Dear my students and the readers of this blog;
I hope you are all safe and healthy in this COVID-19 pandemic.
I have been teaching online exclusively since this March and had to do some adjustment to my teaching method. It was necessary to do something about it to make it as productive as when we were doing in person.
I found it extremely useful to have some play-along videos available online so that my students can listen to them and play along at home. So, I created some videos and posted on my YouTube channel. I will be making and posting more, so subscribe and stay tuned!
There are no advertisements on these videos, so no wasting time for you and are safe for kids to watch.
If you are interested in taking lessons with me online, please contact me via the contact form and I will be in touch with you shortly.
Happy practicing!
Apr 23, 2020
Mar 27, 2020
Offering Online Lessons
We have never experienced this situation where everyone needs to stay home and going out is considered to be risky for yourself, and for others. It is tough time for us, New Yorkers. We need to stay together (emotionally, not necessarily physically) and stay positive. I hope something good will come out from this pandemic.
As for me, I delivered my first son in the mid of last month and we are safe and healthy in Brooklyn. Thank you for those who were thinking of us and sending wishes! We cannot wait to explore outside, but for now, we are exploring our new lives inside our apartment and are growing together.
I am currently offering all the lessons online via Skype or FaceTime. Lessons at the studio will start, again after COVID-19 is under control and New York schools are open, again.
Stay safe and healthy!
As for me, I delivered my first son in the mid of last month and we are safe and healthy in Brooklyn. Thank you for those who were thinking of us and sending wishes! We cannot wait to explore outside, but for now, we are exploring our new lives inside our apartment and are growing together.
I am currently offering all the lessons online via Skype or FaceTime. Lessons at the studio will start, again after COVID-19 is under control and New York schools are open, again.
Stay safe and healthy!
Jan 15, 2020
Winter 2020 Student Recital
Last Sunday, we did our student recital for children, winter 2020.
Everyone played their heart out!
I strongly believe performing is necessary process in learning music. It takes courage, but your learn so much from it. You will gain so much by giving.
Everyone was engaging and it was a strong and beautiful recital.
Thank you, to all the students and their dedicated parents!
Everyone played their heart out!
I strongly believe performing is necessary process in learning music. It takes courage, but your learn so much from it. You will gain so much by giving.
Everyone was engaging and it was a strong and beautiful recital.
Thank you, to all the students and their dedicated parents!
Jul 2, 2019
Summer Student Recital 2019 Completed!
We completed the summer student recital last week. Very exciting moment for these violinists, and for me, too! They all did amazingly.
Congratulations to all the dear violinists!
Thank you for sharing your music.
I had a few students who were moving away the same week of the recital and this was their last violin recital in Brooklyn. But they told me they'll be absolutely continuing the violin studies in their new places and am very very happy to hear it. Special congratulations to them for completing their studies with me.
The next recital will be in the winter.
I have many students who hasn't tried to play at recitals, but I would say that performing/playing for the audience is the most enriching experience and I highly recommend to do it.
Hope to have many of you in the winter recital!
Love,
Jan 23, 2019
Happy new year! Updates and a message.
Happy New Year!
It has been a while to write a post. My new year started with a tour in Japan for my music and I have been absent from teaching for a few weeks. The tour was successful and I am ready to start the new year back in Brooklyn, working on music and teaching.
The end of last year, we had a student concert in a beautiful church in Sunset Park. I was very proud of everyone who attended! Congratulations, again to all of them!
Here is an inspiring message from Anne Sophie-Mutter, a legendary violinist that I admire.
"You better become a real human being before you want to become a musician."
Happy playing in 2019!
It has been a while to write a post. My new year started with a tour in Japan for my music and I have been absent from teaching for a few weeks. The tour was successful and I am ready to start the new year back in Brooklyn, working on music and teaching.
The end of last year, we had a student concert in a beautiful church in Sunset Park. I was very proud of everyone who attended! Congratulations, again to all of them!
Here is an inspiring message from Anne Sophie-Mutter, a legendary violinist that I admire.
"You better become a real human being before you want to become a musician."
Happy playing in 2019!
