1^st lesson free

Jason

Rate $47
Response 1h

$47/h

1^st lesson free

Violin
Viola
Cello
Erhu (Chinese violin)

Build Reliable Shifts, Smoother Bow Changes, and a More Expressive Violin Sound

Violin
Viola
Cello
Erhu (Chinese violin)

Lesson location

- At Jason's house: New York
- online
- at your home or a public place : will travel up to 80 mi. from New York

About Jason

I’m Jason, and I work especially well with violinists who feel that their playing is almost there but not dependable enough. Maybe your intonation is good in one run and questionable in the next. Maybe a shift succeeds three times and misses on the fourth. Maybe your bow sounds beautiful when you think about it, but the sound changes the moment the music becomes difficult. Those are the kinds of problems I like because they usually have identifiable causes.

My approach is very specific. If something goes wrong, I do not want to simply tell you that the passage needs “more practice.” I want to know exactly which movement changed before the mistake happened. Sometimes the finger that misses the note is not actually the problem. The thumb may have stopped moving. The elbow may have arrived late. The bow may have become faster because your attention moved to the left hand. Finding the first thing that changes is often more useful than concentrating on the final mistake.

I also want you to become good at comparing sensations. We may intentionally play something in two slightly different ways and ask which one gave you more control. That helps you develop an internal reference for what efficient playing feels like instead of depending entirely on someone watching you.

If you are the kind of violinist who wants to understand the mechanics behind consistency—not simply be told to repeat the passage until it eventually works—my lessons are designed with that kind of student in mind.

About the lesson

If you can play comfortably in first position but everything becomes less predictable the moment you need to shift, I want to make that transition feel much less mysterious. Instead of treating a shift as a jump and hoping your finger lands correctly, we will build physical landmarks into the movement. You will learn to notice what the hand, thumb, and guide finger are doing before the shift begins, during the movement, and at the moment you arrive. We may practice the movement silently before adding the destination note, then compare the distance against notes your hand already knows. The idea is to make shifting feel like a route you recognize rather than a leap into empty space.

I use a similar approach for bow changes. Many players have a decent sound in the middle of a bow stroke, but the sound changes when they reverse direction. You may hear a small crunch, a gap, or an accent you never intended. We can practice disguising the bow change by slowing down the final few centimeters of one stroke, preparing the fingers and wrist for the reversal, and listening for whether the new stroke begins with the same quality of sound as the previous one. Then we apply the same motion inside the actual phrase. If somebody listening with their eyes closed cannot tell exactly where you changed bow direction, we are getting somewhere.

Rhythm will also become part of your technique. If a difficult run contains eight fast notes, we might deliberately change the rhythm—long-short, short-long, groups of three, or accents on different notes. That forces your fingers to solve the passage in several different ways instead of memorizing one shaky version of it. When we return to the original rhythm, the movement often feels much more organized because every pair of notes has been examined instead of rushed through.

Once the mechanics become reliable, we start asking a different question: what should the listener actually hear? We will decide where a phrase is going, which notes need more weight, which notes should pass by lightly, and where the bow needs to save or spend energy. Technique is important, but I do not want you to sound like someone successfully completing an exercise. I want the technique to disappear underneath the music.

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Pack rates

5h: $235
10h: $470

free lessons

This first lesson offered with Jason will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

online

$47/h

Build Reliable Shifts, Smoother Bow Changes, and a More Expressive Violin Sound

Lesson location

About Jason

About the lesson

Rates

Rate

Pack rates

free lessons

online

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Build Reliable Shifts, Smoother Bow Changes, and a More Expressive Violin Sound

Lesson location

About Jason

About the lesson

Rates

Rate

Pack rates

free lessons

online

Other tutors in Violin

Sandra

Wenbo

Cameren

Williams

Cody

Carlos Rafael

Eric

Julia

Petra

Monica

Jada

Ángela

Nicole

Claire

Erin

Aixuan

Hava

Carlos

Isaac

Yat

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