I think I may have asked this before but I'm looking for a book, not one with specific music, that describes things like different bowing techniques etc.

I've got Simon Fischer's book 'Basics' and honestly it's way above my head at the moment.

I searched Amazon for violin books and was wondering if anyone out there has, or has read, 'How muscles learn' by Susan Kempter,

or 'The technique of violin playing - the Joachim method' by Karl Courvesoir

or 'Violin playing as I teach it' by Leopold Auer

or 'On the violin' by Joseph Szigeti


or maybe someone could suggest or recommend something? Even if it's quite advanced I'd be interested in personal thoughs.....

You've mentioned some others already, in addition there is Pierre Baillot, The Art of the Violin; Leopold Mozart, Treatise On Playing The Violin; Louis Spohr's Violin, School; Carl Flesch, The Art of Playing the Violin. Plus others......

The biggest issue is that they were all written a long time ago, some of them two hundred or more years ago. While there is nothing wrong in their content, albeit they are all individual opinions on the dos and don'ts of violin playing, they tend to be written in (or rather translated into) rather old fashioned English.

If you are struggling with the relatively straightforward and modern explanations of Simon Fischer, books which also include numerous photographs, then I honestly don't think any of the others will offer a simpler explanation of playing techniques.

Discuss things with your teacher, since in the earlier stages of learning to play the violin, visual alongside verbal explanations have no substitute.

I have 'Basics' too.

Not strictly about violin playing but violin related I thoroughly recommend 'Five Violins, One Cello & A Genius' by Toby Faber. It's about Stradivari and traces the lives of six of his instruments over the last 300 years.

this book came across to me as quite thorough and 'ok' to understand, it has tons of pictures in it too, I will buy it soon

Oops now I feel a bit 'shtooopid' if you all say Fischer's book is okay... I must admit I bought it last year when I had just started and haven't really looked at it since.. I had just condemned it as a bit too heavy-going probably because of the cheap quality of paper and terribly dark black-and-white photographs. Back then I was pre-Grade One so I suppose I should take it out and read it again in new light and not make such retrospective sweeping generalisations.

Amanda L, consider me truly humbled in the face of Fischer's "relatively straightforward and modern explanations" (because normally I like big words really) and I'll go and give 'Basics' another try

As for the other books archaic language doesn't bother me as I have a Masters degree in Literature and did a fair bit of ye olde ffiolins in parte. But yes, I was looking for something a bit more modern and accessible than Mozart himself, perhaps with a little 'Disney' technicolour thrown in .

Lottie, I know what you mean about Fischer. Despite the title, he does seem to assume that you can already play reasonably well. (If I could play his examples, I wouldn't need the book ...) But actually, if there is something specific that you have a problem with, you can sometimes find tips that are helpful even at a very basic level.

"The Art of Practising the Violin" by Robert Gerle is another one that looks quite helpful, but again it's aimed at more advanced players than us.

I found Kato Havas' 'New approach' book interesting to read. I found it in a library - not sure I would buy it, though, as I find the Fischer seems to have everything I need.

The Spohr method would not be as helpful to a beginner as a modern one, but to a historian of music it is fascinating. Do you know all the notes in your concerto that it would be appropriate to embellish with vibrato? Spohr will tell you (if he knows the work). Would you know what to do if you were stuck in a remote town needing a new set of strings and could only buy tapered ones (i.e. gut, badly made)? Answer: make sure you fit them tapering the same way, otherwise fingered fifths will not be straight across the finger board. Nothing about harmonics, except that they are a flashy new technique of which he disapproves

I'd cry!!!

I'd plait some of my long hair into strings and spend half-an-hour making the audience think it would work! ... and then when we were all falling about laughing I'd get them into a sing-song instead (note-to-self: always carry a bottle of whisky in my violin case because if in doubt (in Scotland anyway) offer everyone a dram.....)

Much of his teaching technique is an extension of Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian. I know a couple of people who've had lessons with Simon Fischer and they highly commend his teaching practices.

The Galamian methods are particularly holistic and his own book is very well written. He was one of the first teachers to move away from regimental fingerings and realise that physique is an important factor in what is possible, or not possible, for each individual violin student.


Spohr is not just interesting to a music historian, his method is also of interest to any 'serious' student of the violin. These methods are still valid in many ways and they also give violinists (esp. aspiring professionals) an insight into playing styles of the era.

We are lucky these days in that we have plenty of modern books (not to mention DVDs etc.), telling and showing us how to do things, but back in the 18th and 19th centuries such luxuries were few and far between. Musicians often had to work it out for themselves, from scratch.

Lottie, I know what you mean about the Fischer book! I've got it as well and hardly looked at it. After reading the comments on here, I should get the book out and give it another chance. It does have helpful pictures.

For complete beginners to go out and buy a book thinking it will help them understand or learn learn, is never a good idea. In the initial stages even the very 'basics' will be totally alien, let alone trying to fathom out the jargon that accompanies it.

