My name is Jamie and I am 9 years old, I have been learning the violin for 5 years and been taught by teacher Hyejin for 3 and half years. In this newsletter, I would like to share with you some of my personal experiences and tips in violin.
When I was performing at a younger age, I always felt scared and nervous to be in front of a big crowd. I have since participated in various concerts, competitions and performances. As I gained more experiences playing the violin in front of a crowd, I no longer feel scared or nervous anymore.
There are some practice tips I would like to share. Before every practice, you should do some slow exercises or scales to warm up your fingers. This is to ensure your fingers are stretched and properly prepared to avoid injuries. It’s common to find a challenging part that is either fast or slow. When working on very fast passages, you should play the difficult part x5 or x10 slowly with the metronome at your comfortable speed, try broken bow and different rhythm exercises everyday so it will improve. When you’re working on slow, melodic passages, you should play open string, look at your contact point so your bow won't slip and sing with beautiful vibrato.
I would also like to share some of my favourite performance experiences with you. I have won 1st place in a number of competitions, and was invited to play at the Winners’ Recitals. Two of the most memorable experiences were performing at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2023 summer, and at Mozarteum University in Salzburg in 2024 summer. As MCF Student Ambassador, I had a solo performance with MCF Chamber Orchestra at Palace Museum in Hong Kong in 2024. All these performance venues were beautiful and grand. I would love to have a chance to perform at these venues again in the future.
Lastly and most importantly, I'd like to say thank you to teacher Hyejin for supporting me throughout my violin journey. She is a great violin teacher that helps out whenever we are in need of help, and she always does it in a kind and friendly voice! If we still don't understand, then she would tell us in a simple and fun way. Thank you teacher Hyejin!
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