Attempting to Play

Over the last couple of days, I have been practicing the basics on my violin. This would consist of some practice exercises that I have found online where I go back and forth from note to note so I can become more familiar with what I am doing. Now that I have had some practice doing that, I have been feeling a bit more confident.

Today I started to do some warm up exercises before I begin to practice just to get me in the right mode. Even thought this is the first time I have practiced them, I can already tell the difference. It is like stretching before beginning to work out for me.

After my warm up for the day I decided it was time to practice a song. I decided upon "Twinkle Twinkle" since I remember that I used to be able to play it when I was younger. This did not get as well as I planned the first time around, but I kept at it and eventually it began to sound a little like the song. I know it will take time, a lot of time, but eventually I would love to be able to play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Till that day I will just have to keep practicing and keep my violin stored in a safe spot.

Learning the Basics.....Again

I feel I am ready to go. I bought myself a book to help teach me how to play the violin. It starts off with information about the notes, which is the first thing that I need to learn...again. First, the book began to teach me about the spaces and lines of the staff so I would be able to read some basic musical notes.

 

Above is an example of the basic notes. To help remember what notes are where, there are some tricks I use. First, for the notes on the spaces, it spells the word "FACE" when you go from the bottom up. For the notes on the lines, there is another easy way by creating a sentence, such as, "Every Good Boy Does Fine". 

Now that I know the spaces and line of the staff, I need to know the strings on my violin. There are four strings to know. If I am looking down the bridge of my violin, the notes go GDAE, as pictured below.

Now that I knew the basic notes, I needed to next learn how to position my fingers on the violin itself. With a little practice I was feeling a little more confident. I had noticed in some videos that I have been watching that sometimes people would use the whole bow and some only used some of the bow on the notes. I decided that I wanted to learn more about it, so I looked up the different ways to use the bow when playing. I found these different techniques very interesting and I know that this knowledge will come in very useful as I begin to learn more notes and more songs in the future.

Getting my Violin Ready to Play

Now that I have my new bow and my violin out, I am ready to start playing, right? Wrong. Before I can proceed on, there are a few things that I must first learn about. I have to know how to properly hold the violin, know what the proper parts are called, and then make sure that my violin is in tune before I even start to attempt to play anything.

There are many different parts to a violin. It is important to know these parts so you know how to properly hold it and how to use it properly. When it comes to holding the violin, there is a piece called the chin rest. It is on here that, as the name so obviously represents, you rest your chin. Some violins have shoulder rests, but my particular violin does not have one on it. When using your hand you want to make sure it is in a very natural position on the neck of the violin.

Now that I retaught myself the parts and how to hold the violin, I need to make sure that it is still in tune. Since it has been locked in the case for a very long time now, chances are that it is note in tune anymore. There are different options for how to tune your violin then there were when I first learned how to play. One way it to buy a tuner and do it at home. This is the way that I first learned, even though I do not really remember how to do it anymore. Another method is to use a tuner program online and do it right away. For the sake of time, and my sanity, I decided that it would be easier to simply use the program online. Now my violin is officially in turn and the next time I take it out I can begin to practice the notes again.

Buying the Bow

Well, this week I went in search of a new violin bow. I first tried to go to this music store that used to be located down the street from me, but they were closed down. I was pretty disappointed. Luckily, I remembered a place that I passed by when I was in Downtown Fullerton a couple weeks ago. It is called Mo's Fullerton Music.

When I arrived at the store, the windows were plastered with signs saying there was a sale going on. SCORE! I was so excited. I went in and one of the workers came over to help me as I was looking at the violin bows. I was not sure which one I should get. He showed me all the different ones they had with prices ranging from $19-$99! He began to tell me more information about the differences when it comes to the hairs on the bow. He said that the more inexpensive one was made with cheaper hairs so it would not last as long. I decided to go with one in the middle price range which was a little over $50 after tax. I also needed to get some rosin for my bow while I was there. This helps the bow from sticking to the strings when you play. I just got home with everything and I cannot wait to start practicing again!

Rediscovering

Today I went into my closet and dusted off my violin case. When I opened it up, I realized what shambles my bow was in, but the violin itself seemed in good shape. I had not played the violin since I was in the fourth grade, but just looking at it brought back memories of what fun I used to have when I played it. I would have to say that I was fairly good at it. I only quit because I was teased because I was in band. That is definitely something that I regret.



I knew in order to play again I would first have to buy a new violin bow. The hairs on my bow above are NOT supposed to look like that. The hairs are supposed to be tight and held together. I started to do some research online about what is a good type of bow. I found a great site that provided great information about violins. At first I thought about just buying a violin off of a website, but I decided that it would probably be best for me to go into an actual store to purchase one so I wouldn't pick a cheap bow. This is something that would have to wait for another day.