I made a new friend and thought you guys might like to meet him. He served in World War II, conducted an orchestra on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, and has been playing violin for over 93 years.

Meet San Pedro California's own, Harry Hall:

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I'm so inspired by Harry and the fact that playing violin is an activity that we can enjoy during any stage of life.

If you've been wanting to learn, but aren't sure where to start and don't have time for private lessons, please send me an email!

Thank you guys for all your responses to The Hot Violinist end of 2015 Official Survey! Reading through them has got me reflecting on what a long strange trip it's been since I started playing violin. Many of the things you said sounded like a letter from my past self.

I started at age 18 when many people said it was too late. I remember sitting on my bed with my violin after an entire year of trying to learn with my first teacher, and truly thinking that there must be something wrong with how my arms were attached to my body. Sure, I could play a collection of Irish fiddle tunes but EVERYTHING SOUNDED LIKE SH*T! (excuse my french, and pardon the yelling, but it was really frustrating…)

I can’t say I was perfectly dedicated to practicing every single day (confession: sometimes I even showed up to my next lesson without having practiced at all), but I was taking lessons each week and making an effort, so I could only think there must be something wrong with me. This thought made me terribly sad because I really wanted to play.

Even though I wasn’t really interested in classical music and no longer considered myself a complete beginner, I ate my humble pie and decided I probably needed to start all over with some classical technique. Over the next six months I tried three different teachers and still felt frustrated and confused! Then I found Bassam Nashwati, who at that time was second chair in the San Antonio symphony and has since taken the first chair.

He started me at the beginning of the Suzuki method and in that next 6 months I improved more than I had in the entire first year and a half. That’s when I discovered all my bad habits from playing without the basic good technique. That was a tough pill to swallow too because I had to realize that my prior 1.5 years of effort had actually made me worse not better in a way.

This era involved a whole bunch of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and other equally annoying and humbling repertoire, but I was having fun because it felt great to make some good sounds and actually track progress even if it seemed slow.

Then I spent a summer in Upstate New York living with my grandparents and studied with the amazing Judy Hyman, a professional performing fiddler with a classical background— perfect!! When I got back the next fall, I finally felt like I could maybe play in public, but I still wasn’t that great. Many thanks to Ren Faire shop owner Bill Vestal, there is actually footage of this stage.

Notice the very conservative tense playing style. And outfit to match.

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Since then I took part in building two different bands that played the largest stages at festivals nationwide and released 4 studio albums and 2 live albums (All-in-all I released 4 versions of the Theme from the Last of the Mohicans!! :-P). I’ve become an expert in adult violin learning from my own experience and from teaching over 20 students in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, and South America.

And all this is in competition with people who had been playing since they were 3 or 7, or whatever beautifully young age, and likely had college degrees in violin. There's no way I had enough time to catch up to these people who had been playing since they were kids!

I had to figure out how to work on the right things- the things that give the most musical impact for the littlest time and effort.

I'm not trying to brag, but I just want you to know that it's possible to do what you want on violin no matter when you start. My goal with the Hot Violinist is to distill my trial and error into bite sized helpful info for all of you.

Happy New Year Hot Violinists!

I decided to avoid the party animals on the highway this year, and had a nice quiet New Years Eve at home with a Bach manuscript Santa brought and nice glass of sparkling rose (not the sweet kind!).

I wrote down a few resolutions and goals. I want to work up to a full body weight pull up (I've never been able to do one without assistance), learn the second movement of Bach's violin concerto in Dm, and be able to balance a shot glass atop my booty. (Not necessarily at the same time!)

Also- I'm committing to post a lot more videos for you this year!

I'm starting out with a very simple quick bow-hold hack. Watch the video to see if you've been making this common mistake that's totally deadly to your tone yet very easy to fix:

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Do you have any New Years resolutions or bow-hold secrets?? Please let me know in the comments section below!