Violin Video Lesson: Six steps involved in Problem Solving

Okay, so you're practicing, but do you know exactly what you're trying to do? Do you know specifically what you are trying to accomplish? Do you know just what you need to do to do what you are trying to do? Well, working like this is called problem-solving.

Here, let me show you what I mean. So we begin by identifying the problem.

Let's say we know that there is a problem in this section of the music.

It could be lots of things, but we've narrowed it down to it being out of tune.

Now we need to collect information.

Find out where and which notes are out of tune.

Find out if it's out of tune because of a shift or perhaps an awkward fingering. Whatever. It's all good to know.

Next, it's essential to set our goals.

We can do this by finding out exactly where we need to put our fingers for it to be in tune with the goal, then becoming putting our fingers in those spots consistently.

Now it's time to develop the strategies needed to get our fingers to the places we consider to be in tune.

We could observe what we are doing when we put our fingers in the right spots and then create exercises to train our fingers to go there.

From here, we need to apply the strategies that we develop to train our fingers.

This will require some tactical planning. For example, how much time per day for each exercise that we or our teacher has created.

Finally, we need to evaluate the process and see how effective what we are doing really is.

We could, for example, record playing the passage three times and then listen to see if it's working.

See if it's in fact more in tune.

So what do you think? Can you see how this could work in your practicing? Well, I think this provides a good framework for understanding problem -solving. But, that being said, we need to be flexible with it as sometimes the problem can change while we're working on it. For example, perhaps what was then sharp is now flat.

Okay then, I guess there are no cookie-cutter solutions.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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