How to get good while fiddling!

Practice different bowings in the mirror, do it slow, keep a beat and don't worry about getting confused with notes, you will know your pieces better! Try to keep a consistent contact point - bows like to wander around a bit between bridge and fingerboard, try to keep it in one place to develop consistency!

when you are doing the bowing "ornaments" for fiddling, like a really fast triplet, be really carefully to not tighten your hand or lock the elbow. let gravity help you as much as possible.

So bowings for patterns of four notes, try four ups then four downs, making them all take up an even amount of bow

Try something twisty like down up up down, down up up down (this will be really hard to keep track of at first, make sure you keep a beat)


do articulations, like martele!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaAHd4E2GY0

this is the most useful bow stroke for adding the ability to be expressive to the bow, everything grows from this - the staccato exercises are intended to prepare you for this.

learn how to "chop"

world's best fiddler (classically trained virtuoso who debuted with cleveland symphony (world class orchestra) at like age 12)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DN5Kc1KIE0


casey driessen doing cool blues stuff & chopping (he's playing a whole ton of perfect fifths, btw)

http://www.youtube.com/user/sandi1555?feature=mhee#p/a/f/0/ZLc-PT9H1nE

so yeah, mirror, bowing, oh yes - do you have a tuner that can drone a pitch? Say you are playing a piece in B major, if your tuner makes a B, play the whole thing slowly to the pitch of B. This really really helps with intonation, by telling your ears where everything fits (just do it like once, being really picky, and move on though, so you don't do it without concentration) five min of this every day will make a big difference.

as for getting sore, trying keeping your left elbow forward as much as possible - the idea is too make sure the shoulder blades are involved in supporting the arms!

Also, here's e a yoga move that activates the shoulder blades - with your arms straight down at your sides, turn your palms outwards (and elbows) this should bring your shoulder blades together. Now bring your arms up to playing position. it should open the chest and involve more back muscles.
Do this a couple times without violin, and then with the violin. try to be aware of your shoulder blades moving together, you should feel the squeeze in the space between them.