One VS another

September 15, 2025, 11:06 AM · Hey. Even after 22 months of learning to play, my ears are still relatively untrained. I can hear pitch and volume okay.
However, I’m not tuned into the more subtle qualities that you folks sometimes discuss. Example, overtones, general tone quality. Hearing violins over YouTube is useless here. Maybe someone can give me some insight.
What I’d like to know for now, is what makes one violin easier to play than another, for example, an intermediate violin VS an advanced player violin, excluding setup, which I’ve watched over and over?

Replies (2)

Will Wilkin

Edited: September 15, 2025, 11:20 AM · Try different violins whenever you get the chance, just to experience their different responses to the way you play. You will probably be the final judge of whether your instrument is right for you. Even if you subsequently make a different "final judgement" upon further experience.

Esther Kerze

September 15, 2025, 12:12 PM · I second trying different violins, but there's also quite a lot to learn to hear on the one you have.

Can you hear the "beating" of a fifth not being quite in tune?
Or the same with an octave, when you play a D-D open string and 3rd finger on A double stop - move the finger up and down a bit, and hear when it's exactly precise.
Then you can learn to hear pretty much the same thing, but without the double stop - when the open D responds to another D played precisely in tune.
Then the same with other open string notes in various places.
Then similar characteristics of other notes.

Different violins have these to a different extent (and it is a big part of an instrument being good), but it's still in large part learning to hear what's there.

Also, the first (?) chapter of Simon Fischer's Violin Lesson has a lot of good things about tone.

One VS another

Replies (2)

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