Thread: Practice Questions (Violin)

Hi all I've played violin now for about 6 months although with slow progress at first I've started picking up now that I've started lessons with a very good teacher and in the 5 or 6 lessons I've had with her I have started playing (poorly I might add) in the 2nd and 3rd positions although my intonation is a huge problem and I am working on fixing it but that's not exactly the point of my post although some tips on working on my intonation when changing positions could be helpful.

My main question is since I do have high goals of becoming quite good I'm going to have to practice a lot to be able to get to a decent level in a realistic time before life responsibilities catch up with me. I have about 1 year now with a lot of spare time and after that I would like to enroll in some kind of easier music degree (TAFE for Australians) for music just to work through those for more musical experience while maintaining a lot of practice. so I would like to increase the time I practice while I have this year of much spare time (I practice for about 1 to 1.5 hours a day) but I have trouble because I feel like I run out of things to do and I just end up repeating the same pieces I've been learning without making any improvements on them whatsoever. So I need more things to practice and before anyone points out I will definitely be asking my teacher when I see her next the same thing but I'd like a second opinion as well!

So what kinds of things can I do to get into the habit of practicing longer amounts of time and what kinds of things can I practice? So far I have scales, my pieces and working on my shifting into 2nd and 3rd position. What other things do you all recommend?

PS: I'd like to add that I'm not aiming for being some world famous violinist but I'd love to be able to perform a violin concerto or just with an orchestra playing anything!

Well, for scales and other technical stuff I recommend about one third of your practice time. A good piece of advice would be "practice very slowly" so that you can get good intonation, and for the shifting into 2nd or 3rd position you could use a middle note as a reference and slide to that note first, then do the one you're supposed to play, until you can do it faster and faster.

I see. Thanks!