It's the equivalent of trying to master calculus before you've learnt algebra.

But often complete beginners, particularly adults, need a great deal of information at hand in order to work certain things out and I know for myself half-an-hour a week with a teacher is often just not enough. Having a book at hand which explains jargon clearly and extemporises 'alien' concepts could only be helpful

As a former academic my thirst for knowledge is probably a little more intense than some but I would never presume to set limits for someone who is determined to learn

Yes, I perfectly understand where you are coming from, I've studied many other things as a mature student, so I'm no newcomer to adult learning myself.

However, as a professional player and experienced teacher, I would not expect anyone with less than three continuous months of lessons on the violin to simply take a book and attempt to extend their knowledge from there. Indeed it would be wrong of me to expect it, with the only exception being that of a student who had previous experience playing a bowed string instrument. The playing position of the violin/viola is incredibly alien, there is nothing else you will do in your life that would even mimmick that position, let alone the antics the right arm has to get up to as well. That's why it really does need to be explained verbally and demonstrated 'live'. It is not like learning to play a board game, or programme instructions on a new piece of equipment. Misconceptions and bad habits are formed on the violin/viola very quickly by students who take a couple of lessons and then insist on starting to look things up in a book. One step at a time and patience, is the moto. It is harder and more time consuming to unlearn and re-learn, than it is to get it right from the start.

We have a number of violin books, bought back in the day when Amazon didn't provide much information, so ordering English books unseen was a kind of book-roulette. So a very tiny Viohazard had Baillot's book, which is practically heavier than he is (and the information on how to hold the instrument is probably not considered the "best" by modern teachers). I loaned it to one of his teachers for about 5 years! I like the way he organizes performance directions into relatively more "regular" or "irregular", but that's not strictly violin.

I'm not surprised that "Violin Playing as I Teach It" by Auer continues to be in print - it's short and accessible, and has a lot to say about musicianship, and also about the importance of the basics at even the highest levels. I notice that Viohazard has put this one and the two Robert Gerle books (on practice and on bowing) on his own bookshelf.

To be honest, the biggest barrier to Galamian/Flesch/Mozart is the price! And I think the Galamian "violin technique" book may be currently out of print in English?

P.S. talking of slim volumes, one I've been interested in is "Violin Mastery", which is a collection of interviews with violin bigwigs. That seems the kind of thing that would be inspiring and have good general advice, without the risk of misunderstood or inappropriate detailed technical advice.

If a relative beginner looks something up in a book between lessons, misunderstands it and starts doing it wrong, (s)he is going to get the error corrected at the next lesson (assuming her/his teacher is any good). The risk of getting it wrong for a few days seems a small price to pay for the chance of getting some insight that you might never get from your teacher at all. I found helpful tips in Fischer on a couple of points on which my teacher had been no help, and this was when I had had perhaps half a dozen lessons. While Fischer is not aimed at beginners, and beginners won't be able to follow most of the advice (in the sense of putting it into practice right away), it isn't particularly hard to understand.

Galamian is in print and available in English. Brittens in Wigmore Street, London, currently stock it in paperback version.

Any teacher who is worth their salt will have taken the time to read through these books themselves. Those who have will ensure they pass on salient points to students. On the flip-side, ill-prepared teachers and a failure to correct students mistakes often go hand-in-hand, regrettably.

Thank you! It was out of print when I looked on Amazon a few weeks ago, and Brittens was one online music seller I didn't know about...I like their web interface - the search function is FAST and EFFICIENT!

Of course, but it isn't always easy to find a teacher who is worth their salt. Surely it's better to get good advice from a book than not to get it at all?

Perhaps to look it up and then to ask your teacher about it would be a better option than looking it up but saying nothing at all at your lesson. The point I am trying to make is that a beginner just won't know where to start. This is no fault of theirs, but, Simon Fischer's book was not written to be read from cover to cover, it's a book you dip into for handy hints on how to remedy an existing/known problem in your own playing. If you start trying to tackle new stuff your exisiting technique or playing level is not yet ready for (and Simon's book is not an instruction manual per se), that's when major problems creep in. It doesn't take very long for the brain and hands to form a bad habit.

Perhaps; but one has to judge whether, in the circumstances, that is likely to be a helpful approach. Lesson time is expensive, and filling gaps in one's teacher's knowledge is not necessarily the best use of it. I want my teacher to tell me what (in her opinion) I'm doing wrong, and what I should do instead. Is it really relevant whether I'm doing it wrong because I forgot what she told me last week, I got bad advice in an ABRSM forum, or I misunderstood some good advice I read in a book?

I couldn't agree more (for what it's worth). I'm only talking about dipping into it for hints on problems that, for whatever reason, one has not been able to resolve with the help of one's teacher. This has worked for me, on occasion.