2-finger exercise for shifting, vibrato, sound production & high positions [violin technique]

[@rociolumieredelune]

Thank you for the shout-out! Surely all the videos will be soon translated, so those who speak Spanish can benefit from your gold worth master classes! Gracias por la mención! Pronto todos los videos tendrán la traducción correcta, para que quienes hablamos español podamos aprovechar al máximo tus clases maestras que valen oro!

[@DanielKurganov]

Thank you! For anyone interested, Rocio is an excellent violinist and teacher. Let’s flood her inbox! 🤠

[@alejandramerida2249]

If you need any help, would be my pleasure to assist you

[@williamrivera9788]

A did pay with my credit card. But I didn't recive my book jet.

[@williamrivera9788]

Si me gustaria en español.

[@jenshoffmann2210]

Daniel making seemingly boring exercises always so interesting and pleasant.

[@gabrielb426]

It can't be understated how valuable these lessons are to an advancing student. My technique has been improving drastically since I found your channel and started the excercises you recommend. It's refreshing, as someone who likes to know everyting about anything I'm learning, when you cover answers to questions that I've started a back log for a teacher or professional, which I'll begin working with next week. My current struggle is tension in my hand when I'm learning new material. For example, the Sevcik exercises for intonation. Focusing on the intonation, I often catch my pinky swung far down and below the neck, whch I think may be related to what you were referencing here about the elbow position effecting hand position and tension. It feels similar to a tightrope balance to prevent that so I'm either slightly out of tune or clenching on stretches like the B flat shift, but my intonation has indeed improved significantly. Thank you.

[@DanielKurganov]

Glad you are making progress, Gabriel! Left hand tension starts at the frame of the hand and the way you understand finger articulation. One thing to also consider is not to stretch "up" with the hand, but rather build your frame based on accommodation of the 4th finger, and then placing the others afterwards. This will always result in a more natural and flexible position. Keep the hand 'open' and fingers tall. Open the center of your palm, like your hand is blossoming from within.

[@DanielKurganov]

Have you given much thought to focusing on 2 fingers at a time? Let me know what you think of these exercises and don't forget to grab the free PDF from the link in the description. Regarding Spanish captions, most of my videos have them now, and it will be complete soon! 00:00​ Intro 00:42​ Announcements 01:33​ Summary of Hrimaly, Yost, Gola 02:22​ HRIMALY 06:30​ YOST 08:16​ GOLA 15:13​ **How to Practice these exercises** 16:26​ Shifting 17:47​ Role of the different parts of the arm 19:26​ Sound production 20:05​ "Waves" exercise 21:24​ Intonation 22:01​ High Positions: how-to 24:31​ Vibrato 26:06​ Dynamics 28:13​ Dexterity Variation 28:53​ Scroll Support Method

[@edshire2]

Took lessons for seven years with a Russian born violinist. And some years later with and American born teacher. I have learned more from you in the past month of watching your videos than I did in the combined lessons of the previous 2 teachers. Thank you , thank you. Ed Scheier

[@DanielKurganov]

So glad you are finding it useful!

[@THEVIRTUALVIOLINTUTOR]

FANTASTIC EXERCISES!

[@darlenerivest148]

This scale warm up is excellent. I tried it out today during my practice. It's a great workout for so many aspects of playing. I especially liked the part where you mention vibrato being a diagnostic tool. I think we often avoid vibrato in scales, but it certainly would be useful to heighten our awareness of tension. Thank you so much for this video, Daniel!!

[@Violinna]

Another fantastic video! I never knew about Gola - thank you for the introduction. Will be getting both volumes!

[@DanielKurganov]

Thanks Inna. I think you’ll like it. It’s exhaustive. Double stops and everything! I didn’t want to include too many pages of the Gola in the PDF to respect the dead man’s right to earn money 💰😍

[@strad7415]

Thank you for your lesson.I practice every day with your video ~You are my best teacher ~~~❤

[@madhusudan6129]

Great teacher Daniel 😊

[@dvides89]

Saludos desde Honduras 🇭🇳 Maestro!!

