When I first began learning violin it was private lessons I was about 10 and progressed pretty well. Never used basic tutor books as my teacher just wrote out simple pieces for me. The first book was grade 1 pieces and learned about 2 of them before I moved house, as well as scales, then with my next teacher and shared lessons it took me two years to actually take the exam and another two for the next grade. It all seemed really slow and really but me off as I didn't really feel like I was learing. Could this desire to always be working for exams be due to my early learnings and how do I change this as it seems to be viewed negativly by teachers and others.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to be aiming for an exam, it all depends. Some students and teachers no sooner get over one exam than they start work on the pieces for the next exam. This means that the student could in theory get to grade 8 and only ever have played 24 pieces in their entire musical lives - and even less than that if they skip a grade or two. A better practice is after you've finished an exam, to continue developing your technique and learning new skills, playing lots of different pieces which focus on different aspects of playing so that you develop as a rounded musician. Your teacher should teach you the techniques and skills which will be relevant for the next grade, and then once you've learnt these techniques and skills, learning the pieces will be much easier. As noodle once so eloquently put it (thanks again noodle ) ... "It is a question of waiting until the students have the technical ability to achieve the requirements of the grade and then learning the pieces when they are ready. I would have thought it was necessary to have the technique to play/learn the pieces rather than working on the technique within the pieces." So to lurch straight from one exam to another is not good practice, but having them as a goal - when you're ready - can be good, gives you a focus for some time in future, just don't fix the date until your teacher thinks you can play at the right level for the grade

Well, i've played enough music on the violin, progress was s-l-o-w.



I was on Suzuki book 3 with my old teacher, and when I changed teachers, it was group lessons, so she made me do pieces from 'fiddle time runners/sprinters', , which was far too easy, and after 2 years of not progressing well, I'm now on suzuki book 4 with quite hard stuff all because of PRIVATE LESSONS!!! The same teacher, but makes a difference



I think that if I moved straight on to suzuki book 4 when I finished book 3, my note-reading wouldn't have been good enough though...