The Violin Geek Blog Tips, insight, and inspiration since 2007.
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In this episode, I'm answering your violin questions, including about strings, rosin, the instrument I play, how to get dust out of your instrument, the story about the oldest violin I've ever played, and more. Enjoy! Listen wherever you get your podcasts, ...
Vibrato is particularly strange in that it seems to require a lot of work, but in the end we all seem to find that the best sound comes when we relax and just let go. Unfortunately, hardly anyone can develop a vibrato without a lot of effort, but many ...
We know we can't stop to fix mistakes during a performance, so why don't we ever seem to spend time in the practice room practicing how to recover? In this episode, host Laurel Thomsen shares why "recovery practice" might be the missing factor ...
Beginning students, but even the more advanced among us, often struggle with pitch (intonation) and tone. Troubleshooting sounds we'd like to improve can be especially frustrating when we're having a hard time differentiating between the two. One is ...
Although we all have to start our intonation journey with figuring out how to play in tune up and down single strings, pretty quickly we encounter music which requires us to find our intonation in various zig-zag patterns across the strings. Arpeggios, ...
In this episode we speak with Tokyo born, New York based Jazz violinist and composer about her new album, "Lingering," with pianist Kevin Hayes, how her conversion to Judaism has informed her life and music, her journey from Julliard to free ...
My partner Dan Frechette and I have just released a new music video!
Country Beauty Queen was among the first batch of songs we collaborated on as a duo back in 2013, but it took a while to find its way onto an album and even longer to get its ...
Please email me at laurel@laurelthomsen.com if you have a violin, viola, fiddle, music biz, or practice related question you’d like answered in the blog or on a podcast, have a story or insight to share, or if you’d like to inquire about violin, viola, or fiddle lessons with me, in-person or online via Skype, FaceTime, or Zoom.
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Laurel ThomsenViolin, Viola, Vocals
Performance, Instruction, Recording
Based in Santa Cruz, California
"After the Fire" - released January 21, 2022!
Each song portrays a facet of the journey from setback to reclaimed hope - finding faith in the possibility of LOVE in “Make Me Come Alive,” HOME in “Beale Street,” COMMUNITY in “Together Again” and “Money Shouldn’t Talk That Strong,” and one’s own STRENGTH and FORTITUDE in “If A Wave” and “Hey, It’ll Be OK.”