Nothing Like Scales..!!

January 18, 2007 at 11:29 AM

Ok...so this is the main thing in yesterday's class: Ed showed tremendous improvement in his bow hold and also some improvement in intonation. These are the fruits of long hard work with scales for the past 4 months finally becoming ripe. I can't tell you how pleased I am and how happy with this result. Let me tell you the story...

When Ed first came to me he already could play the violin but he had terrible posture and bow hold because he never had a teacher(!!). So my one and only mission was to wipe out all the stuff he learned and fix his posture. He could read music notation fairly well, so we advanced through the Suzuki repertoire a bit quickly and I got him to play scales right from the start; as it's always the best way to focus on posture, bow hold and intonation...We advanced through scales and I got to fix his back (it was always bent backwards as if he was carrying 1 ton of steel on his chest) and gradually his left hand came to the correct position. However, his bow was the most difficult to fix; as he'd always have problem with his ring and pinky fingers being lifted in the air whenever he reaches the very tip of the bow or the very bottom of it. He also didn't move his wrist as he should so his bow wasn't straight. Last, his bow was inclined towards him (the bow should be a little bit inclined the other way with hair towards him and the wood towards the outside).

I saw that working with G Major scale, two octave at eight counts a note, wasNOT giving the required result. I think it was because it's relatively easy for him to do it, so he didn't practice it at home. My solution was to make it a little bit more difficult: I increased it to twelve counts at a somehow slow tempo. I guessed it would be a challenge to him, so he's going to increase his scales practice time at home and it should also teach him to save the bow without any involuntary vibrations in his right hand....I GUESSED RIGHT :)

First, his fingers no longer go off the bow when he reaches the tip or bottom. Also, there are no unwanted vibrations and yesterday I noticed that the bow is now inclined the right way. The bow also goes a little bit more straight now, since he's starting to use his wrist more and more. He was practicing hard and it paid off well...When I told him that there's improvement with the bow, he said "Yeah, I know". He looked really proud :D

Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Complete Violin Teaching Diary

From Terez Mertes
Posted on January 19, 2007 at 12:57 AM

Great story. My own scale time/routine has just increased - crossing my fingers that my own teacher will notice a marked improvement in a couple months. (Particularly with - sigh - my intonation.)

From Mahmoud Ibrahim
Posted on January 19, 2007 at 8:26 PM

Scales are always the best solution...Good Luck with your intonation ;)

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Nothing Like Scales..!!

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