teaching you advanced algebra, your English teacher to your right was covering MLA format, your history teacher to your left was discussing the origin of religion, and your gym teacher behind you was whistling [...]

Mailbag

Mailbag: Building Callus and Questions on Purchasing

Thanks for the positive feedback! It looks you liked the mailbag, so I’m going to keep the answers coming as long as you keep asking!
Fingers Hurt?
Angelsoos writes:
Hello Thom, I’ve watched many of your videos, and they have been very helpful.
I just got my Violin 5 days ago, which really thrilled me because I was assured [...]

Mailbag: Violin Pickups and Acoustic Vs. Electric?

The other day I was answering a question in my inbox, and I felt that many of these questions that you are asking can help other people universally! I got permission to re-post some of the most recent questions here. I would like to make you all aware of a privacy policy I just put [...]