I have been learning violin for a year and is now learning suzuki book 2 and Elementary Progressive Studies Set 2. I can sight read well and learn a piece quite fast because of background in piano, but because of my work I cannot practice a piece assigned very fluently for the next lesson. I can only play fluently when I play it slow. I know that I need to play my pieces faster (actually usually I only play slightly slower than moderate speed) My violin teacher has been telling me to play my pieces faster and always make me play them faster during the lesson, sometimes 2 times faster or more. I am starting to doubt that this is good because I often end up feeling exhausted and frustrated after playing through a piece 2 times faster than I just played. (And I always thought it would be better to slowly increase the speed with the metronome, as I have always done when practicing piano). My intonation also suffered whenever I have to play faster than I'm used to, and I ended up playing rubbish. I am really feeling very frustrated whenever he made me play fast and I'm starting to lose motivation in my violin playing.

Another thing is as my intonation is not very good, my teacher has been trying to help me improve my intonation during the lesson. I also practice using a digital tuner (that is quite sensitive) but my intonation has only improved slightly but still not good. My teacher has started teaching me intonation in unequal temperament (same frequencies on all perfect 5ths) and I'm also starting to doubt that this is good for me because shouldn't I be aiming for good intonation first before learning how to play in unequal temperament. Because I'm a pianist and I'm used to equal temperament and I believe the tuner that I practice with is equally tempered too.

Any violin teachers here pls give me your 2cents worth of opinion. Thanks.

First off forget the metranome and digital tuner, digtal tuners are just for tuning before practice imo.

Secondly play pieces slowly. make sure every note is secure 1 by 1 and don't continue until it is. Then as you get used to the notes then you can slowly speed up to the proper speed.

If you find something hard spend longer on it. Don't waste time practicing things that you find easy.

As someone else who doesn't get as much prac time as I would like, I would say that your first move may perhaps be to slow the learning pace a little so that you are covering less more thoroughly. It's your teacher's job to go at your pace, not to force you beyond what you can reasonably manage.

Don't use a digital tuner at all.

Your teacher is right to teach you unequal temp. the violin is not a tempered instrument and should not be played as such, it will sound out of tune.

Tuners, however, are usually set in equal temp, so checking your tuning against one is a very bad idea indeed.

You shouldn't even tune your violin with one (sorry to disagree Violin Hero) - as the four strings will have to be slightly out of tune with the tuner for the fifths to be perfect (the a will be in tune, but the d will be slightly flat and the flatter again, whilst the e will register sharp).

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that equal temp is good intonation - on the violin, it isn't. It's out of tune.

Try singing the scale as you play the notes, singing each note a fraction before you play it.

Professorv on you tube has some nice ideas about playing in tune, you could check those out too.

Don't panic, though, you'll get there eventually and whilst you should constantly strive to play perfectly, you should know that no violinist hits every note bang on all the time - it isn't possible. You'll still be thinking about intonation in ten years time!

Well, you could tune the A to 440 with the tuner - it's easier than using a tuning fork, but then you should be taking the other strings from that one (in perfect 5ths). Of course, if you are playing with a piano accompaniment then you'll need to tune to that.

For intonation, you should be aiming for proper violin intonation from the start. This means that it's not helpful to play with a tuner (possibly unless you're learning something very modern/atonal with lots of position changes - but then only at the beginning of learnin it). The only way to learn intonation is to listen a lot, so that you know what note your supposed to be playing, and then have your left hand free and comfortable enough to make the tiny tiny shifts in position needed to get the note perfectly in tune - vibrato helps with this actually.

As rosfrog said, scales are perfect for practising intonation. And good practice in general.

When you can't play fast enough, is it a left hand problem or a bowing problem? If it's the left hand, then that needs lots of slow practice to build up fluency. I have had problems in Baroque music not being able to bow semiquavers quick enough, and found that it helped to practice lots of different bowing rhythms, first on one note, and then alternating a couple of notes (like E-F on the D string). This also helped with the times that I couldn't coordinate both hands together.