Violin, Viola, and Cello Lessons

Listen to several different recordings of the piece you are working on to hear different interpretations of the piece.

Play the hardest part of your piece everyday.

Slow practice is important, so you are not practicing mistakes. Once your fingers learn the patterns slowly, speed them up little by little until you can play everything accurately at tempo.

Truly mastering an instrument takes a mixture of hard work and talent. Both are essential!

When trying to get a piece up to tempo, start practicing the piece at a slow tempo. Gradually increase the tempo with a metronome until you can play everything correctly up to tempo.

It is good practice to memorize the technically difficult parts in your pieces. This ensures that you have practiced the difficult parts enough to master them as well as making sure you can focus only on your violin during the difficult section.

End your practice with something you love as a reward for your hard work: improvise a song, play a fun song, do a run through of the piece you were practicing.

Practice is for improvement, not for performance. There is always something to improve on every piece of music, etude or scale.

Making progress on an instrument through private lessons requires a commitment of time, money and practice. If you don’t have the time to attend lessons regularly or time to practice, you should wait to take private lessons until you do. Private lessons are a waste of time and money without the commitment.

Practice different days of the week and different times of the day, so you can find the practice time that works best with your schedule. You may be able to focus differently during different times of the day.