I’m Aria Z Li, and I teach violin in person, one to one. My free games and fingerboard apps take on the hardest early hurdle, reading music and finding the notes, so our time together goes to bowing, tone, expression and the quiet joy of truly listening.
For most beginners and intermediate players, the hardest part isn’t the music. It’s the reading: which note is this, which string, which finger? Working that out note by note is slow and discouraging, and it can quietly use up a whole lesson. So I built tools to take it on.
Note-reading games, scales and sight-reading on the fingerboard, and play-along tracks turn note learning into a few minutes of daily play. Every note lights up with its string and finger, so students arrive at lessons already knowing where the notes are.
A free bow arm, a warm sound, a shaped phrase: these grow from a teacher who can see, hear and gently adjust in the moment. No app can do that, so this is where our lesson time goes.
The violin asks us to slow down, listen closely and be fully present. I help students discover this quieter, spiritual side of playing, so the instrument becomes a way to know themselves, not only a skill to master.
From Grade 6 onwards, there is no substitute for a teacher in the room. Advanced bow strokes, vibrato, high positions, a healthy body and real interpretation can only be shaped one to one, in person. The apps make the early grades easier and still help with practice later on, but the advanced journey is taken together. Why advanced study needs in-person teaching →
I’m Aria Z Li, an Auckland violinist and teacher. I studied violin performance at the University of Auckland with David Nalden and Dimitry Atanassov, and I have taught violin in person, one to one, since 1998.
With a background in information technology alongside music, I build the tools I always wished my students had: games and fingerboard apps that make note reading quick, visual and fun. Students who use them stop guessing and start playing, and our lessons are free for what matters most: sound, expression and a real love of music.
Read more about Aria →Struggling to read music is frustrating. Every new piece turns into a guessing game, and practice grinds to a halt. The good news: reading is a skill, and it grows the same way every skill does, with a little fresh practice every day.
So I’ve written 200 brand-new sight-reading pieces for each of Grades 1 to 5 – 1,000 in all, and all free. They’re pitched at ABRSM sight-reading level, so every piece is new music at exactly the right step. Read one a day and that’s more than six months of fresh reading for every grade.
200 pieces in every grade · from four-bar tunes in D and A major to 3rd-position pieces with four sharps or flats
Learn ABRSM violin scales and arpeggios one note at a time. Every note lights up on the music and on the violin fingerboard, with a coloured number for each finger.
One-to-one lessons in Pakuranga, focused on bowing, tone, expression and musical confidence, from first notes to diploma.
Explore lessons →Play-along tracks, études, scales, exam resources and repertoire organised so you can find what you need quickly.
Open the library →Use the new Scales on the Fingerboard and Sight-Reading on the Fingerboard apps, Aria’s music terminology learning tool, metronome, Chinese Jianpu-to-MIDI converter and the jianpu violin, viola, erhu (二胡) and zhonghu (中胡) fingerboards (简谱指板).
See the tools →A growing study library with practice tracks organised by étude number, beat type and tempo.
Open the Wohlfahrt library