LEARNING VIOLIN AND VIOLA BY VISUALIZATION AND COMICS

1. LEARNING BY VISUALIZATION INTRODUCTION: Hi, my name is Lure. Welcome to Learning by Visualization. Teaching by visualization helps teachers, as well as students, to learn by imagining how something feels. Images can help us engage our emotions and imagination. When we are creating mental images, we are not processing the information only intellectually, but also emotionally. This will help us to create a more vivid and memorable learning experience. These videos will be suitable for everybody who wants to to play the violin or the viola, as well as for teachers who wants to learn more about string pedagogy. Let's start to fun, engaging journey together and learn how to play the violin or the viola by visualization. 2. WARM-UPS: Warm up exercises helps you to practice actual playing patterns even without your instruments. And they prepare your body and mind for playing. Imagine your favorite tree stand, firm, but flexible, and root yourself on the ground. Relax your feet and knees. Stretch your hands like branches of the tree. Turn them clockwise and anti clockwise. Look at your thumb and turn your head from side to side. Lift your bow gently with two hands. Inhale and exhale with the movement. Rotate the bow to your left and to your right. Rest your middle and ring finger against your thumb. Make a circle. Look through the binoculars and do the rabbit ears. Imagine you are living in a cold Nordic country with a lot of snow. Start to ski to your violin. Listen. Imagine you throw something in the air and catch it with one continuous movement in your lap. Feel the weight of your arms. Relax your legs and feet. Try and keep the same feeling. And imagine you are playing your instrument. Turn your left hand to the playing position. Look through the circle and imagine you peering through a lightweight telescope, looking for land. Imagine floating your arms on the surface of the sea. Let your arms hand and shoulders relax. Hold on to the sensation. And imagine playing your instrument again. Run your left hand fingers up and down as fast as you can. Keeping your wrist in a straight or so called neutral position. Trying how it feels. If you bend your wrist in either direction, think about the violin and the bow. Like all friends who wants to meet each other, combine breathing with imaginary bow strokes. Inhale with an up bow and exhale with the downbow. Meet the bow with your violin and shift your balance from side to side. Imagine the movement of kissing birds by straightening and bending your fingers. This exercise prepares the movements and flexibility of the bow hand fingers. Roll your shoulders in both directions. Raise your hands and imagine your thumbs would be rolling cotton candy. Roll your thumbs in parallel and contradictionary movements. Try turning the cotton candy with your and thumbs at the same time. For your homework, try watching five different videos of famous violin teachers and mimic their playing movements. Does it feel different? When you watch different videos, do you feel tension in your body? Are you able to breathe free? 3. THE VIOLIN HOLD: Try not to think about the violin hold. Think more about balance and flexibility. Instead of lifting the violin up, think about relaxing and bringing the violin down. Hold your instrument with two hands and stretch yourself by raising the violin high up in the air. Gently bring it down on top of your head and swing your elbows, feeling the movements all the way from your shoulder blades. Shift your balance slightly on your left foot and raise the violin high up in the air. Bring the violin down on your violin bone. Look a little bit to the left and relax your shoulders. Swing your arms gently from side to side and walk in small steps. Lady Liberty raised her hand in 18 86. Just imagine how relaxing it feels to bring the hand finally down and let it rest on the violin. You can also think about your instrument as a young rebel who needs support from his friends. The first support point would be in the corner of the first joints of your index finger. Second point of support would be the violin bone. When you look to your left and relax your jaw and neck, your chin will be the third support point. The thumb of the left hand is supporting the violin. Only very lightly. Homework, place your instrument in the playing position with closed eyes. Pay attention to what signals your body is sending you. Where are you touching the instrument? Do you feel relaxation or tension? Try to relax your body while holding the instrument by moving and making sure your breath runs freely. 