Search - Mel Bay Anyone Can Play Violin on DVD

Very good instructional DVD for a beginner

Angela Ralano | Johnson City, New York United States | 04/04/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a very good instructional DVD for someone who has never played the violin before. It goes over in some detail how to tune the violin, how to hold the violin, how to rosin the bow, how much to tighten the bow, and general care of the bow. Coral White also shows you how to use the bow and also which notes are what on the violin. There is a small booklet that comes with the DVD that also shows you where the notes are on the violin, and also where to place fingertapes (this is also shown on the DVD). The reason I did not give this DVD 5 stars is because someone who doesn't already know how to read music will need additional material from another source to learn this. Still, this DVD covers a lot of information on positioning the violin and bowing technique that a lot of violin instructional books for beginners leave out. Just to be clear - This video alone will not teach you to play the violin. You will need additional books and/or lessons if you want to learn to play well. However, this video is good for getting a beginner started."

Anyone Can Play Violin

dame ethel | Australia | 10/05/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"(This is a review of the VHS version)

For beginning adult violin players who don't have a teacher Anyone Can Play Violin, presented by Coral White, is an introduction to the basics.


Topics covered include:

Care of the instrument and bow
Applying rosin
Tuning the strings
Putting fingering markers on the neck of the violin
Posture
Holding the instrument
Bow hold
The left arm and hand: first position
Playing pizzicato
Playing with the bow
Etc.


There are seven songs taught:

Au Claire De La Lune
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Old MacDonald
Twinkle, Twinkle
Little Brown Jug
Lightly Row
Go Tell Aunt Rhody

Plus some major scales


If you do not read music, and want to learn, you will need some other sources (the introduction to note-reading is very brief), but you shouldn't really need to be able to read music to follow these lessons. Before playing at full speed, Coral teaches each new song by going through note by note, saying which finger to place on which string. (The music notation appears in the bottom half of the screen, but it is not imperative that you follow it.)


The style of the video:

Coral is straight to the point in her delivery of the lessons. She presents as fairly strict/severe, though she does seem very natural.

This isn't a course for learning tunes. The songs taught are ones that, if you've learnt an instrument before (or if you're familliar with nursery rhymes), you'll probably know back to front. Given that the running time is only 65 minutes, a few extra, (and more interesting) tunes could have made it more fun.

Some topics which seem important are not included (such as how to change strings.)

Another problem I found with the VHS version was with the sound quality. The pitches meant to be tuned from wavered a lot and sounded more like burgular alarms than notes. Hopefully the DVD is better in this. But you'll probably want some other pitch reference for tuning your instrument anyway.

All in all though, this is a good intro.
"

Boring

S. Corridori | 01/12/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The woman in this video is so boring, the information was good but I literally fell asleep while playing this video. Video quality is also very low, made in the 70's, if that. There are far better lessons out there. Keep looking."

Good bargain

Nor R. Brunschwyler | Charleston, WV | 05/12/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Mel Bay's Anyone Can Play Violin is a pretty good deal for the price. I would have liked her to explain the rationale for things like going through the a series of positions to get the violin in play position. She moves fast but that's the great thing about DVD chapters and scenes. She packs quite a bit of information in the DVD. It's worth every penny!"