Hi I wonderd if I could have some help with picking my ATCL and LTCL pieces. I orded alot of music when I was aiming to do the DipABRSM on Violin and Viola but don't want to use this for the ATCL Violin or LTCL Viola. I just wonderd if you could have a look what I'm thinking about doing before I put my order in.

LTCL (just want to know if this is a good enough programme)

L Berkeley - Sonata In D Minor Op.22

Holst - Lyric Movement

Vieuxtemps - Elegie


ATCL Violin (need help on deciding which to use as a balanced programme - * are the ones I lean most towards)

Dvorak - Four Romantic Pieces Op.75*

Frank - Second Movement Of Violin Sonata

Kriesler - Prealudium & Allegro*

Ravel - Blues from Sonate*

Vivaldi - Autumn

Weiniawiski - Romance - Concerto No.2 In D Minor Op.22*

Just want to say, good luck! I did P&A recently and hated practicing it - it's so much harder than it sounds and looks, particularly the string crossings. I had been wanting to learn it for a long time, but now I never intend to touch it again. You should bear in mind that, while this is technically written in the modern era, it's written in a Baroque style, so if you are aiming for 4 pieces, 1 from each era, it could be wise to pick a very different Baroque piece, or call the Kreisler your Baroque one, and pick a very different style of modern piece.
Of your 4 starred ones, I would be concerned about doing 2 Romances. You don't have anything Classical there either, and nothing written before the Romantic era is starred. I'm not sure how ATCL works but I assume you need a balanced programme.

I suppose that I could do the

Kreisler L&A

Mozart Concerto No.5 (1st or 3rd movement)

Dvorak Romantic Pieces

Ravel Blues


Then that'd quite well balanced

Sounds good to me Specially since your "big" work is now a Classical movement.
I don't know that Ravel - must investigate...

Tis the second track from The Best Of Ravel by NAXOS if you want to get hold of it. Really nice piece

Out of interest, when are you planning to take the exams? Have you done any diplomas etc. before? Also, I see you are still at school - how on earth do you find the time to do all your practice?!

Another question is why are you planning your ATCL and LTCL programmes both at once? I would have thought that your musical tastes, strengths and knowledge of the repertoire would change quite a bit between starting working on ATCL and starting working on LTCL. Are you planning to do them both close together or something? Surely a good start for building an LTCL programme would be to look at what your strengths were in the ATCL.

AP, I think Mad_Max is planning to do ATCL on one instrument and LTCL on another. I know Trinity don't have similar prerequisites for their diplomas as AB so he might not have already done ATCL viola...

Is this right, M_M?

I'm planning on doing ATCL on violin and LTCL on viola. I've not done my ATCL on viola but I've been through and polished most of the music set on the list of ATCL. I'd rather take the LTCL which has no prerequisites and then move on to the FTCL.

I got some of my violin music yesterday and already had some at home. I've had a quick play through some stuff and its damn hard. I was planning of going for the ATCL on violin in the winter, although I feel that spring or next summer is now perhaps more realistic. I've been left with quite a few gaps in my technique on the violin, which is causing a great deal of frustration at the moment.

I find it so annoying that my violin is so far behind my viola. I think its to do with the fact I have large hands and fingers, I find it so much easier to move around the viola and do all the position work with ease. On the violin I'm constantly finding little passages than require so much work to get my hand to do the right thing, whereas I can play is straight away on the viola. If only they made a violin the size of a viola

At the moment I'm having a look at the Praeludium und Allegro by Kreisler. I've given it a once over and have come to the conclusion its ###### difficult. The Praeludium isn't too bad, I've played through it a few times and the intonation is finally starting to come on the crotchets, its harder than I imagined to get the intonation on that bit. The middle section of the Praeludium sounds ace, I've started pulling about with the tempo a little to give it a more romantic flavour and its sounding good. I've had a little look at the Allegro and I can play the main theme well, which is a start. I think its going to be a case of take it about ten times slower to get my fingers around it and the slowly speed it up once its secure.

I've also decided to scrap the Ravel and do the 1st movement of Autumn. Then I can do my programme in chronological order, so I can finish with the Kreisler.

Yes, that's pretty much what I said when I first tried it. The Praeludium will be fine with slow intonation practice, but the Allegro seems to give everyone difficulties in different parts - I found the cadenza, chords and double stopping fine, but had serious problems with spicatto string-crossings and intonation on the weird G+D string passage on P1 of the Allegro. I would say have fun, but I don't know if it's possible Good luck!!


