A Review on Violin Lab

I still have not found another violin teacher but I did find Violin Lab . It is a paid service by a woman named Beth Blackerby.These are the prices:

1 year $ 78.00

Best Savings! Equal to only $6.50 per month, (about 1/10 the price of a private lesson)Definitely the best rate for the committed violin student :)One time payment of $78.00. No automatic renewals. International currency conversions done for you via Paypal.

 6 months $ 53.94

Equal to $8.99 per month.One time payment of $53.94. No automatic renewals.International currency conversions done for you via Paypal.

 3 months $ 38.97

Equal to $12.99 per month.One time payment of $38.97. No automatic renewals.International currency conversions done for you via Paypal.

 1 Month $ 22.50

One month access. No automatic renewals.International currency conversions done for you via Paypal.

I myself signed up for a year because that only made sense considering the pricing. What you get for that year is access to over 550 videos on playing the violin. Beth is a Suzuki teacher so you need those books and there are also videos based on books called Super Studies. There is also a "Community" where you are supposed to be able to get answers to all your questions.

I will say now that most of the videos are quite good. She spends a lot of time doing videos on bow hold, violin hold, straight bowing, etc. before you even get to play which are so important. I think if I had gotten this kind of instruction from my teacher I would have been so much better off. I suggest you watch them all even if you have been playing for a while. I will say though that it seems like she has a certain time she wants to reach with each video and this causes her to repeat exactly what she said in the previous videos just over and over and then she give you  just a little bit more in the new video. It is tiring if you are watching a lot of them. Her extra practice videos are wonderful. It is practices that aren't in the books and is really helpful for learning to change strings well. I do wish she had those written down though, so I don't have to keep stopping the video to write them myself but once you have them written down they make great warm ups.

The videos on the Suzuki book tunes are a bit short and sweet but if you have followed along with the other videos, you should do just fine. However, the videos on the Super Studies books leave a lot to be desired. She doesn't want to show you too much because she wants you to buy the books.....keep in mind the whole purpose of this website is to make money. My suggestion is that you skip the Super Studies part of this until you have learned other positions. The second piece in the book has you using two positions (can't tell you which ones because I only know first position) and she doesn't even mention this in the video she does. She just kind of ignores the fact that her fingers are down the fingerboard. The key here is that "SHE WANTS YOU TO BUY THE BOOK".  Just skip it unless you want to keep it for later because as a beginner, you can't use it.

The Community is where all your questions are supposed to be answered. I found two problems with this. When I asked about the Super Studies book and why we had videos on it before we had even learned the positions needed....no answer...5 days...no answer (keep in mind that I paid for a whole year here). Also I had a terrible time actually finding my post. There is a search engine but it only give your a summary of your post and does not bring you to the actual post. I had to actually reply to my post to find it (you can bookmark your post but it only keeps a list of ALL bookmarks so if you want to go through over 6000 of them....).

Was it worth the $78?...yes, so far it has definitely been worth it. My teacher charged me $20 a week and I didn't get nearly as much instruction and I am not even out of the beginner videos yet. Is it the only things you need? No, you would still do better having a good teacher but it definitely will help you continue your studies if you don't have one.

Things that might make it better would be a community with actual separate boards instead of just one board for all discussions, putting the Super Studies videos where they actually belong instead of in the beginner section, and a profile page for each member where you could get to know a little about them and a place on it where they could look up their discussions.