[@BarroqueSpirit]

EXCELENTE INFORMACIÓN. MUCHAS GRACIAS POR TODOS LOS VIDEOS. ME ENCANTA EL MÉTODO DE HRIMALY. LOS OTROS LOS CONOZCO GRACIAS A TÍ. GRACIAS!!!! ERES UN VIOLINISTA Y UN MAESTRO GENIAL.

[@DanielKurganov]

🙏

[@SF-ru3lp]

Delighted to get this teaching Daniel! Adult student here. There is so much "meat" packed in, in a very absorbable fashion. Thank you so much for unpacking the exercises so well. I am really grateful. I will be getting going on these (the starters ones anyway!). Your few moments on shifting was just the review I needed! A micro lesson in a few sentences. Daniel your talent is as broad as it is deep. Every blessing to you! (Am hesitating re Patreon. I am not used to a paid ongoing subscription and I am unsure whether I can usefully apply the material. Will keep it in mind tho.) Very best regards. Georgina, Ireland

[@stidinadia1369]

You are the BEST! Thanks for helping us! It is sooo useful

[@Haymitch_musi6]

Learn a lot from you🙂thank you for ur all video tutorials🙏

[@Poreckylife]

You are calm, educated and connected. Do you offer violin lessons? Zoom lessons?

[@DanielKurganov]

Thank you 🙏🏼 yes, I do sometimes teach online privately

[@SharifulIslam21]

Thanks for your video, it's really helpful. Please make a video about the daily practice routine of a professional violinist.

[@MrGuillermoraben]

Muchas gracias por compartir tus conocimientos!!! Gracias!!! Gracias!!! Y en español!!!

[@DanielKurganov]

De nada!

[@sergybear]

I always feel inspired by your videos. Always bringing fresh approaches to practicing!

[@road2acoustic99]

You are a fantastic teacher, these exercises are so great, that's the best video I ever seen on the shifts practicing, thanks thanks thanks thanks and THANKS!!

[@christiejusuf6805]

Thnk you so much. ❤❤ i learn so kuch from your youtube, n i think this is the best chanel for learning violin, for beginner like me, you are the real teacher..❤❤ Thank you teacher...

[@christiejusuf6805]

I subscribe your chanel, cause this chanel are amazing!!

[@jasper6181]

Greeting from Australia, My child was started on Yost exercises around grade 3, and is not scared at all of shifting. At first, her dad thought she was being silly sliding up and down and told her to stop it , but I stepped in to confirm that this was her study to practise. I now wish I had of done Yost when I was young and these other exercises are fantastic too. I have recently watched hours of your tutorials and feel much better equipped to trouble shoot various issues. The thing I like the most is the quiet, gentle and logical manner of speaking and presentation which allows me to hold focus right through the lengthy videos. Some other videos are exhausting, just to listen and watch, but yours are presented in such a wonderfully calm and controlled manner, allowing the focus to be on your fingers and techniques. Thankyou for sharing your expertise and extensive research.

[@DanielKurganov]

Thanks so much, Jasper - I'm happy to hear it's been helpful!

[@tomdis8637]

Nicely done, Daniel. I like Yost’s “Key to the Mastery of the Fingerboard” (as well as the other “Mastery” books) as a one-stop shop for practicing many of the concepts and techniques you elucidate so beautifully. Yost’s emphasis on thoroughly learning the two-octave compass of each string is quite beneficial.

[@FiddlingwithmyWhistle]

Very helpful, thanks for sharing

[@DanielKurganov]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Shareef2610]

Thank for introducing us to such technique. We always play scale in normal way that’s why they get boring after some time. But this is very beautiful technique which improve shifting and intonation. And finger accuracy

[@sitosanchez]

Great new the Spanish subtitles!! Thank you Daniel for your amazing work helping violin students all over the world

[@DanielKurganov]

Thanks! Not all videos have it yet, but most do. Soon it will be complete!