4. BOW PLACEMENT AND THE STRAIGHT LINE: Let's have a look where to place the bow and how to imagine a straight line for your bow stroke. Let's imagine we are playing a very soft dynamic sul tato in piano. By rubbing your palms very gently against each other. Bring your hands closer to yourself. Rub the palms a little bit stronger like you were playing in mezoforte. Bring your hands very close to yourself, close to the bridge, and play in forte. Let's use the idea of sac perman. For the bow placement in the right place, the string is vibrating like a good trampoline. Not too soft, but also not too hard to bow. Straight means to follow the direction of the bridge with your bow. Let's start to practice the straight line with the pencil. First, imagine a straight line in the air and try to follow this imaginary line with fast and slow bow strokes. Try to practice this imaginary line in all directions and angles. Place your bow on your left shoulder and hold the bow from the tip with your left hand sail the bow. By gliding your bow hand up and down the bow. Practice this movement also with your eyes closed. Practice the same movements by holding your bow on the string. For your homework, let's put some resin on the bow. Practice to draw along both strokes using four different levels of your strings. Play also down up bows on each string, trying to follow the direction of the bridge. 5. THE BOW HOLD: To hold the bow first from its balance point makes the bow feel lighter. It also makes it easier for students with short arms to reach the tip of the bow. Rest your bow on top of your index fingers and start to move them towards the center. The place where your fingers meet is the balance point of your bow. Mark the first joints of the middle finger and the tip of the thumb make a circle by placing the tip of the thumb against the middle finger. Practice with a pencil first, start with your middle finger and your thumb. And keep your thumb and pink and all the fingers relaxed and round. Think about the heel of the bow, or as we call it, the frog of the bow, as a black box of an airplane. In the middle, you will see a round circle, which is called the Parisian eye. When you want to use the final bow hold, place your thumb between the bow leather and the frog. Rest the tip of your middle and ring finger on the black box and cover the Parisian eye with your ring finger. Think that the knuckles of your bow arm are like springs or flexible suspension of a car. Homework. Practice the bow hold with a pencil and by holding the bow from the balance points, from the frog and from the tip of the bow. Check your bow hold from the mirror. 6. BOW HOLD 2: Place the bow on the table and pick it up using only your thumb and middle finger. Let's repeat the bow hold. Place your thumb by the first joints of your middle finger. You can use markings to help place your bow. Practice with a pencil first, keep your thumb and pinky round. Don't squeeze. Try the same with your bow. And remember to use soft and flexible fingers. Rest the ball on your shoulder. Shake the ball and relax your bow arm. Tap and relax each finger on the ball. Check that you feel the black box with two fingers, the Parisian eye is covered and the pinky is round. Do the rapid ears by lifting first the index finger and the pinky. Then the middle fingers roll the bow. Moving only your thumb, make push ups with the bow By moving the bow up and down. Using only your fingers, keep the bow in a vertical position and shake it like you were using a salt shaker. Hold the pencil in your left hand. Lean the ball against the pencil and move the ball using only the movements of the kissing birds. Moving only your fingers, bring the ball closer to a vertical position. And practice the movements in different levels. Let's practice turning the bow while holding the ball. Lift three fingers off the ball, bring them back down again, and turn the bow upside down. Release three fingers off the bow and bring them back on the bow again. While holding the bow only with your thumb and pinky. Ask your friend to try and take away the bow from you by pulling it from the tip. Repeat the exercises of picking up the bow and turning the bow as your homework. 7. FIRST BOW STROKES: Instead of using small parts of the ball, we will try and imagine as big movements as we can. Play imaginary down bows and B, Rolling your hands and arms in the air. Try to feel the weight of your arm relaxing on the string and the ball, bring the ball on the strings from above. Relax your shoulder, your arm, your legs and knees. Breathe out with every bow stroke and try to meet your ball with your instrument. Let's practice the down balls with exercise number five from while in France, Method book 1234. Let's combine the down bow with one bow. Continue the movements of the bow high in the air and shift your balance from your right foot to your left. Two, three, always try to imagine round big movements, ellipses and circles instead of only horizontal bow strokes. For your homework, practice exercise number five and use the MP tree backing track. 