Violin

One of the most common things a student tells me is:

“I practise, but it still does not improve.”

I do not immediately translate that sentence into you need to work harder. Quite often, the student has been working: repeating the passage, extending practice time, and waiting for the movement to settle. Yet the same problem returns with remarkable loyalty.

In those situations, more repetition may not be the answer. Practice strengthens whatever is being practised; it does not automatically correct the movement first. If the mechanism is wrong, repetition can make the problem more familiar without making it more functional.

So before prescribing another week of the same work, I ask the student to describe the experience.

Where exactly does the tension appear?

What changes immediately before the mistake?

Which joint feels restricted?

Does the problem remain at a slower tempo?

Does it occur on every string or only in a particular position?

What does the student believe they are doing—and what is the hand actually doing?

A violin lesson can occasionally resemble an investigation conducted with a bow, a tuner and a suspiciously attentive interest in millimetres.

A younger student of mine had been experiencing persistent pain in the left thumb after practising. The student was conscientious and worked regularly, but longer sessions made the discomfort worse. Eventually, the anticipation of pain began to reduce practice time. The difficulty was no longer confined to the hand; it had begun to reshape the student’s relationship with practice itself.

We did not respond by adding another exercise.

Instead, we spent a substantial part of the lesson locating the problem. I asked where the pressure was felt and during which movements it increased. We observed the thumb from different angles and tested its position on open strings, scales and short passages. We changed one condition at a time, comparing how the hand felt and how freely the fingers reached the fingerboard.

The cause turned out to be almost comically small.

The thumb was sitting slightly too low for the student’s particular hand. It was not an outrageous technical error. No dramatic collapse of posture was visible. It was simply a position that created unnecessary compression every time the other fingers moved.

We raised the thumb by a very small amount and allowed the hand to organise itself around a more natural point of support. Within minutes, the student noticed that the left hand felt lighter. The fingers began to fall more freely, shifting became less guarded, and intonation improved because the hand was no longer negotiating with constant resistance.

For a moment, I held the violin steady while the student played from the adjusted position. After a few notes, the student looked up and said:

“It feels as though you’re the one playing.”

Of course, I was not. More importantly, the lesson did not end with every technical difficulty permanently solved. What changed was that the student had discovered a position that did not immediately generate pain. We now had a usable reference: something the student could recognise, return to and gradually stabilise.

The following week’s work was therefore specific. The student was not told simply to “practise the piece.” The plan was to reconstruct the hand position slowly, check the thumb before tension accumulated, use short repetitions, pause before fatigue distorted the setup, and compare the feeling across scales and selected passages. The task was not to force the hand into a photographically perfect posture; it was to make the more balanced movement repeatable.

A similar process emerged with an older student while working on Dinicu’s Hora Staccato. The bow repeatedly ran out during long sequences of staccato, and the student assumed that the technique required only more hours of repetition. Repetition was certainly part of the eventual solution, but it was not the missing diagnosis.

We talked through what the student felt in the bow hand and then isolated the movement. The problem was connected to an almost invisible imbalance in the position and pressure of the fourth finger. That small detail was affecting how the hand distributed weight and, consequently, how economically the bow could be used.

We adjusted the fourth finger rather than asking the entire arm to work harder. The change was modest, but the bow immediately became easier to manage across longer staccato passages. The student still needed practice; now, however, the practice was reinforcing a more efficient movement rather than rehearsing the original obstacle.

This is an important distinction in my teaching.

Some violin problems genuinely require time. Intonation, shifting, coordination and consistency do not surrender on command. But time is not a diagnosis. “It will improve eventually” becomes meaningful only after we understand what, precisely, is expected to improve—and whether the student is repeating a movement capable of producing that improvement.

I do not believe a teacher must produce an instant solution to every difficulty. Some problems resist quick answers, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. What I do believe is that a persistent problem deserves serious attention before it is handed over to time.

That means listening to the student, examining the mechanics, separating causes from symptoms and testing changes carefully. Sometimes the solution becomes a long-term process. Sometimes the problem that has dominated weeks of practice is hiding in the quiet repositioning of a thumb or fourth finger.

What happens in a violin lesson, then, is not simply correction.

We learn to ask the movement better questions.

An online violin lesson should not begin with a student balancing a phone against a coffee mug while the teacher spends ten minutes asking whether the bow is still somewhere outside the frame.

The format works well when it is treated as an intentional teaching environment rather than a video call with an instrument in the room.

At ARSLAN CLASSICS — Academy of Music & Arts, lessons are conducted primarily through Zoom. The student receives the link shortly before the session, and the same meeting link is generally retained for future lessons. Google Meet serves as the first technical alternative; WhatsApp video is available as a final fallback. The objective, however, is not to travel through three applications every week. It is to establish one stable system and allow the lesson to remain about violin.

