What is Practicing the Violin or the Viola?
To play the violin or viola beautifully, you will have to practice… a lot.
Lots of violinists and violists don’t know what practicing exactly is. Repeating the same piece over and over again is not the most fun nor most effective way to practice. In this video I will explain what practicing is to make your practicing more fun and more effective.
According to the book ‘Master your Stage Fright’ from Bohdn Warchal practicing is ignoring certain factors, so you can focus on just one factor. For example, if you play very slowly and ignore the factor of rhythm, you can focus on intonation. It is important to understand that although you can eventually do several things at the same time, you can’t learn several things at the same time. If you want to practice really well, you need to focus on one specific part you would like to learn or improve. Ignore everything else.
Remember, practicing can be fun, relaxing and meditative. It can be a great way to spend your time!
Love, Zlata
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thank you for this video. it will be helpful to remember to focus at one technique at a time and also to allow myself to do that, really… for I rarely am home alone so there is almost always some company around. kids, kids’ friends, spouse…. what happens is that I tend to treat them as ‘audience’ and so I play only pieces i know well but it gets boring and I don’t advance much because I am so focused on ‘sounding good’ all the time. i think my family will just have to piput up with more scratching when i practice tempo, instable tempo when i practice fourth fingers, stopping and starting when i pratcice sight reading…
Good that you gained this insight from the video… performing is for your audience, practicing is for you (and of course eventually your audience as better practice means better performance). Perhaps you can share and explain this process with your family, so they know what you are doing. If possible, practice somewhere where you can be alone, for example the bedroom.
I hope this helps! Thanks for your comment!