Violin activities

I've barely touched my Yamaha YEV-105 electric violin or my acoustic viola for almost 2 years, as I focused more on guitar playing. Then last year I re-developed elbow tendonitis after doing kettlebell goblet squats with the KB held in bottoms up grip. The KB was heavy enough to tip over as my hands got tired of holding it. The tendonitis in the left elbow started flaring up during guitar practice, although I was able to alleviate it by paying extra attention to using the back muscles instead of just the muscles in the forearm to pull the strings to the frets.

This seemed to coincide with a renewed desire to play melody lines with long sustaining notes. I can achieve decent sustain on the guitar with the usual overdrive/distortion, and extra sustain with compression effect, a Digitech Freqout pedal, or the Feedbacker effect included with Line 6 Helix/HX Stomp multi-effects devices. Sustain is also great using Jam Origin Midi Guitar to trigger synths. However, control of note sustain, envelope and other properties using a violin bow is a quite a different experience. All the playing around with guitar effects and software made me miss playing violin with a bow.

I ordered a Glasser AE Carbon Composite 5-String violin after rewatching Rob Flax's demo and review. Of course there are wooden acoustic and acoustic-electric 5-string violins out there. I like the idea though of a carbon composite violin that tolerate a wider range of climates compared to wooden instruments. The acoustic sound is good enough to inspire me to practice. My dynamic control with the bow is ok enough to play somewhat quietly when I want to but I'm glad I got this mute for 5-string violin, which works really well for reducing the loudness of the Glasser.

I've been practicing F minor pentatonic scale patterns in the bookBeginner Jazz Soloing For Violin. I listen to the audio tracks and try to play along with them. I've been focusing more on learning the scale patterns by ear rather than by reading them in music notation.

I rediscovered this video focusing on slow blues phrasing.

First fairly long lick at about 3:05