8. LEFT HAND PLACEMENT: These exercises will help you to prepare your left hand for playing. You will learn how to avoid four common mistakes while placing the left hand. Placing the left hand too close to the scroll. Playing with the elbow in a wrong place, keeping the left hand too long in the first position, and squeezing the neck of the violin with the thumb. Play left hand Arpeggio pizzicatos with your left hand pinky over all four strings. Play the hammock exercises in different positions on the fingerboard. Put down all your forefingers gently on one string. And imagine you were taking the ski lift up the mountain. Ski down and stop in the halfway look to see your friends swing your elbow. Relax your arm, Ski down the mountain. Swing your elbow. Take off your chin. From the chin rest and repeat. Draw a line at the base of your left hand index finger. Place the line next to your upper string and keep it visible while you play. When the left hand is placed in its correct position, there will be enough space between the first finger and the beginning of the finger board for your right hand finger. Repeat the hammock exercise as your homework, play also open string pizzicatos with each finger, starting with your pinky, then with your third finger, then your second finger, and finally with your first finger, play the pizzicatos on all four strings. 9. STARTING TO USE THE LEFT HAND FINGERS: This video will show you how to place the left hand fingers on the strings. Mark the left hand with an X and a line. The X contacts the edge of the finger board and the line should be visible when using the left hand fingers on the. Place a pencil against the X on the first finger. And place the tips of the four curved fingers on the pencil. Pull the first finger back just a little bit. Let the fingers of the left hand cling to the pencil. Put the instrument in the playing position, and brush the fingerboard with your base joints. Let's start by tapping some octaves with your left hand, third finger. Let's play exercise number 15, the octave game from Method book one. Let's try the same with the ball. Practice the octave game for your homework. Play it first pizzicato and later with the ball. And experiment with different rhythms. 10. PLAYING SCALES: Teaching scales with finger patterns is widely used in string pedagogy. We'll start with D A major that introduces the second and third finger close to each other as the best friends, keeping a small safety distance to the fourth and first finger in case you are using solemnization. You are familiar with the idea that and A as well as and do are placed close to each other, leaning against each other to seeing each piece, as well as sales helps you to build up a intonation. There are many ways to make practicing scales a lot of fun. Try to invent new rhythms. Practice scales as as ask your friend to play the root note of each scale for you. Let's play the Swedes scale from met book one for your homework. Play scales with the rhythm of your own heartbeat. I believe that playing music and scales with the rhythm of your own heartbeat makes it feel easier. In order to make a musical phrase of the scale, try to add also a little bit of accelerando, ritardando, and fermata. 11. ViSUALIZATION EXAMPLES: Visualizing how something feels creates new patterns and helps us to pay more attention how it feels to play, to use imaginary concepts. With teaching engages our imagination and creates a feeling to the subject. We are trying to learn to use emotions and not only intellectual information. Helps students to learn faster and remember the lessons better. The friction between the bow hair and the string should feel like walking barefoot on the beach, feeling every grain of sand. As the boat has to follow the waves of the ocean. The bow has to follow the vibrations of the rotating string. A boat can't resist to the ocean. Don't force the sound. Let the natural voice come out of your instrument. The string is like waves on the ocean. Try not to use too much power. When you press down the string with your fingers, try to feel the vibrations of the string underneath. Imagine something that goes on forever, is endless, and has no boundaries. In order to make smooth bow changes, imagine that the movement of the ball never stops. The ball moves in an endless way. Only the direction of this endless movement changes to play long sostenuto bow strokes. Imagine you were stroking the back of a cat with your bow hand at the frog. Lean on your pinky and at the tip of the bow, lean on your index finger. Imagine yourself to be as relaxed as a skeleton. Relax your jaw and let it drop, like you would be a skeleton. Let your jaw relax on your chin. Rest while playing. Use natural and balanced movements in good detach. Relax your elbow and allow it to rotate freely. Relax your shoulder, fingers and wrists. Let your bow arm rotate up and down. Try not to lock it in one stiff position. Think of the movements and lightness of a pendulum. For your homework, imagine seeing yourself on the stage feeling completely at ease without any anxiousness. Imagine the sound coming through you. Imagine it to be the most beautiful sound in the world. Write down how you sound and how you feel when you play in this ideal situation. 12. GONGRATULATIONS!: Congratulations for completing learning music by visualization and comics. In order to receive your diploma, please write down the things you learned and share them with me and this community. Feel free to contact me whenever about sharing ideas, learning more together, and discussing topics about visualization and mental images. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.