Q&A video #3 | equipment + requests 

Love these Q&A's... You are awesome!

Dominants + pirastro gold E string is a good setup. Personally I like a full set of pirastro gold but I understand that may break under an inexperienced player (no offense!) The thing with rosin, it doesn't matter much at your level but soon I suggest you get the L'Opera French jade rosin. Also, if you haven't gotten your bow rehaired yet I suggest you do. The good schedule for rehairing a bow is every 100-200 hours of playtime depending on if you perform a lot. What I and many others do is we keep 2-4 bows in our case depending on how prepared we want to be. Personally I keep one bow for practice (rehair every 6months), one bow for performance (rehair every few performances), one bow for rehearsals with orchestras (repair every 3months), and one bow as a backup. I use a comford shoulder rest ($70) and I personally love it. Remember to wipe off strings with a soft cloth after playing. If you have to tune with pegs, get help from a professional until you are okay with it on your own. And Lindsey Stirling- her music is just phenomenal for learning students. I always suggest it to my students. Her music, if bought online, has a digital download to let you hear it, print it, and print a easier version. The easier version would likely fit you perfect for now, her music just taught me so much personally about trills and glissando and intonation and bow speed and pizzicato and everything you can think of

A few equipment notes: 1. I agree wholeheartedly, the Stentor Student II is excellent value for money when you're starting out. I started on one of those. Costs around $200 in the US, and it's the best violin I've seen that you can get for under $500. 2. Most violinists prefer light rosin, which has smaller particles than dark rosin and pulls on the string less. It's best for higher strings. Dark rosin tends to be preferred for viola, cello, and bass. Choice of rosin may also be influenced by climate, because rosin gets stickier in hot, humid weather. Some violinists who live in cold climates prefer dark rosin, while many violists and even some cellists who live in hot climates use light rosin. A good rosin is worth spending money on, because you can use it for a very long time. Even full-time professional violinists only need to buy rosin three or four times in their lives. 3. Good bows are not only stiff but also fairly heavy, because ideally bow pressure should come mainly from the bow's own weight. One of the disadvantages of carbon fiber bows is that a lot of string players find them a little too light. Recently, some bow makers have begun making hybrid bows that have a carbon fiber core with a heavier wood sheath around it. Those bows have the responsiveness of a carbon fiber bow but a little more weight, and they also have the resonance of a wood bow. (Yes, bows resonate a little too!) I use a hybrid viola bow that I paid $520 for -- definitely not breaking the bank -- and I would definitely recommend it over either wood bows or carbon fiber bows around the same price.

That jazz music blocks most of the chat 📣 hope the newer ones don’t have it! 🤓🎶

Well presented, the low volume background music is a nice touch. Yea, I tried mutes as well, and I agree it just muffled the tone. However, I do use earplugs (Hearos musicians earplugs) every time to protect my ears and its alot less fatiguing. It doesn't muffle the sound at all, you can still hear the violin very clearly, it reduces the volume across the freq range just enough.

For bows... I don't know if this is just me but I prefer wood bows because they feel better to play with. For me, I can feel the vibrations with wood bows better, giving me better control of what sound I want.

Thanks for your video. I get some tip from you. And i am encouraged every time

Je doet dat heel goed Marijke! Ik ben zelf 1,5 geleden begonnen in mijn eentje en het valt heel goed mee. Ik heb sinds 2 maanden iemand gevonden die me wil verder helpen en dat is natuurlijk veel plezanter. Nu kan ik oefenen op samenspel wat veel fijner is dan in je eentje spelen. Ik heb onlangs ook de app van MuseScore gekocht voor mijn ipad. Dat koste slechts 1,99 euro en daar kan ik het samen spelen ook mee oefen. Ik gebruikte het eerder al op de laptop. Ik vind het een geweldige app. Hopelijk zie ik je snel weer ;-)

Oh, the lessons where I live are also about 27€ per 30 min lesson. I just ordered my first violin and will probably take classes for about 12 weeks, then try to continue on my own, and maybe take few more later. :D

By the way: I see you've already done a "duet" -- maybe play all three violin parts of Pachelbel's Canon when you get around to recording it? They're all exactly the same (just starting at different times) except at the very end when they have to finish together.

That's cool ...really interesting ..thanks .. :)

Hey Marijke! How are your lessons going? I still check out all your vids , it's great to compare my progress to yours, and damn was I jealous of your first concert haha, I want that! I also started using Louis Metz's method alongside the Suzuki method and I gotto say, I do like it a lot. It's a bit less hardcore but touches on so much more, so I might just fully switch to it soon enough. Anyway, about equipment. I'm thinking of buying my own bow as well. A week ago my teacher gave me her bow to try it out, and it was such a weird experience. I had already hold/used it once before, but now that I'm a few months in and with a bit more experience I suddenly actually félt how different it was and how great it played. The balance was so much better, and it was súch a blast playing with it for a bit. Then again, apparently it was over a 1000 euro's. Thank god my clumsy ass didn't drop it :') I heard good things about 'De Luthiers' in Dordrecht, and I'm thinking of stopping by to check out bows there. It's a lot closer than Zwolle that's for sure. I'll check out the carbonfiber bows, let's see what they say about it. Anyway, keep up the good work! You make some great content!