When I played P&A in a recital, I decided to play it first because it takes a LOT out of you, so I started the programme with no introduction, played P&A, then spoke a bit while allowing my dead right arm to recover, then played a bit more. Putting it last might be dangerous for that reason, but if you're good with stamina, then cool!

I think the allegro is like a really good study. Its got passages that when played in isolation are fine and others that are just nasty. Its that slow steady practise thats gonna pay off. I've not got time at the minute, because of A2 exams coming up.

I've put in my order for:

Flesch - Scale Method
Flesch - Art Of Violin Playing
Mazas - Studies
Kayser - Studies

Hopefully that should be enough to keep me busy over summer. I'm planning to do at least an hour of scales, two hour of studies and hour of pieces a day. I think that doing alot more on the technical side will pay off for me in the long run, it should undo all the problems I've got and hopefully let me attain new levels of playing

Huh, you sound a bit like me. I'm meant to be doing 1 hour scales, 2 hours technical studies per day, and then pieces for the rest. And at the moment I'm being lazy with the technical exercises because of GCSEs (ahem, actually I'm not revising yet but I just don't like Kreutzer), and I'm doing my Dip in December! And I just put in an order for a scale book and a bunch of other technique books on my new teacher's orders.

Snap!

Do you find that what scales you've done and studies etc have built your technique. I didn't work for my grade 8 and the scales were ok, although they weren't polished or great. Its things like that I need to work on to open up new playing standards.

Yeah, I'm finding that Kreutzer has helped my bowing a lot so far, I used to have a rubbish "point of contact", but it has improved a lot even though my teacher doesn't know I'm using Kreutzer. I think it just makes you more aware of your problems too, and makes you more disciplined, I'm certainly a lot more picky about my sound now. Scales I'm not so sure, I had them all pretty good for G8, and since then I haven't really explored many new ones except double stopped scales, and doing everything 3 octaves - but it was nice to see that they're really useful in piece (Bloch's Nigun, 3 octave G melodic minor slurred followed by octaves! Woo! Didn't need to practice that). Umm, and it's actually quite fun to warm-up playing fast scales
Have you tried Shraediek (sp??)? Apparently it's really good for left hand stuff.

I've not, infact I've done hardly any studies. I have done even less work on scales. It was more of a case of learn this for next week and 'then thats not too bad it'll do' from the teacher. I'm really intending to use this summer to undo all my technical flaws and to built up my playing.

Well, my teacher doesn't care if I play scales or etudes at all - in fact, he doesn't know that I do! My new teacher (from Sept) was shocked and is making me go crazy with them over the summer, but they're so boring, I wanted to use this summer to learn all the pieces I never got to do when all my friends did! Oh, and learn my Diploma pieces
My main aim though, will be to develop something which could pass for a bowhold

It's funny, isn't it, how, when you get to a certain level, you have to practically re-learn everything you thought you could do. It can be quite a painful process sometimes.

An ATCL violin playing friend of mine was lamenting that too; and, like bohemian, was irked that he had to change his bow hold.

Had a friend who did grade 8, got a good mark - and was then horrified to fine that her teacher put her back onto open string practice. I guess you don't know at the start how good someone is capable of being, but it seems a shame technique generally isn't corrected sooner

I put MYSELF back onto open string practice before any teacher got the chance. I need it too. Basically, I am totally re-learning right-hand technique, although I'm lucky to have somehow developed very good left hand technique. It's annoying - how have I managed to play for so long was bad technique? If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have to take time out at this stage when I should really be thinking about other stuff.

Exactly - it's a shame more teachers don't make sure these things are good or at least reasonable right from the word go, or at least when one gets to, say, grade 5.

edit: and I know some teachers will say "but we would if the students would be interested..." but so few even TRY, and there will always be students here and there who DO care and who WILL be interested!

Yeah, the first person to pick up on my problem was someone auditioning me for an orchestra, the 2nd was my teacher-to-be. My current teacher still doesn't see it as a problem

Well, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. I've just moved to a new teacher and I am having a total technical re-learn. For the next 6 weeks I'm not allowed to play in any orchestras/ensembles (which is a big thing for me as I play in 6 orchestras and have rehearsals most days) and I'm only allowed to practice in 15 minute sessions. I've had to change my bow hold to something more suitable to my extra-long fingers and even only doing 15 min sessions my arm aches from using different muscles. My left had seems to be even more wrong than my right, and having it in the 'right' position feels so uncomfortable... 6 weeks (minimum) of open strings (I can't do any pieces) is not a happy prospect but if I'm technically perfect by the end it will be worth it.

It is so frustrating, but I am sure it will pay off, puff cat.