A number of years ago, I was playing in a small church orchestra and the music we were playing had some artificial harmonics in it. The person next to me, who played in a local bluegrass band, had never seen that notation before and didn’t know how to play it. So during a break I was quickly showing him how it should be played. Within minutes, another member of the band came up to me and said “Are you trying to ruin my fiddler by teaching him to play violin?” Of course it was all good natured teasing, but it does make a point. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish with your violin and what will it take to do that? Continue reading →