New discussion category is here! Now you have a place to save your holiday performance videos and easily come back next year to see how far you’ve come. (You’re invited to post your holiday works in progress here in our group. My own holiday blooper video is on the general feed, and now we have a special category so they won’t get buried.) Just add your video to a post, and click “Category” which will open a drop down menu that includes our very own brand new tab: 🌲❤️‍🔥 Hot Holiday Tunes. Again and as always- works in progress and imperfect takes are more than welcome and just as hot! And bonus points if you wear a hat. 🎻💥 Merry Christmas!

I was just sharing this oldie-but-goodie blooper video over at Patreon and it sparked me to start a holiday tune share here on the main group feed. If you have a holiday tune you've been practicing please set up by your Christmas tree, throw on a hat, and give it a spin! Mistakes and works in progress welcome. While the outside world may seem to define us by our mistakes and flaws, this is a rare online living room where we all completely understand what all goes into playing a violin tune. Our ears are different at this point and we can applaud each other for what parts are going right. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from my inner hot violinist to yours! xo, Jenny

What would be your words of wisdom or top tips to someone just starting violin or thinking about it? Do you have any secrets or things looking back that helped you keep from getting stuck? I was thinking there are 5 main pillars of adult violin learning. But after a little convo here with @Graham Acres and @April Ellis I think we may have just discovered #6. (The convo resulted in it appearing that while everyone else is playing Holly Jolly Christmas, both pirate and vampire music will be a focus here this December 💪🎻. Go us haha) This is my running list of main “pillars”: 1) Community (yay Skool for making this possible again) 2) Bite sized video lessons 3) Alternate working on techniques and songs 4) Play music you like 5) Asynchronous support (like VideoAsk or Skool so you can get feedback from a teacher and keep progressing without having to synch schedules for a lesson) 6) Do what you want 💥 I guess the new 6 goes together with 4 but it can be expanded to more than just song choice. Violin learning is notoriously rigid because it was designed for children in a high stakes time. Adults can figure out what’s working for them and not, and therefore can have total freedom in the approach. Mix and match systems, have more than one teacher, play a song that’s too hard, disregard any or all of my pillars etc, etc Then if you do get stuck, adjust. It’s not the end of the world. Anyway, now I’m preaching to the choir. Would you add anything to my pillars list?

This tab has come at the perfect time !! I’m currently deployed on courses so I have all my travel kit with me 😊 My gear as follows :- Violin - Nikolaus Ostler from TerraNova . Fitted out with Evah Pirazzi strings onto geared pegs. Everest shoulder rest. Pickup - Fishman v200 pro pickup Bow - Coda Prodigy carbon fibre Rosin - Gustav Bernardel Case - Bam ( This is necessary for the style of travelling I do ) Violin stand -US1 Universal Wooden Ukulele Stand and Violin Stand Music sheet stand - Alnicov Sheet Music Stand,Foldable and Adjustable Book Holder. Tuner - snark violin tuner Selfie stick - 71" Cell Phone Selfie Stick & Tripod for Jenny’s YouTube channel for learning obviously!! Apart from the selfie stick, it all fits the bam case then all I need to do is find a quiet spot to practice 🙂🎻

I'm still getting the hang of this Skool thing. So... here is the sheet music! For real this time! It says I can attach multiple things, but for some reason when I did that it bumped off the other two. I'm going to try again to also add the screenshot of me trying to find some far fetched way to connect this to the Holiday season, because I refuse to make a dedicate post just for all to see me getting completely shut down by AI. 🤞😂