This rambunctious Gopak - a spectacular, high-leaping Ukrainian dance - is from Modest Mussorgsky’s comic opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi, composed between 1874 and 1880.
This rambunctious Gopak - a spectacular, high-leaping Ukrainian dance - is from Modest Mussorgsky’s comic opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi, composed between 1874 and 1880.
Give yourself a second chance and play this lovely, lilting piece entirely in 2nd position! See how many second chances you need before it’s absolutely perfect!
Nearly there, you can do it, it’s The Last Shift! This is great piece for practising 4th finger shifts, moving between 1st and 3rd position. Now, get back to work!
Flex your pinky with this set of 4th finger exercises! Make sure it lands perfectly in tune every time, don’t let the other fingers lead you astray … naughty things!
A galopede is not a type of fast-moving insect, but an especially energetic English country dance!! See how fast you can gallop the galopede, but practise slowly first!
A march fit for a king … a 10th century High King of Ireland, no less … Brian Boru of the Dalcassians! Brian must have been a fan of dotted rhythms and string crossing!
Dvořák wrote his set of Humoresques in the summer of 1894 when he must have been in a pretty good mood! The 7th one is probably the best known and probably the best!
John Eccles wrote this achingly beautiful music for a stage play by John Fletcher, a tragicomedy called The Mad Lover. It’s also a really good string crossing exercise!
It’s always worth getting a second opinions! Hopefully, 2nd position doesn’t disagree with 1st position too much! The aim of these exercises is to achieve consensus!
Make 2nd position a winning position with this series of broken chord exercises in C, F, and Bb major. Every note needs to be in tune to win the trophy! Good luck!
These two-finger scale exercise are fantastically useful for improving shifting and intonation and a great way to warm-up at the start of a practice session.
If you always know how to improve then you'll always be getting better and better! And this Practice Menu helps provide a clear structure for your violin practice.
Largo' is the opening aria from the 1738 opera, Serse, by Handel. It's sung by Xerxes I of Persia as he admires the lovely, sweet shade of a plane tree!
This rousing melody by Henry Purcell was written to accompany the dramatic and tragic late 17th century play, Abdelazer. You'll need agile fingers to play this one!
You'll need some violin-playing friends for this one! Each piece is a canon (or round), which means you play together but starting at different times!
Ain't this an oddity! Bizzarie by Ancelotti is a quirky duet with many chromatic twists and turns. Bring out its eerie, dance-like qualities with vibrant bow strokes!
Stay up to date with the repertoire that you have learnt. What are you learning now, what's still 'active', and what are you going to learn next?
Keep a record of what you have achieved in each of your practice sessions, as well as discoveries and new insights that have occurred to you whilst practising!
Use this Practice Plan template to help clarify your goals, and what you're going to achieve in each of your practice sessions.
A delightful, but fiendishly tricky, piece with lots of double stops! Keep your cards close to your chest, or in this case, your fingers close to the fingerboard!
… quasi J. S … is inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. The piece is in the tricky, but beautiful and sombre, key of Bb minor.
Violinists often play portato (slightly re-articulated notes) instead of legato (smooth and connected). This study will help you to play as legato as possible!
Tricky Trills will help you to practise double-stopped trills. Trills in thirds … trills in sixths … trills in octaves … and more … Very tricky trills indeed!
Is this the ultimate workout for advanced players? If your left hand can survive this, it can survive anything! To prevent cramps, keep your left thumb relaxed...
Hook, Line, & Sinker is a great study to use for practising hooked bowing. We use this technique to avoid unwanted accents or using too much bow when playing uneven note values. (such as dotted rhythms) in order to avoid unwanted accents on the shorter notes and to stop us from running out of bow!
