Violin teacher query - technique

[BeethovenNinth]

Hi grateful for any advice from violin teachers/players

I did grade 8 myself at school so was reasonable. I suspect my technique is average. I still play quite a lot.

my daughter is learning and is about grade 3/4 level. I think she is stalling in development. Her technique is pretty bad in my humble opinion and I gently try to point out eg plays at the top of the bow, grips with the left hand, tight left hand, position of left hand is wrong, thumbs are rock straight (she is a bit double jointed). I point out the issues but struggle to explain as I’m not a trained teacher.

I asked her teacher to work a bit on the technique and then I bought the Sevcik book as a further prompt. However months on and I don’t think she is really suggesting much. Am I being picky here? Is this stuff that comes with time?

i dont want to change teacher unless i really have to as she is a lovely lady and the kids really like her. However I’m wondering if she is probably only my level herself and perhaps can’t help too much on technique.

what should be happening by this stage in terms of technique?

Bumping for you.

I only played the violin at school but to reach grade 8 is pretty amazing and , so, I feel that you are very well placed to determine whether your child's teacher is not on top of techniques.

It must be difficult for you to see your child playing 'incorrectly' ( for want of a better word.)

I was very lucky with my daughter as I was able to fund lessons at a local Music School.
My daughter wanted to play the guitar and she had some lessons at school. The lessons were tantamount to strumming and fingering and finding her way . These lessons lasted an hour and all we ever heard from her was wonky sounding strumming. She was despondent.

The lessons at the Music School were just over twice the amount for half the time.
She excelled within just a few weeks and can play guitar , classically, so beautifully now.

If you feel that something's not right then find another tutor.

Good luck to your daughter and well done, you.

Thank you Vera - appreciated! I’m not sure if I’m being picky or the teacher could do more. Sometimes ignorance is bliss!

classical guitar is beautiful. How wonderful she plays so well

Like you I'm a player not a teacher and absolutely recognise what you're saying. I want to fix everything at once, and you can't do that. This is why I could never teach DD and have to trust that her teacher knows which things are priority to fix first.

It sounds like you're not sure about that trust atm. Have you heard any of the teacher's more senior pupils playing? That's always a good indicator. If the advanced pupils have good technique, the teacher's sound. At g3-4 it's normal to have some gaps still. The particular ones you mention sound rather like DD at a similar stage, and she's continued to progress and iron things out over time. (Still tends to the straight thumbs but at least she's starting to engage in trying to fix it herself now. Now being about g7.)

Of the ones you've said, I'd aim at the using all of the bow first. Lots of kids don't, even at quite an advanced level, and it makes such a difference when they do.

Some practice games that seemed to help DD:
Air violin: Put the violin and bow down and pretend you're a virtuoso with massive gestures.
Hold the bow in the middle, and try to play with as much bow as you can, so that your hand goes past the contact point. Then just going up to your hand feels easy in comparison.
Simon says or copying type games: put the bow at the point. Now at the middle. Now at the heel. Middle. etc. Getting faster. Helps with getting the 'feel' for what being in different parts of the bow feels like and being able to get there when asked.

Playing in orchestras where the tutors also keep dinning this in has also helped I think. Does your DD do any ensembles? One of DD's orchestra tutors tells them to sniff their wrists at the end of an up-bow. That seems to have stuck.

Of the other things, learning vibrato should help her LH loosen up and LH position too. And shifting similarly, you can't shift around while clamped on so she'll be forced to loosen it.

There are bad teachers who don't deal with technique. There are also good teachers who do deal with technique but do it a bit surreptitiously to not bore young students. As I say, if you can check out senior pupils it might reassure you that you have one of the latter not the former.

Have a look at some of the videos on the Benedetti foundation website, there are ones on bow hold etc. It's frustrating to watch when there are things to fix that would make it more comfortable to play and the more they practice the wrong thing the more permanently fixed it is. It's just with strings, there are so many things to learn, maybe the teacher doesn't want to overwhelm her. It does sound like she's not a total beginner now though and could handle some more corrections. It may be time to change teachers if that's not going to happen or there isn't a plan for it. I agree with looking at the teachers older pupils to see if they will- in our area it was obvious a previous violin teacher didn't get these things ironed out later on either. I'm not even a violinist but play double bass but I can see some obvious things. It's hard because teachers are probably under pressure to get them playing 'tunes' before they have got more of the basics sorted. You need to keep pupils' interest so dwelling only on open strings for ages can't really happen.

The Benedetti videos are good because it's not a parent trying to correct things which they inevitably baulk against. A phrase I've used when coaching sports is ' let's try it my way , if you really don't like it, you can change back' . Of course that might backfire as the wrong bow hold might feel more ' comfortable ', it's just not letting her make the best sound in the most effective way.

Violin teacher checking in...

Has your daughter had the same teacher from the start? If so, I'd have hoped good technique would be instilled from the start and gradually developed - mind you, some pupils are remarkably resistant!

If she started with a different teacher and this one has 'inherited' her, the current teacher may be trying to fix one thing at a time without overwhelming.

Sevcik probably won't help at this age & stage.

Can you have a proper chat with the teacher with all your concerns & see if the teacher agrees with you and if there's a plan in place? How did you choose this teacher? Or is it just the one who happens to be in school? For one-one lessons you do need the relationship to be right as well. In one of my schools I'm one of two violin teachers. We're both highly qualified and experienced but have very different personalities and more than once have passed a pupil to the other teacher because we recognise that they'll do better with the other approach.

Previous suggestions of youth orchestras, holiday courses & Benedetti Foundation stuff are all good, for your daughter to see other players, but finally - does she want to play better??