Once a student has joined a programme, I provide a short online-lesson setup guide covering Zoom installation, Original Sound for Musicians, lighting, camera height, score placement, audio checks, tuning and the amount of the instrument that should be visible on screen. During the first lesson, we may spend the opening five to ten minutes refining that setup together.

This is not decorative preparation. A poor camera angle can conceal the very mechanism we are trying to understand.

A computer is preferable, although a tablet is entirely workable. A phone may be used when necessary, but relying on it as the main device can reduce visual clarity and make score reading unnecessarily cramped. Music may be placed on a physical stand or displayed on a sufficiently large second screen. A score written for the violin deserves slightly more territory than a phone notification.

The student should stand or sit far enough from the device for me to see the instrument, upper body, both arms, general bow path and left-hand movement. The room must allow a little movement. During one part of the lesson I may need to observe the entire posture; five minutes later, the left thumb or the fourth finger of the bow hand may become the centre of the discussion.

The student does not need an elaborate multi-camera studio. One properly positioned camera is enough. When necessary, I ask them to move closer, step back or turn the device slightly. These adjustments usually take seconds. On my side, I may use one or two cameras depending on whether the lesson requires a broad demonstration or a close view of a specific hand movement.

An external microphone is welcome but not compulsory. A functioning camera, clear microphone and stable internet connection are the practical essentials. The student’s equipment and connection inevitably affect what can be heard and seen; prolonged technical interruptions also reduce the usable lesson time. For that reason, checking the setup beforehand is part of preparing for the lesson, much like tuning the violin before beginning to play.

A metronome and tuner appear in almost every session. I prefer the student to run a combined tuner-and-metronome application on a separate phone while Zoom remains open on the computer or tablet. When both functions compete on the same device, the tuner may begin listening to the teacher’s voice, the speaker output or anything except the note it was invited to examine. A separate phone keeps the arrangement considerably more civilised.

From the first note to the final assignment

After a brief greeting, I normally begin by listening to the previous week’s work. While the student plays, I try not to interrupt unnecessarily. I want to hear the genuine version of the assignment: how the passage holds together, where the rhythm changes, what happens under pressure and which problems appear without prompting.

Only then do we analyse.

A visible mistake may originate somewhere unexpected. An intonation problem can begin in the balance of the hand; a bowing issue may be connected to the fourth finger; an unstable passage may be rhythmic before it is technical. We isolate the difficulty, alter one condition at a time and determine what the student is actually feeling. The camera may move closer. The tempo may be reduced. A passage may be tested on open strings, separated into smaller units or repeated with a metronome.

Depending on the programme and the student’s stage, lessons may draw from the Maia Bang Violin Method, scales, exercises, études and repertoire. I do not use one book as an automatic route imposed on every person. A structured method provides continuity; the student’s real needs determine where we pause, what we combine and when we move forward. When English instructions in the material require clarification, I explain and translate them in Turkish so that language does not become an accidental technical obstacle.

Scores and essential PDFs are normally sent before the lesson through WhatsApp, with enough time for the student to prepare them. Screen sharing is reserved for material that genuinely benefits from being viewed together: an annotated passage, a document, a particular recording, a YouTube performance or a reference that the student does not need to keep permanently. Fingering, bow directions, rhythmic divisions and practice sections can then be marked and discussed directly.

Internet latency makes perfectly simultaneous playing unreliable. Fortunately, individual violin teaching does not depend on pretending that two delayed audio streams form an ensemble. I demonstrate; the student listens; then the student plays while I observe. Rhythm can be supported by the metronome on the student’s side, where no network delay interferes with the pulse.

Lessons are not recorded automatically. I strongly recommend keeping a notebook—physical or digital—nearby. A detail mentioned during a lesson may become the key to the entire week’s practice, and memory has an unfortunate habit of editing technical instructions shortly after the call ends. At important moments, I may ask the student to write something down or retain a short, clearly identified explanation, but recording the full lesson is not the default.

Toward the end of the session, we review what changed and establish the next week’s priorities. After the lesson, I send a written or voice-message summary through WhatsApp: what to practise, how to practise it, which tempo to use, which error to watch for and what should be ready for our next meeting.

The live session is the centre of the programme, but it is not the edge of it. Video feedback, individual demonstration videos and messaging support continue between lessons according to the selected package.

Online teaching has honest limitations. I cannot physically reposition a student’s hand, and inadequate sound, lighting or camera resolution may restrict what can be observed. Yet the format also gives us a documented and carefully organised process: scores arrive in advance, demonstrations can be shown from more than one angle, focused videos can be reviewed, and weekly practice does not have to depend on what the student happens to remember.

A successful online lesson is therefore not a lesser face-to-face lesson.

It is a different room—built deliberately around observation, explanation and work that continues after the screen goes dark.