My teacher has me learning the Bach double concerto, violin 2. I video myself so that I can look back and critique myself..and in this instance I didn't make too many mistakes, so I thought I'd pop it on here. It's only the first page, as the concerto is quite long..

I can see that my bow is not straight, that my bow hold is too arched, and we know the issues I'm having with vibrato right now..:-) You can actually see me counting at one point, I thought I was counting in my head, lol. It's so hard playing the violin. It's very easy to get despondent but I have to constantly remind myself how far I have come instead of looking forward to how much I still have to learn. People say 'Why are you learning the violin, it's so difficult?' And yes it is, but then you get a new piece of music that you can't play... then after a few weeks you can play it, and that's a really good feeling.

P.S. Beth, I didn't answer your question before, yes, people do say I look like Julianne Moore, which is great, thanks! :-D 

Thanks for the video Beth, that's really great!

My bow arm has always been an issue for me.. I will work on it as you suggested. I know it affects the tone because it's not perpendicular most of the time, so I agree it's very important. And I can feel that I shift position to do vibrato, that's why I can only attempt it on longer notes, and struggle on shorter notes. It doesn't feel natural yet. From doing the exercises recently, I'm starting to understand what you mean about pulsing forward. That always seemed counterintuitive to me because you want to drop below the pitch but when I consciously make an effort to pulse 'forward' and 'fall' back, it works much better and becomes more regular.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do a video just for me.. It's so helpful. :)    

Thanks Elke,

Yes I have watched that video, but she plays it too fast for me. There is another video here where a lady plays a lot slower and she plays along with violin 2 in the gaps which is really useful. I've watched and played along with this many times.

And I recently discovered that if you watch YouTube using Google Chrome, you can actually slow down or speed up videos on YouTube, using the settings, which is also very useful.