Violin, Viola, and Cello Lessons

Reward yourself after overcoming obstacles during practice. It will make it easier to work hard towards a specific goal the next time.

Always start your practice session with a warm-up. Warming up gets your mind, body and fingers coordinated to overcome obstacles during practice.

Try to stay optimistic during practice. Staying positive during practice will motivate you to keep making progress.

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.