Apr 7, 2018
The magic of playing the music you love.
Today, one of my student played the piece she wanted to play for long time. In the past, we practiced the scale she needed to know beforehand to play the piece, but it had been long time passed since she mentioned about the piece. Today, I gave her the transcription that I made for her and we finally started to learn the piece. With a big smile, she said, "I can't believe I'm playing this song now. I'd listened to it so much for long time, but never played.". I love watching my students having the sparkles in their eyes and they just can't wait to learn more. Yes, that's passion.
It is challenging to pickup the violin to practice when you are busy in general. How much time do you really have? If you're kids, you have school to attend, homework to do and playing with friends are also important. If you're adult, you have bills to pay, laundry to do, endless things to take care of. On top of that, on your free time, you have so many other pleasurable things available with one click. Especially, nowadays, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook or any other social media, online shopping, HBO Go, etc... And they would easily take away all of your free time that you were originally planning to practice the violin.
I think the key to successfully keep playing the violin is a lot to do with one's mental discipline.
But when we say "mental discipline", somehow it feels torturous. It doesn't sound fun. But it doesn't have to be.
The first step is to keep the positive attitude towards violin. Yes, you have to have passion.
As a teacher, I cannot give students passion. I can be passionate myself and that can be inspiring to students, but students have to have their own passion.
To own this passion is actually an important part of practice. You have to have a positive feeling and have almost like a burning desire when you think about violin playing. And if you don't have the feeling right now, you can still have it, but have to make an effort and "practice" for it.
How?
We all have the music we love.
It doesn't have to be the music played on the violin. Anything you like.
Think about the music you love.
Feel the music.
Sing it with passion. (If you don't want to sing, you can do it in your head.)
Imagine yourself playing that on the violin.
And now, play it on the violin.
If you don't know how to play it yet, decide that you will someday and,
Stick with the desire.
If you can, find the easier version of it for now.
Nowadays, it's very easy to find sheet music for anything.
And while you work on the easy version, you work on the technique that you need to own to play the music.
But don't forget about the music you love during the process.
Generate the good feeling and keep the feeling.
Here is my story...
As a kid, I had a bad attitude towards violin, hated practicing. My mother was yelling at me (she was my teacher), I was not playing well and I was thinking myself as a failure of being disciplined and not talented enough and it was emotionally painful. And I was playing the music I was given and didn't really love at that time. I had a passive attitude. And I didn't even try to play the music I loved that moment. It didn't occur to my mind to do it because I was dealing with stressful feeling and also, I didn't know if it was an option. Simply, unmotivated and uninspired. I was not playing as much and almost quit.
And one day, I decided to play jazz on it. I discovered jazz a few years before and fell in love. And all of sudden, I had so much excitement and inspiration and playing the violin more than ever. It took no efforts to pick up the violin. And the inspiration never went away. I am happier than ever. I found the music I truly love.
If you haven't, you have to find the music you really love.
It can be a song, a simple melody or a fragment of a riff that you heard from a movie that's stuck in your mind.
You can play any music on violin. And it is you who can decide to do it and make a move. Be active. Be passionate. Make practicing the violin as pleasurable as possible. You don't have to play the music you don't really like. Play the music you love.
To me, that is the key to success.
It is challenging to pickup the violin to practice when you are busy in general. How much time do you really have? If you're kids, you have school to attend, homework to do and playing with friends are also important. If you're adult, you have bills to pay, laundry to do, endless things to take care of. On top of that, on your free time, you have so many other pleasurable things available with one click. Especially, nowadays, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook or any other social media, online shopping, HBO Go, etc... And they would easily take away all of your free time that you were originally planning to practice the violin.
I think the key to successfully keep playing the violin is a lot to do with one's mental discipline.
But when we say "mental discipline", somehow it feels torturous. It doesn't sound fun. But it doesn't have to be.
The first step is to keep the positive attitude towards violin. Yes, you have to have passion.
As a teacher, I cannot give students passion. I can be passionate myself and that can be inspiring to students, but students have to have their own passion.
