What if the only reason you play the violin is to make the fingers on your left hand happy? If you've mastered the basics of posture, this simple visualization exercise will take you to the next level.
For this to work really well, you should have mastered Sandwich #1 and Sandwich #2.
- Think of something small and lively and cute. Puppies falling all over each other in excitement, for example.
- For whatever you've just pictured: those are your fingers. The most fun thing for them in the world is to run all over your fingerboard. As you play something, the most important thing is to let your fingers keep having fun.
This is so simple that it sounds silly, but making my mind shift from "this is work" to "this is fun" suddenly gives me twice the energy in my fingers. Try it and see.