Here’s my little recital “Silent Night”. The Christmas food is already taking its toll ! I have had way too many mince pies and pre crimbo meals and snacks ( festive wines/whiskeys and eggnogs). I’m not looking forward to the cheese doldrums either!!( the period between Christmas and New year!). I will hit the gym next year. Promise 👀😂 I hope you all have a good Christmas !

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!

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?

From Jenny’s Patreon page! Enjoy !! I will enjoy this at some point after I get me a piratey hat 🏴‍☠️