Haha cool, You have a beautiful instrument. I am from Prague, I have violin built in 1924 by Karl Hammerschmidt in one czech village. My wife has violin built in Prague for her in 2004 by Vávra :) My violin cost around 2500 USD and my wife's were much much more :) Enjoy Your playing

Nice video

I'm using a Eagle VK644 (it costs around 410€, if my calculations are correct, and my classes costs around 40€ for 1 hour for week, this is so expensive here XD), I don't know if there is this brand in all world, but is a quite popular here. I want too much a pirastro gold E string, I can't buy yet, but I feel too much difference between the sounds. My bow isn't so good, he's made of "Pau Brasil" ("Brazilian Wood", I don't know how to say this in English hahahaha), it's a good wood, but mine isn't so good and I don't know why. I see so much people talking about carbon fiber bow and I want to test this someday. In fact, a bow needs a material who will resist to an axial effort. It's the same principle of a fishing pole. It's a great and funny study, by the way. I always think about how the luthiers do this, how did they think about it, this is why I really love acoustic violins. My rosin is terrible, I need a gold one, someday hahahahaha I'll check about yours. I want an electric violin someday, too, yours are so amazing! :D I usually use the mute often, because my neighboors don't like my music and I normally play to early in the morning or so late at night. I really loved this series, I love Q&A videos hahahaha It's good talk about our instrument and I always learn something amazing with your videos. I want make a request (hahahaha), if you allow me: - "Sad Romance (Sad Violin)" by Ji Pyeongkeyon, it's a sad and beautiful music. There's a great tutorial in "ViolinLab" channel, here, in RU-vid; - He's a pirate :D (I'm trying this now XD I have the sheet if you want to.)

how often do you see your teacher? i didn't realise how expensive the lessons were; it will cost me £30 per 30 minute lesson. I'm not sure if i will be able to afford this weekly, but i'm afraid to self teach myself ahhh idk what to do

I taught myself canon in d in about 3 days, its easy because its actually really reptitive, but getting the speed and notes right are a little hard 😂

Do you have books?

can u do a violin giveaway? xD

I have a German baby

Dominants + pirastro gold E string is a good setup. Personally I like a full set of pirastro gold but I understand that may break under an inexperienced player (no offense!) The thing with rosin, it doesn't matter much at your level but soon I suggest you get the L'Opera French jade rosin. Also, if you haven't gotten your bow rehaired yet I suggest you do. The good schedule for rehairing a bow is every 100-200 hours of playtime depending on if you perform a lot. What I and many others do is we keep 2-4 bows in our case depending on how prepared we want to be. Personally I keep one bow for practice (rehair every 6months), one bow for performance (rehair every few performances), one bow for rehearsals with orchestras (repair every 3months), and one bow as a backup. I use a comford shoulder rest ($70) and I personally love it. Remember to wipe off strings with a soft cloth after playing. If you have to tune with pegs, get help from a professional until you are okay with it on your own. And Lindsey Stirling- her music is just phenomenal for learning students. I always suggest it to my students. Her music, if bought online, has a digital download to let you hear it, print it, and print a easier version. The easier version would likely fit you perfect for now, her music just taught me so much personally about trills and glissando and intonation and bow speed and pizzicato and everything you can think of

Dominants + pirastro gold E string is a good setup. Personally I like a full set of pirastro gold but I understand that may break under an inexperienced player (no offense!) The thing with rosin, it doesn't matter much at your level but soon I suggest you get the L'Opera French jade rosin. Also, if you haven't gotten your bow rehaired yet I suggest you do. The good schedule for rehairing a bow is every 100-200 hours of playtime depending on if you perform a lot. What I and many others do is we keep 2-4 bows in our case depending on how prepared we want to be. Personally I keep one bow for practice (rehair every 6months), one bow for performance (rehair every few performances), one bow for rehearsals with orchestras (repair every 3months), and one bow as a backup. I use a comford shoulder rest ($70) and I personally love it. Remember to wipe off strings with a soft cloth after playing. If you have to tune with pegs, get help from a professional until you are okay with it on your own. And Lindsey Stirling- her music is just phenomenal for learning students. I always suggest it to my students. Her music, if bought online, has a digital download to let you hear it, print it, and print a easier version. The easier version would likely fit you perfect for now, her music just taught me so much personally