Looking to hear one thing you have practised a lot that has helped you make large leaps in your playing. I’ll go first... Forcing myself to play a certain amount of phrases within a certain amount of bars. For example, taking an 8 bar section of the form and saying: "I have to play three improvised phrases within this section." What’s yours?

Welcome to Learning Jazz Violin. This is a place of support and community for people who are, well… learning jazz violin. Please introduce yourself to the rest of the group by posting in the community discussion board. I’m Matt Holborn, a jazz violinist based in London UK. A lot of what I do is within the Django and Stéphane style, but I’m also passionate about straight ahead, swinging jazz, and different forms of folk music. I also play in musical comedian Bill Bailey’s live band. In this community you will find: • A free discussion board for posting about anything jazz violin related • 2 free courses in the Classroom section (Bowing, and Learning Honeysuckle Rose) There are also lots of different paid courses (which you can currently access by signing up to a paid tier). Each of them is designed not only to give you information but to help you get into the mindset of a jazz violinist. I teach by ear with videos, technical exercises based on jazz language, and assignments based on opening up your violin playing with harmony and improvisation. I don’t have a one-size-fits-all method because that just isn’t how jazz works for me. My teaching is about showing you how many jazz musicians think, and how you can use that to shape your own musical voice in jazz. I hope you enjoy using this space with us! Matt

When you first started learning jazz violin, what practical thing held you back? Swing feel, learning tunes, improvising, technique… something else?

Over the years I’ve gone through a lot of different stages in my amplification journey as a jazz violinist. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t amplify the violin at all. We spend so much time practising to get our sound from the instrument itself, and when we practise, we’re not plugged in. So it can feel weird when we have to amplify, like it’s not quite the sound we’re used to. I went through a phase of always using a microphone, trying to find a way to get the most natural sound possible. But as we all know, you just end up feeding back all the time and struggling to play. It only really works in the right setting. Nowadays, when I do a gig where a microphone is going to work well, like a concert with a sound engineer and a decent PA, they usually have something for me anyway, like a DPA or a live condenser mic on a stand in front of me. If I’m not in that kind of setting, I use my pickup instead. I set it so the amp is just a bit quieter than my acoustic sound. That way I can still play how I play, without having to change my bow pressure to suit the pickup sound. If I’m in a really loud environment, with a loud drummer, a big band, or playing background in a busy bar, I just embrace the pickup sound and turn it up. I’ve spent a long time working on playing in these situations, practising at home using less bow and getting used to that sound and feel. With that said, these are the current products that I have: - Schertler Stat V - Thomann Violin Microphone What’s your current setup?