'Five-Minute Warm-up,' Part 2: Lesson in lower positions.

October 18, 2017, 7:41 PM · Here are some aspects and methods to improve your practice efficiency and thereby outcome, with eight general areas of concentration. This video lesson blog is in response to an individual mentioning they could be helped with a more basic demonstration of a thorough warm-up.

When developed, this would require about five to 12 minutes. The mental and physical focus applied makes all the difference in your achievements. Begin with two to three aspects. As you gain excellence, add another, etc. Piece of cake :)

It, of course, begins with:

The mind — Deliberately plan.
Open strings — Beautiful ringing tone
Slides/Shifts — Vary distance
Vibrato — Slow motion and fast vibrato
One to four octave slides
Diminished Arpeggio — Build in
Repetition Hits — Use Rep Hits to train
Left arm and hand action

Conclusion: Continuously grow and bring all the technique together, thereby enabling you to focus on the music and play artistically.

Hope this helps.

God bless,
Drew

"Technique is the tool by which we accomplish the artistic."

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Replies

69.216.244.216

October 21, 2017 at 06:48 AM · Very unclear about specific details of the Warm up, especially for less advanced violinists, it would be helpful to explain, for example, "Vary distances" in 3. Slides/Shifts, as well as other

necessary 4 octave scales/arpeggios & more. Thank you for more in depth explanations of The List. A Violinist

178.116.74.77

October 21, 2017 at 09:17 AM · very usefull and clear

172.58.136.160

October 21, 2017 at 01:43 PM · Excellent and very helpful videos. Love your book! Thank you!!!

Drew Lecher

October 22, 2017 at 04:29 AM · To 178.116.74.77 — Thank you! It is wonderful to have been of some help.

To 172.58.136.160 — I am glad that it is of benefit and delighted that you have the book and "love" it:)

To 69.216.244.216,

I apologize that my demonstration and text was not clear to you.

"Vary distances" in 3: This is referring to shifts of different intervals or lengths, i.e., shift to 2nd, 3rd, or 4th position as one is able and thereby further developing their technique.

… "as well as other……necessary 4 octave scales/ arpeggios & more." If you mean that one should always do scales/arpeggios & more, this is simply not true. For instance, 3rds are far more beneficial to our development than scales — though we must work on both, of course.

A warm-up is often a set of mixed aspects of playing. It is important to reacquaint oneself with the fingerboard and bow on a daily basis, maintaining and developing further the ease and mastery that is our goal to achieve.

A great warm-up is never hurried and should lead us into a well-paced practice session. We then have the choice of continuing further with technical work of scales, arpeggios, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths, 8vas, 9ths, 10ths, unisons, etc. or go straight to our repertoire.

The video lesson above is simply a sampling of what can be done in the lower positions, covering them quite thoroughly with a sense of physical and technical balance and poise. This could have been done a thousand different ways.

I did not cover scales specifically due to the fact that the work I was doing will enter into the scales and contribute to their mastery. Though brief, I did directly cover the diminished arpeggio and triad root form arpeggios.

I hope this gives greater clarity to you and others. If you wish greater depth and detail, I would like to recommend you visit my website and check out the videos that are available on Vimeo. These are expanding on a regular basis and have been met with wonderful praise and response.

Thank you for your interest and for letting me know that you had questions. I hope this response has helped you and perhaps others. I have just finished a 13 hour day of teaching, so my thoughts might be a bit disorganized.

Do not hesitate to inquire further should you have more questions.

Thank you and God bless,

Drew

81.143.219.176

October 23, 2017 at 09:15 AM · What a lot of good ideas. My practices are going to be so much better :-)

Drew Lecher

October 24, 2017 at 03:09 AM · To 81.143.219.176,

Wonderful! Then it is all worth the effort.

God bless,

Drew

218.252.174.252

October 24, 2017 at 06:22 PM · omg where do i get a chinrest like that