Violin timer

How to use the online timer

Thirty minutes is a sensible daily session on the violin, and posture is the reason not to make it much longer at first. The left shoulder and the bow arm both tire, and a tired player compensates by clamping the shoulder or gripping the bow, which reinforces exactly the habits a teacher spends months undoing. The first twenty minutes are worth more than the last ten if the last ten are spent collapsing.

Intonation is the work. Unlike a keyboard, nothing on the fingerboard is decided for you, and a passage practised repeatedly a fraction flat teaches the hand to go there. Practising scales slowly against a drone note, or with an open string ringing alongside, gives the ear something to measure against, and stopping to correct a note rather than carrying on is the difference between practice and rehearsal of a mistake.

A few minutes of open-string bowing at the start settles the right arm before the left hand complicates matters: straight bow, consistent contact point, even sound from frog to tip. Tune before starting and check it again partway through, since new strings and central heating both push a violin out over half an hour. Then take the awkward passage out of the piece and work it slowly, rather than playing the whole thing again and hoping.