[@sitosanchez]

I realized that some videos are already updated with subs!!! Thanks!!!

[@veenajohari8042]

Your videos are simply the best. Thanks for sharing your deep knowledge and experience.

[@DanielKurganov]

I appreciate that!

[@sadhbhdelahunt]

Thanks.

[@stevemds]

Hi Daniel Thank you so much for you well thought out videos. I have one comment about you mentioning that you don't see a benefit for thumb leading on the downshift. That technique is more applicable for people who don't use a shoulder rest. When not using a shoulder rest , the left hand is used to support the violin. Therefore, when down shifting the leading thumb (under the neck) helps support the violin and makes the shift work without tension. It's a long story, but I use to use a shoulder rest and after many year figured out that was the source of my tension. Regardless, your tips are amazing and your tip about the arm leading the shift really works.

[@DanielKurganov]

Yes, you are correct. I personally have a mixture of support with the hand and support with the head. I find that supporting a bit with the head on big down shifts is more reliable than thumb tomfoolery, but that's just the path I've gone down. Technique can be so personal, and inevitably, against my wishes, I end up teaching from my own bias sometimes.

[@vansaram9351]

Great! it's a good technique.

[@llucmumu3085]

IT'S A BRILLIANT EXERCISES!! Thanks you so much!

[@nicholashill9302]

Thanks again another great video. Be well!!😊

[@wendyshell8679]

What a great idea!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼❤️

[@robertoanedda811]

Molto interessante. Grazie, Thank you.

[@noheliazambranogutierrez1470]

Amazing explanation. Thanks for the video!

[@mariailicak4777]

Thank you very much ! 🙏 extremely valuable information! I’ve just printed the scores of exercises, and will start my day tomorrow with that !👍

[@DanielKurganov]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kyproset]

Amazing exercises, thank you, maestro.

[@marisagutierrez3194]

Genial, gracias

[@gorillagorilla111]

as usual, another lesson of pure gold! love it. the Gola is very nice, i'm trying it between 2nd and 4th positions, etc, as well and it's great. thanks for the wealth of teaching in this video ! 🙏

[@DanielKurganov]

Glad you like it! The Gola is very cool. This of the beginning of the 2nd book fyi. It gets pretty challenging with double stops and all. The first book is more elementary. Both great

[@gorillagorilla111]

Daniel Kurganov, Violinist i'll check it out !

[@bobafetteste]

Hey, Daniel! Absolutely love this video. Framing the shift as originating from the forearm has been a definitive game changer ever since you mentioned it on your videos and I love this new exercises. I'd like to share a video I stumbled upon recently from Barry Harris called "No fingers", where he talks about the lateral of the hands across a piano keyboard and how it should come from the forearms, NOT the fingers/hand. It's also on KZbin (I tried sharing the link, but my comment kept getting flagged). I think it highlights the same underlying principle about the hand shift.

[@josepa3286]

Super

[@GRANT-W-NEALE]

Your videos are truly impressive. I’m definitely going to use patreon !!!

[@DanielKurganov]

Thanks so much, Grant!

[@biergistlevure4385]

Dankeschön für diesen

[@mljk8924]

Thumb hand coordination is necessary if you play without shoulder rest, or if you balance the neck on the hand with a shoulder rest.

[@ksychess]

Muito bom!!! Parabéns

[@vlingres]

Thank you Daniel for your so instructive video. Have you done a video explaining the different kinds of shifting (exchange shift, etc...) as you have mentioned ?

[@DanielKurganov]

Not yet! Definitely on the list for future videos.

[@yuliastone9704]

Thank you, I needed this! Could you please make a video about detache

[@DanielKurganov]

Good idea!

[@user-xp9jz9ye2y]

My teacher never allowed me to practice scales with vibrato, for the purpose of a scale exercise is to obtain accuracy in intonations.

[@williamrivera9788]

I would like to buy your book.