To own this passion is actually an important part of practice. You have to have a positive feeling and have almost like a burning desire when you think about violin playing. And if you don't have the feeling right now, you can still have it, but have to make an effort and "practice" for it.
How?
We all have the music we love.
It doesn't have to be the music played on the violin. Anything you like.
Think about the music you love.
Feel the music.
Sing it with passion. (If you don't want to sing, you can do it in your head.)
Imagine yourself playing that on the violin.
And now, play it on the violin.
If you don't know how to play it yet, decide that you will someday and,
Stick with the desire.
If you can, find the easier version of it for now.
Nowadays, it's very easy to find sheet music for anything.
And while you work on the easy version, you work on the technique that you need to own to play the music.
But don't forget about the music you love during the process.
Generate the good feeling and keep the feeling.
Here is my story...
As a kid, I had a bad attitude towards violin, hated practicing. My mother was yelling at me (she was my teacher), I was not playing well and I was thinking myself as a failure of being disciplined and not talented enough and it was emotionally painful. And I was playing the music I was given and didn't really love at that time. I had a passive attitude. And I didn't even try to play the music I loved that moment. It didn't occur to my mind to do it because I was dealing with stressful feeling and also, I didn't know if it was an option. Simply, unmotivated and uninspired. I was not playing as much and almost quit.
And one day, I decided to play jazz on it. I discovered jazz a few years before and fell in love. And all of sudden, I had so much excitement and inspiration and playing the violin more than ever. It took no efforts to pick up the violin. And the inspiration never went away. I am happier than ever. I found the music I truly love.
If you haven't, you have to find the music you really love.
It can be a song, a simple melody or a fragment of a riff that you heard from a movie that's stuck in your mind.
You can play any music on violin. And it is you who can decide to do it and make a move. Be active. Be passionate. Make practicing the violin as pleasurable as possible. You don't have to play the music you don't really like. Play the music you love.
To me, that is the key to success.
Mar 31, 2018
Recommended: "Basics" by Simon Fischer
I have to confess.... I'm in love with this book "Basics" by Simon Fischer.
A few months ago last year, my dear jazz violinist friend recommended me to check out this book and I am glad I did. I have been religiously reading it through and work on these great exercises along and am still keeping at it. I feel I am still discovering so many mind blowing facts about the violin playing. Last year, I posted about the great Dounis. But this book shows you how to actually practice the Dounis exercises with details.
With all the clear scientific explanation, very simple and short exercises in specific topics, it makes my practice focused and logical with the feeling of calmness and ease.
Whenever I face technical problems, I go back to the book and find the specific topic and re-discover the facts and understand how to solve the problem. And every time I do that, these facts are ingrained deeper into my mind.
Yes, some of the exercises in the book need repetition with certain time period to get ingrained into the playing, just like any other exercises you do. But some of the facts you find here can immediately change your playing with the clear picture of the right concept in mind.
To me, no one has ever explained to me about the violin playing as precise and clear as Simon Fischer before. All the facts here make so much sense to me. I had so many Ah-ha moments.
I found sometimes that even great classical players with great technique cannot really explain how to actually do some of the techniques while they are great at doing it naturally. And I thought that was something I had to do a lot and find out on my own somehow someday and it's not really explainable. And that is devastating. Because I never knew if "somehow someday" would ever happen to me.
When you cannot find the answer to some of the technical problem you're facing, it is extremely dissatisfying and makes you start wondering there is something wrong with you or blame that you're just not talented. But it is NOT TRUE!
To me, this book is a saver. It makes your fogs and doubts all clear.
I found sometimes that even great classical players with great technique cannot really explain how to actually do some of the techniques while they are great at doing it naturally. And I thought that was something I had to do a lot and find out on my own somehow someday and it's not really explainable. And that is devastating. Because I never knew if "somehow someday" would ever happen to me.
When you cannot find the answer to some of the technical problem you're facing, it is extremely dissatisfying and makes you start wondering there is something wrong with you or blame that you're just not talented. But it is NOT TRUE!
To me, this book is a saver. It makes your fogs and doubts all clear.
I highly recommend this book for any violinist in any stage!
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