Staying In Shape for Violin

This collection of basic exercises was compiled for my own personal use, however some of my friends suggested that I make it available to other violinists. Having spent most of my musical career as a conductor, I found it extremely frustrating that there was simply no time to practice adequately to maintain the level of playing that I achieved only after many years of study. Inevitably, I made the mistakes common to instrumentalists who are faced with the dilemma of limited practice time. Using the little time available, I tried to stay in shape by practicing only the usual scales and bowings of which there are collections of mind-numbing quantity, ranging from Sevick to Flesh. The result was when trying to play chamber music for example, I felt all tied up in knots, and playing became an unnatural sequence of fingers and bow activity, while the essential reflexes of natural flow were suppressed.