[@kennethbrush7300]

Wow❣️

[@conradreyes5391]

Thank you, Sir for sharing this video, but may I ask, which of the three is compatible with short fingers.

[@felicecusano7326]

Bravo. È possibile avere il suo metodo. Come è possibile contatto..

[@felicecusano7326]

Aspetto una risposta

[@aaronblackham360]

19:00 On the thumb leading for particular shifts: I've had this advised as a reliable way to land in 1st position from above, though it felt unnatural when I tried it. Fischer's exercise in 'Basics' has you doing low to middle position shifts without a shoulder rest to coax the thumb into behaving in this way. More broadly speaking, what do you think of the merit of this sans shoulder rest practicing for the sake of advising the way we will play with our real life setup which of course includes a shoulder rest?

[@DanielKurganov]

This is a very interesting and complex topic. Feel free to scroll down to find a more direct answer to your question. However, I want to lay a few things out first. I see a taxonomy originating from two main branches: do you hold the violin in the hand, or do you hold the violin with your head? Obviously we have gray areas in-between (which I think is the best solution for most people). On one side of this extreme, we have someone like Ricci, who believed in essentially crawling with the hand/thumb in a very dynamic (and somewhat unstable) way. I find this particularly interesting because he had no neck, so holding the violin with the head would be a no-brainer (pun there somewhere?) The potential problems with playing this way are different that the potential problems with playing with the head holding the instrument (which is often accompanied by a shoulder rest or a shoulder pad). In the case of holding the violin primarily in the hand, it is not as easy to play accurately, but tension in your upper body is less common, because more things are in flux and not ‘fixed’. On the flip side, playing with head support (let’s say 100% head support, where the violin is just clamped in place) can lead to all sorts of body damage if not done with awareness, but it offers a less complicated way to shift and a free left hand (this can become dreadful freedom). This topic is complicated further by the fact that it’s very difficult to change the fundamental way you play after, say 20 years of intense study. So, people who are used to one way, but have problems, they have to consider that fundamental changes might be necessary, and that it might not be possible. That aside - to answer your question, I don’t think the presence or absence of a shoulder rest is necessarily the critical point here. Rather, it’s whether you are holding the violin in the hand, or with the head. After-all, I can hold the violin with my hand even with a shoulder rest (I have a long neck, so it’s pretty easy to create 5 inches of space above my chinrest if I extend fully). So, maybe the no-shoulder-rest experiment is useful, but only in the sense that you’re holding the violin in the hand. If you ditch the shoulder rest, put a pad under your jacket, you can still hold the violin with your head. I don’t think that’s particularly useful for creating new feedback for shifting etc. So, I think the best thing to do, if you primarily hold the violin with your head, is to get into the habit of releasing it and balancing the violin in the hand more. This can improve shifts, and just make your hand more aware of where it is, what it’s doing, etc. More importantly, it is a good release-valve for upper body tension that often goes unnoticed. I see SO MANY high level violinists with tension all over their upper body. It affects the sound. The sound is forced, thinner, less radiant. Confused tension in the neck and head translates to the hands. It’s all connected. You can’t full reach the core of the string and pull a pure sound if you can’t let the violin go - or push the violin up. You need that interaction, like when you pet a cat and the cat pushes back up into your hand, or a Tibetan singing bowl that vibrates as you get closer and closer to “the zone”. I see people playing with force to compensate, but it only ends with grief. I won’t name names, thought that might be useful... I don’t see how the thumb is needed to land in 1st position. We are measuring the fingerboard constantly - with every single contact point, every angle of that contact point, and our sense of 3-d space. Our bodies are actually quite sensitive if they’re are left to feel in the instrument unhindered, and our minds are more actively involved and aware in processing those sensations. Instead of Fischer’s suggestion (but maybe adjacent to it) I would say learn to play with a period instrument and bow. If you want real change, you need to really change things. So just do something very different. It’s like a jolt to your body and mind, and you find yourself in a new orchard with a new supply of low-hanging fruit to pick. I prefer that over “well try without shoulder rest”. That will feel “kind of the same but different, and overall uncomfortable”. It won’t jolt you into another state. Going full Baroque will. And it doesn’t have to be ideological (or out of tune). Just look at Shunske Sato. So, to reiterate - everyone has different bodies, and there are some distinctly different schools of playing. I don’t crawl with the thumb except for some very special situations. I believe in a simple approach for ‘everyday shifting’ (the kind you should hide) and I throw that out the window when we speak of portamento or various other expressive moments. For that, everything must be free to break from whatever frame. This is one problem I see with many modern violinists who exclusively hold the violin with the head and haven’t learned to balance it - a frame that is not flexible. Therefore, expressivity suffers, and moments that can sound special, sound similar to everything else. This is a larger topic, is not to be interpreted as some generalization of XYZ violinists. As someone who has deeply studied the great players of yesterday and today, I don’t buy into the fact that there was more expression then, less now, more individuals then, less now. These are lies. There is different kind of expression now vs then, and way media promotes certain players is not related to how expressive they are - that’s for sure. But there are brilliant expressive unique players out there today, and most of the players back then were not particularly interesting. Nothing changes. My advice, learn to be in flux with the instrument. Use any position, and setup, as long as it works and it’s not totally. I think 70-30 holding with head/holding with hand is a good balance for people that hold too much with the head and want to get to the next level. Maybe 60-40 is better. Or more. That becomes very personal. Learn to seek a sound that is more pure, is deeper, requires less and less effort, a lighter and lighter touch.

