Sherwin - Violin tutor - New York
1st lesson free
Sherwin - Violin tutor - New York

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Sherwin

  • Rate £40
  • Response 1h
Sherwin - Violin tutor - New York

£40/hr

1st lesson free

Contact

1st lesson free

1st lesson free

  • Violin
  • Viola
  • Cello
  • Erhu

Learn Violin with Sherwin: Personalized Lessons for Every Age and Skill Level

  • Violin
  • Viola
  • Cello
  • Erhu

Lesson location

About Sherwin

I'm Sherwin, and most of what happens in my lessons is comparison. Violin problems are rarely a mystery once you can hear the difference between two versions of the same thing, but they are very hard to notice from the inside. So instead of telling you what is wrong, I often play a passage twice: once the way it usually comes out, and once with one variable changed, such as the bow moved a little closer to the bridge, or the left-hand finger landing a fraction later. Then I ask which version you preferred and what you think changed. More often than not, you can name the difference before I say a word, and that is the point where the lesson starts to belong to you.

Beginners and returning players get the same method at a different scale. In a first lesson we might spend most of the time on open strings, drawing the bow slowly and listening for the moment the sound turns from scratchy to round. If you have not played for a long time, I usually start by checking what your bow arm still remembers, because it tends to come back faster than the left hand. With children I often swap explanations for images: a bow stroke might be a slow breath, or the bow hair a brush that has to stay on one stripe of paint. With more advanced students working through a movement from a concerto or a Bach partita, the same comparison becomes sharper: we record two bowings of one phrase and decide, by ear, which one serves the melody.

Here is a frustration I hear often: you can play a shift slowly and cleanly, but as soon as the tempo rises, the note lands a little sharp and the whole phrase loses its shape. My approach is to separate the destination from the journey. You slide the finger to the target without sounding anything, then stop, then sound the note, so the hand learns where it is going before it has to get there in time. Next we put the shift back into the middle of a real line from the music, and I watch for the exact beat where the hand starts to hurry. That is usually the note just before the shift, not the shift itself. Once we find that moment, we work only on that transition, so you are not repeating the whole passage and hoping it improves.

Teenagers and adults often arrive with a specific goal, such as a film theme, a folk tune, or a piece with an exam date, and I am glad to build around it. What I care about most is that you leave each week able to diagnose your own playing. I'll give you a few questions to ask during practice, such as where the sound thins out, and I'll show you how to record a few seconds on your phone and listen back with the same ear you use for my demonstrations. If an explanation doesn't land, I change the route rather than repeating myself: a different demonstration, a simpler movement, an analogy, or one physical sensation to focus on, such as the weight of the arm resting on the string. Sometimes I simply play you the line and ask you to hum it back before we touch the bow. My aim is for you to need me a little less each month.

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  • All Levels
  • English

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English

Most violin problems are not really about the notes. A phrase can sound fine slowly and then fall apart when the tempo rises, and the usual response is to repeat it and hope. In my lessons we stop repeating and start listening for where it breaks. I usually ask you to play something and tell me what you heard before I say anything. Beginners often find this surprising. A child who has just started can tell me that the second note of a short phrase is flat, and that observation is the most useful thing in the room. Adults returning after a long break usually hear more than they can yet fix, and that gap is where we begin.

Intonation is the hardest thing to see on violin, because there are no frets. So I use the open strings as a reference, the way a singer checks against a sustained chord. Your first finger should sit in tune against the open string you just played, and every note after that is set by it. For a beginner, this means learning the spacing of the fingers in first position by ear, with a drone underneath, so the hand learns distance rather than a guessed position. For someone who has played for a long time, the same drone reveals when a passage in third position sits a few cents under the note they hear in their head. We find the exact point where the finger should land, mark it with a small piece of tape if that helps, and then practise only the arrival rather than the whole passage.

Shifts are where many students feel stuck. A shift looks like one movement, but it is two: the arm carries the hand toward the new position, and then the finger lands on the note. When a shift feels rushed, I ask you to split it. Slide the hand without sounding anything, stop, then place the finger. Once that is steady, we let the sound begin only at the landing. On the bow, I teach through contrast. One open string, a long stroke near the frog, then the same stroke near the tip, and we compare which one you can control at a quiet dynamic. That comparison teaches what efficient bowing feels like, because you learn to tell the difference between effort and control. A teenager working through a concerto movement and a child learning their first open-string bowing get the same comparison, just at different lengths.

Rhythm and pitch are practised separately for a while. You bow the rhythm of a difficult passage on one open string, on one repeated note, until the coordination between bow and left hand stops fighting you. Then the pitches come back, and you can hear whether the trouble was the notes or the timing. For improvisation, I use limitations: a two-note world, a single string, or only the notes of one pentatonic shape, so every choice has to be deliberate. A beginner might build a four-bar phrase from two notes and a rest. A more advanced student might have to bring a phrase home using only the open G and D strings. The principle is the same in both cases: fewer options make you listen. Every exercise goes straight into real music, usually within the same lesson, so the change is heard inside a piece rather than in isolation. My aim is that after a few months you can name the exact moment a passage falls apart, set a small test for it, and fix it without waiting for me.

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Rate

  • £40

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  • 5h: £200
  • 10h: £400

free lessons

The first free lesson with Sherwin will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

  • 1hr

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  • £40/h

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