[@noshititskrae]

Are these exercises (and your masterclass in general) appropriate for relative beginners who are self teaching, or should folks wait until later on in their violin journey?

[@DanielKurganov]

As soon as you are comfortable with basic shifting technique from 1st to 3rd position, I would recommend starting on these with a teacher. Probably start with the Yost. He has some other great materials for shifting that are perfect for the early stages.

[@kirtjt1577]

i want my sound to sound like this

[@gribmuse5686]

🙏👍

[@Vaskaunt]

Скажите, пожалуйста, на какой микрофон вы пишете звук во время съёмки?

[@DanielKurganov]

Mne ochen nravit'sa Ribbon microphones. U nih zvook ochen tepli i shiroki! Na primer, Samar AL95 - klasni microfon!

[@aminmajd_violin9067]

Thank you so much master ...very nice ...are you send for me pdf gola etude

[@DanielKurganov]

Check my PayHip link in the description!

[@barbkusko6027]

Where is the pdf file to download?

[@DanielKurganov]

You can find the link in the video description.

[@EudoraPrice]

👍💖🌺🌺🌺🌺🎵🎻

[@guadalupevasquez8092]

Why are you slurring in the down scale ?

[@pb8963]

We can't see . Camera isn't close enough

[@oncleben5885]

keep in mind this is not a beginner exercice. (I mean, if it's your case it's really really too hard ... even if you're very extremely motivated ; ) Download the score ( link in the description below the video ! ) print it, play the video at half speed...then experiment it Slowly with indicated fingerings. Don't try too hard.( relax and don't squeeze, don't forget to breeeeze)

[@DELILAH_MOON]

Hi

[@LD-uc8oc]

30:00 it didn't stop :c

[@DanielKurganov]

Legend is he’s still noodling to this day

[@LD-uc8oc]

@@DanielKurganov The true legend says that he killed his brother Viola out of jealousy of his C string and his father Ysaÿe condemned him to noodling until the end of time

[@BELMOT4]

ما احس في احد مجنون ينام او يسترخي على دا الصوت

[@zeynepakgol]

[@meyerbeer13]

Im a f. U. K. Ing pianist 3 and 4 aren't a big deal

[@sk86sk86]

とても良い……が…..あなたのLessonを音楽にどのように生かすのか？全く語られていない。残念だがつまらない‼️

[@yohiniethinymephuasam8784]

เหมือนว่าน้องออกจากศาสนาหนึ่งมาสนใจพระพุทธศาสนา​นะคะ